Supporting our Diverse Learners and families at home offering some strategies on how to help foster engagement in learning and promote success both at school and at home.  If you need any support for your child please reach out and make contact as we highly value positive partnerships with our parent community. 

Miss Karyn Wescombe

Diverse Learning Support Leader

Regulation Before Reasoning: (And How It Builds Emotional Literacy)

Picture this: your child is mid-meltdown because their toast is cut the wrong way. You try to explain it still tastes the same, but it only makes things worse. Why? Because in that moment, logic won’t land.

When kids are overwhelmed, their brain goes into fight, flight, or freeze. The thinking part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) goes offline, and the emotional brain takes over. No amount of reasoning will work until they feel safe, seen, and settled.

​​This is where the Four R’s come in: Relate. Regulate. Respond. Reflect.

These steps not only calm the moment, but also teach emotional literacy, the ability to recognise, understand, and express emotions in healthy ways.

Emotional literacy - the ability to recognise, understand, and express emotions - starts with regulation. A child who is flooded by emotion can't reflect or label what they’re feeling until their nervous system is calm enough to allow it. By helping your child regulate first, you’re creating the conditions for emotional learning to happen.

1. Relate: Connect First

Before anything else, your child needs to feel emotionally safe. That means tuning in to what they’re feeling, not just what they’re doing. “You’re really upset that your tower fell. That was important to you.”

This moment of empathy helps your child feel seen. That’s the first step in calming their nervous system.

2. Regulate: Help Them Settle

Kids can’t learn or reason while dysregulated. Co-regulation - staying calm yourself while helping your child ride the wave, is how they begin to regulate their emotions. Use fewer words. Offer your presence. Breathe together. Create calm in the body so the brain can come back online. This could look like a physical hug, doing slow deep breathing together, or letting them know “I’m here for you”.

Try calming tools outside of the meltdown first like breathing, pressure toys, movement—so they’re more accessible when emotions run high.

3. Respond: Guide With Care

Once your child is calmer (this may be the following day!) you can offer support, guidance, or gentle limits based on what the behaviour was. “It’s okay to feel angry. It’s not okay to hit.”

This stage isn’t about punishment—it’s about showing your child that all emotions are valid, and behaviour can be safely guided.

4. Reflect: Build Emotional Language

In a quiet moment, later that day or even the next, invite your child to make sense of what happened. For example, “You looked really frustrated when your game froze. What do you think helped you calm down?” This is how kids learn to name their feelings, understand what triggered them, and build a toolkit for next time.

We often expect kids to talk through their emotions. But expression starts with regulation. Until a child feels safe and calm, emotional learning can’t happen. By using the Four R’s, you’re wiring your child’s brain for emotional growth. Over time, they’ll start to do more of this on their own: recognising what they feel, calming themselves, and finding words to express it.