Co-regulation; The lighthouse metaphor
I am not a fan of box breathing, belly breathing, finger breathing, colour hunting, “Name 3 things…” and most other classic interventions aimed to teach emotional regulation skills to children. My main gripe being that I (purportedly a responsible adult with a fully developed pre-frontal cortex) have never once been able to implement any such skills when I’ve been out of control. What hope therefore, should I expect these skills to be useful to an 8-year-old?
I’ll go one further; perhaps these interventions do more harm than good?
I recall once being an angsty teenager and a well-meaning adult suggesting that I “clench and unclench my fists”, I punched a hole through a wall.
I also recall being a parent and becoming intensely stressed trying to convince a dysregulated child to “use one of your strategies”.
Such strategies are typically unwelcome and irritating to be reminded of, doing nothing more than adding to the frustration already experienced. Furthermore, unsuccessfully talking a child out of their dysregulation is frustrating and might just lead to an amplifying, conflict -spiral between dysregulated child and parent.
Emotional dysregulation or tantrums, are one of the most common reason that parents bring their children to see a psychologist. From working with such families, I believe that co-regulation, whereby the parent maintains their own regulation to help their child become regulated, is for most people in most instances, the most useful approach. Hence the lighthouse metaphor;
Caught in a storm (dysregulated emotions), the ship (the child) uses the lighthouse (the parent) as a means of reassurance, orientation, and navigation until the storm passes.
A few details within the metaphor:
Storms: Cannot be controlled and it does not make sense to get angry at them. Instead, we acknowledge their inevitability and know that they blow themselves out eventually.
Lighthouses: Ultimately provide a passive role. The characteristics of a good lighthouse being dependable, visible, and unmoving against a battering.
Ships: Want to come back, although it is difficult and can take a while.
I will divide my rationale for co-regulation into two parts, the first being entirely practical;
The whole difficulty of being dysregulated is that we no longer have access to the executive functioning that would be necessary to start some sort of calming or relaxation exercise. In a scenario where your child has “flipped their lid”, there is little chance that any type of skill-based intervention is going to help. Even less likely is a parent going to be successful in coaching their child through such a skill reactively - the metaphoric equivalent of a wickie (colloquial term for a lighthouse keeper) trying to quell a storm with a shovel.
A parent tries to get their screaming child to take deep breaths
Instead, the ideal posture and effort from the parent should mostly be a large amount of not very much.
This is not easy. Doing nothing feels useless and makes us more aware of time pressures which is stressful especially given dysregulation often occurs in moments of time pressure (think the demands of mornings and evenings).
But if we agree that in most instances any alternative will either not work or make things worse, pragmatism suggests that co-regulation remains our best option or should at least be our default position.
My second rationale is evolutionary. Across the animal kingdom, human infants are uniquely helpless, born neurologically and physically underdeveloped, unable to walk, feed themselves, regulate themselves and entirely dependent on caregivers for survival and modelling. Our children are, by instinct, continually watching us and passively learning from us. A dysregulated child who time and again is met by a regulated attachment figure eventually learns to regulate themselves. This is how you end up with a regulated and emotionally healthy adult with the capacity to serve as the lighthouse for their children.
NB: Passive does not mean passive-aggressive. A crucial part of the lighthouse metaphor is the visibility; staying unflappable and unmoving but also patient and dependable.
Ned Dickeson is a clinical psychologist based in Adelaide, Australia.
This is a short essay and not intended as an adequate explanation for an evidence-based treatment approach, especially given all the nuances that each individual experiences.
I have used AI for artwork, research and proofreading but not for ideas or prose .
