Self-regulation can be thought of as having two parts, both cognitive and social-emotional regulation. In reality, self-regulation is a combination of the two. Cognitive self-regulation is the degree to which children can regulate their own behaviors, are reflective, and can plan and think ahead. They have control of their thinking. They plan, they monitor, they evaluate thinking strategies, and they can attend and remember on purpose. It is not to say that children without self-regulation cannot attend or remember at all-some children can remember remarkable things like the names of all dinosaurs if this is what interests them. But when you're trying to teach these children to remember something, such as their phone number, it seems they can't remember a thing. What children need to learn to do is to "remember on purpose," to remember things they must learn and know, and to remember how to act in a given situation.
Social-emotional self-regulation means being able to inhibit and delay gratification. Being able to do this means being able to control emotions. If someone knocks you down, pushes you, you don't erupt into anger. With social-emotional self-regulation, you know when you're talking too loud, when you're irritating other people, or when you need to stop a behavior. Social-emotional regulation also means being able to internalize standards of behavior and apply these standards without being reminded. Children who have social-emotional regulation internalize the rule about not knocking down others' block constructions and walking around these constructions instead of into them.
Recent research on PLAY emphasizes its unique role in promoting self-regulatory behavior (Play=Learning edited by Dorothy G. Singer, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek). Those who work in drama, particularly creative drama with children, see this self-regulatory behavior at work all the time as children strive to connect imagination and action both in themselves and in the collaborative venue of dramatic action. We (Creative Drama and Imagination -- see book collaborations) observe children develop metacognitive skills in:
- compressed rehearsal,
- developing an expressive way to communicate self as image,
- viewing the world as material for dramatic interactions,
- demonstrating "knowing that you know" and the ability to work collaboratively and
- developing their "third eye"- a sense of audience and the ability to simultaneously do and monitor your actions in relation to others.
The cognitive and social emotional development of self-regulation in children is elaborated in the following article Creative drama and young children: The dramatic learning connection.
