Think about any of dozens of tough moments during your day. The dog is barking, the baby needs a diaper change (again), it’s an hour past dinner time, and you’re really hungry. On most days, you’ve got this. You have the coping skills you need to take a breath, change a diaper, or make a sandwich without breaking down into tears or yelling at everyone in frustration.
Babies don’t have these coping skills yet. Even though babies’ brains are growing very fast and they are learning a lot about the world around them during the first three years of their lives, they still need us to help them make sense of it all. And they depend on the adults in their lives to soothe and calm them long before they’re able to do this for themselves. This process of “sharing your calm” to help babies and toddlers learn to calm themselves is called co-regulation.
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