I started this post to share ONE brief about self-regulation in the first five years that was shared with me today (thanks @Jane Stevens).
It's dense, long and awesome!
It's got a few graphics and a lot of clear and descriptive language - all good.
My favorite thing of all is that it's so light on edupuking on parents which means it is much more likely that we parents will read along 
I find this better than most one-page handouts and flyers which are made to be more accessible and time-saving (and sometimes are) but can sometimes be so patronizing and shaming that they do more harm than good.
I wish the tone of these research briefs could be kept when information is shared with parents in crisis, pain or who are overwhelmed. To me, a document that can be used by teachers, parents, social workers, survivors and helping professionals, all at the same time, is the kind I wan to read. Ones geared towards "at risk" parents, if not written by parents who have been there as well often feel so icky and judgy and hard to read.
For those who grow up without ACEs, this might not seem as shocking or new as it may be for those who did. But it's great information for everyone. For those who had a childhood that was hazardous and which we simply hoped to endure or escape, these ideas and practices done among people, and even child and parent, might seem kind of radical and maybe even strange or dangerous.
But that's why the information shared with (not "at") parents is so great. This stuff can seem radical. Radical and informative. Radical and protective. It can help teach any of us how to help kids, how to support kids in becoming healthier and happier adults which is what almost everyone wants. So yay!
Plus, it can help us understanding why we might not know how to practice or be great at this stuff if we didn't get it. We can't teach stuff we don't know but we don't have to practice it perfectly either to get started and that's a liberating relief. Basic information can be a motivation and a reminder whereas a lecture or advice, not sought, hardly ever is.
I'm grateful the authors don't use talk down tones, guilt or that stuff that makes parents feel all icky inside. This kind of information can be shared with or by most anyone. The citation for the brief mentioned above is as follows:
Rosanbalm, K. D., & Murray, D. W. (2018). Promoting self-regulation in the first five years: A practice brief (OPRE Brief #2017-79). Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
There is an entire series on self-regulation. Please find summary descriptions from the website below - (it says share freely). And if you have other research, resources, stories, thoughts, opinions, or experiences to share, please do. We all respond to different things so please share.
from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation
Desiree Murray and Katie Rosanbalm, 2018Current Gaps and Future Directions for Self-Regulation Intervention Research describes key gaps in self-regulation interventions and intervention research and how the field can fill these gaps.
Co-Regulation from Birth through Young Adulthood: A Practice Brief provides guidelines for effective co-regulation support at each stage of a child's development. Three broad categories of support that caregivers can provide to children, youth, and young adults to help them develop foundational self-regulatory skills: provide a warm, responsive relationship, structure the environment, and teach and coach self-regulation skills.
Promoting Self-Regulation in the First Five Years: A Practice Brief provides guidelines to promote self-regulation development in children from birth through five years old. By proactively teaching and supporting self-regulation skills across settings, we can help children from all backgrounds enter kindergarten ready to learn.
Promoting Self-Regulation in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Practice Brief reviews the importance of self-regulation for adolescents and young adults and provides guidelines for supporting self-regulation development for 14 to 25-year-olds. Research has shown that there are major changes in brain architecture that occur during adolescence, making interventions at this age important and timely. In particular during early and mid- adolescence (i.e., 11-15 years), brain systems that seek rewards and process emotions are more developed than cognitive control systems responsible for good decision-making and future planning.
Self Regulation and Toxic Stress: Seven Key Principles of Self-Regulation in Context provides a framework for understanding self-regulation and its development in an ecological-biological development context. Self-regulation can be defined from an applied perspective as the act of managing one's thoughts and feelings to engage in goal-directed actions, such as organizing behavior, controlling impulses, and solving problems constructively. The act of self-regulating is dependent on several different factors that interact with each other.
How Do Acute and Chronic Stress Impact the Development of Self-Regulation? Stress has been linked to long term physical health and numerous indicators of wellbeing, and there is increasing evidence that stress experienced in childhood and adolescence may lead to physiological changes in the brain and to disruptions in development. However, much of the data suggesting these connections are based on associations rather than on causal evidence from experiments. There are also many unanswered questions related to the relationship between stress and self-regulation, particularly with regard to the impact of social adversity during sensitive developmental periods, the variability in stress responsiveness across individuals, and the possibility for reversing negative effects.
Note: One of the co-authors of this practice brief is Katie Rosanbalm. She is the same Katie Rosanbam who talked about self-regulation and resilience in an ACEs Too High article published last year. She is also part of the research team for the Benchmarks Partnering for Excellent (PFE) project (which also has an ACEs Connection Community). It's cool to see all of the ways researchers and communities are working together to USE the research.
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