One of the things I enjoy most about a website/blog is that of interaction with parents, learning from the front lines!  I find that I learn a significant percentage of my knowledge professionally from interactions with parents! 

Children early begin to experience self-calming with specific activities.  They learn early that rocking is calming.  It is observed across a spectrum of development, particularly for children with more severe developmental disorders. At least one of our children had a “blankie” that in combination with a thumb, could not be beat!  A favorite toy, stuffed animal, or other familiar object generated self-calming.  Kids recognize at some level the increased level of arousal (e.g., fear, anxiety, stress) and seek out their preferred object.  In a comment to the Blog “Learning from Each Other”, mom introduced herself as the “object of calming”, an excellent strategy, placing her in a position of observing the increased levels of arousal and facilitating calming. Not only is she able to observe, but she can model, direct, orchestrate, etc. the progression of awareness and strategies.

The challenge is in the developmental progression!! As our children mature, they spend more and more time away from us, providing less opportunity for observation or for participating in the calming process.  The most critical basic skills are in identifying and understanding over-arousal and then identifying the most appropriate productive strategies to self-calm.  A lesson I learned early in my career was that a GREAT strategy for one patient, was totally unproductive for another.  Observing and “understanding the logic” of behavior is critical to successful intervention.  Even many healthcare professionals get caught up in THE ANSWER, but it is different for every child, adolescent, and adult. 

At the risk of being redundant, the basic principles are in recognizing/understanding the logic of the arousal when it occurs, identifying those strategies that are most successful to the individual in facilitating self-calming and self-regulating, understanding our own logic.  That may mean a combination of strategies, including medication, self-hypnosis, environmental modifications, neurofeedback, all means of facilitating self-regulation of arousal.