www.self-regulation.ca
and Education Meet;
Start Early/Change Lives
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Birth to 18 months
18 months to 4 years
Trauma............... Neglect
Neutral…………. Nurturing
OUR QUERY TODAY
What is our proactive and reactive engagement with children across this continuum?
Do we have the capacity to disrupt otherwise predictable trajectories?
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Values/Beliefs and our Shared Work
 There are no throw-away kids and no throw-away schools
 The overwhelming majority of the adults in our system come to
work wanting to do the best job they can do
 We need to work smarter together rather than harder alone
 “Skill and Will” are not fixed assets. They can be influenced and
increased by strategic action
 Each school is in a different place in its development, level of
success and sense of efficacy.
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Self Regulation: A Working Definition
“Different groups talk about the importance of the
concept of self-regulation as it relates to their field. So
we encounter everything from ‘emotion-regulation’ to
‘self-control’ to ‘self-regulated learning’.
But the underlying or core concept of self-regulation
refers to “the manner in which the brain maintains
physiological stability through complex feedback
mechanisms.”
Dr. Stuart Shanker
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
What is Self-Regulation?
How effectively and efficiently a child deals with a
stressor and then recovers from the effort
•Ever time a child has a stressor the brain
responds with processes that consume energy
•This is followed by restorative processes to
recover from this energy expenditure
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Driving Analogy
helpful for understanding the subtle adjustments in
energy expenditure involved in regulating attention
•To maintain a speed of 100 km/hr we are constantly
pressing and easing up on the gas depending on the
state of the road, incline, wind speed etc.
•Learning how to drive involves learning how to
smoothly adjust the amount of gas or braking
required for the current conditions
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Stress-Response Systems
•Three core systems for responding to stress:
1. Social Engagement
2. Fight-or-Flight
3. Freeze
There is a fourth, very worrying stage, dissociation,
which is a last-ditch mechanism for dealing with
excessive stress
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Calm
Focused
Alert
These are our
kids…and
each of us at
one time or
another.
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Self-Regulation and Trauma
• Working on self-regulation is especially important
for children that have been traumatized, or raised
by caregivers that have been traumatized
• Shift from the Learning Brain to the Survival Brain
• Chronic state of fight-or-flight, freeze, or even in
some cases, dissociation
• Chronic fight-or-flight is extremely energy
expensive, reducing child’s ability to pay attention,
inhibit impulses, regulate mood, co-regulate
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Allostatic (Over-)Load Condition
Too much stress result is can result in:
• prolonged over-activation of SNS and/or PNS
• inappropriate activation of SNS or PNS (i.e., in
situations not warranting a heightened stress
response)
• Sudden transitions between emotions
• diminished ability to return to baseline after
activation of the stress response
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Adaptive Calibration Model
•Child’s stress system adapts to early life conditions
•E.g., heightened stress results in heightened stress
reactivity (HPA pathway)
•Behaviors that might have been evolutionarily
functional are poorly suited to learning environment
•Possible to ‘recalibrate’ by creating safe and
nurturing environments
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Effects of Allostatic (Over-)Load
•Disrupts brain development (e.g., hippocampus;
HPA pathway)
•Chronically hypo-aroused or hyper-aroused
•Difficulty staying focused and alert
•Poor interception/exteroception
•Heightened impulsivity or numbing
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Signs of Excessive Stress
1.
Chronic hyper-arousal
2.
Chronic hypo-arousal
3.
Heightened stress reactivity
4.
Increased sensitivity to pain (physical and emotional)
5.
Reduced ability to regulate negative emotions
6.
negative bias
7.
reduced ability to read affect cues, show emotions
8.
Reduced ability to hear human voice
9.
Blunted reward system
10. Increased immune system problems
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
The Effects of Excessive Stress
• heightened stress means child has to work much
harder to pay attention
• negative effects caused by falling further behind,
being yelled at, having greater social problems,
etc., exacerbate the drain on nervous system
•leads to a chronic state of heightened anxiety
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
The Three Stages of Self-Regulation
1. Identify Stressors
2. Develop Self-Awareness (interoception and
exteroception)
3. Develop self-regulating techniques, learning
what to do to mitigate a stress response and
what to avoid
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Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
 A community of “learning
detectives” (kids and
adults)
 Parent awareness and
engagement
 Influencing the shape of
the day and the shape of
the learning spaces
Where to
From
Here?
 Progressive relationship
with the medical
profession and other
agencies
 Sharing the stories,
celebrating the successes,
one discovery and one
self-regulating moment at
a time
CSRI: Committing to a productive nexus
between neuroscience and education
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013
Join us on this learning journey via
• The website: www.self-regulation.ca
• The on-line book club started this fall
• A staff study/action research group
• Recommending articles for colleagues
via the website
• Watching for the launch of the on-line
“Matrix” tool
www.self-regulation.ca
Again, and again I was amazed at students’
positive response to having input/control in their
own learning/behaviour – this inquiry changed
this dramatically for my students.
Shanker/McKay
October, 2013