Highlights of the post
- What is co-regulation and self-regulation?
- How does co-regulation look like in parent-child relationship?
- What helps parents in co-regulation?
- How to be in the window of tolerance and help your child or teen access the same?
Coregulation: Healthy relating for challenging times in parenting
Dear parents, caregivers and adults who clicked the tab to read this post, you are already loving human beings who want to care for children and teens.
What are some of the challenging situations in parenting? Imagine your child or teen is very anxious, disrespectful, angry and frustrated, yelling, hypersensitive, crying, feeling numb or making wrong choices in life. One can imagine the emotional and bodily state of parents in those contexts. It is not easy for parents to stay regulated in these instances. Cambridge dictionary defines the verb ‘regulate’ as to adjust something to a desired level or standard. In parent-child relationships, regulation involves adjusting the bodily arousal and internal emotional state of both people to an optimal level together. This is called co-regulation.
Co-regulation is a precursor to the development of self-regulation in children and teens. Self-regulation is “the general process by which people control their thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the service of achieving their goals” (Davisson & Hoyle, 2017). One of the main goals of parenting is to help children develop the capacity for self-regulation. In real life, being able to self-regulate sounds like this: Being able to regulate intense feelings, exercise forethought in decisions or actions, delay gratification while pursuing long-term goals (not overspending due to financial goals) and to inhibit impulses to hit or attack others or self.
Self-regulation does not develop overnight. Instead, it develops through many instances of parent-child coregulation over a period of developmental years. Yes, we can’t expect children or teens to be smart at handling their feelings and behaviors on their own without firsthand experience of coming home to a calm and regulated body through co-regulation.
How does co-regulation look like in parent-child relationship?
Co-regulation looks like this: You surf the waves (emotions and what it urges you to do/not do, thoughts, memories, body sensations) in your internal world and you help child surf the same so that both can come to the safe shore of internal and relational safety.
The essence of the co-regulation process is this: It is not only the child’s (or teen’s) actions and bodily arousal that influence the outcome but also the parent’s bodily arousal and choice of behaviors. In short, the nature of interaction between the partners decides the outcome. What would be the outcome of an interaction if a teen boy yelling at a parent is met with a parent yelling back at him? Imagine a dad breaking the laptop because his teen daughter was playing computer games at bedtime which was deemed irresponsible behavior. Here is an important question for parents and caregivers: How are you teaching lessons in self-regulation which you want them to know and practice when they grow up to be an adult? In parenting, it is not just the intention, but the way in which unhealthy behaviors or intense emotions are dealt with matters. This is important for maintaining a healthy parent-child bond characterized by safety, trust and affection.
What helps parents in co-regulation?
To be able to co-regulate, parents need to be in their optimal zone of arousal. When they are in this zone, they are aware of and regulate their own emotions and bodily state. They are able to connect with their child and be present in her/his suffering, be it emotional chaos, numbness, or wrong choices in life. They are also able to use their reasoning and thinking capacity to guide their kids. This zone of optimal arousal is technically known as the window of tolerance. When parents are in too high or too low arousal of the body, they are too threatened to be able to connect with their child or regulate them. When parents’ own emotions overwhelm them, they cannot choose their responses (emotional or behavioral) to the child.
How to be in the window of tolerance and help your child or teen access the same?
Here are 4 questions that you may ask yourself to know what it feels like for you to be in the window of tolerance or feel regulated (Straus, 2021).
1. What are the anchoring objects/situations that help you feel safe and regulated? E.g., Looking at a painting or your mother’s photo, holding an object of worship, swing, deep breathing, walking
2. When do you feel safe and regulated? E.g., Early morning when you hear bird chirping or night when you hear cricket chirping.
3. Where or which places help you feel regulated? E.g., Park, garden, a space in your home or office
4. With whom do you feel safe? E.g., Your spouse, close friend, mom or dad, your favorite teacher.
Now that you imagined what it feels like to be in a regulated state, you will be able to guide your child to access the same.
Suppose your child began to wail because her friends rejected her at playtime in school. Without empathy for the child, parent’s response sounds like, “You must have troubled them. That’s why they did it”. This dysregulates the child further and they feel threatened and unsafe in relationship with the parent. Empathy involves connecting with your child’s sadness, understanding her/his internal world of emotions, thoughts (“I am not likeable”, “I am bad”) and body sensations. Children and teens need to feel that they are not alone when they suffer. Once children are in their zone of optimal arousal through co-regulation, parents can reason with their child such as understanding child’s choice of friends, learning how to make friends or teaching them how to handle conflicts in friendships.
In short, co-regulation helps in navigating the emotional ups and downs and accessing the safe internal home when both parents and children face challenges in life. We expect what is best for our children and teens, don’t we? Co-regulation is a boon as it helps to achieve good enough self-regulation capacity and maintain a safe and loving parent-child bond.
References
- Davisson, E. K., & Hoyle, R. H. (2017). The social-psychological perspective on self-regulation. In T. Egner (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of cognitive control (pp. 440–453). Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118920497.ch25
- Bornstein, M.H, & Esposito, G. (2023). Coregulation: A Multilevel Approach via Biology and Behavior. Emotion Review, 10, Article 1323. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10081323
- Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Meaning of regulate in English. In Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved June, 19, 2025, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/regulate
- Ogden, P., & Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor psychotherapy: Interventions for trauma and attachment. (D. Del Hierro & A. Del Hierro, Illustrators). W W Norton & Co.
- Siegel, D. (1999). The developing mind. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
- Straus, M. B. (2021). Cool, calm and connected: A workbook for parents and children to co-regulate, manage big emotions and build stronger bonds. PESI Publishing
- Butler, E. A., & Randall, A. K. (2013). Emotional coregulation in close relationships. Emotion Review, 5(2), 202–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073912451630
