As children develop, their regulatory skills become more sophisticated (Kopp
1982; Blair & Diamond
2008). Infants begin to regulate arousal and sensory-motor responses even before birth. An infant may suck her thumb after
hearing a loud sound, indicating that she is regulating her
responses to the environment. Toddlers start to inhibit responses and comply with adult caregivers. By age 4, chil- dren begin to exhibit more complex forms of self-regulation, such as anticipating appropriate responses and modifying their responses when circumstances are subtly different.
For example, clapping is appropriate after someone speaks during sharing time at school, but not while a teacher is giving directions.
Self-regulation skills develop gradually, so it is important that adults hold developmentally appropriate expectations for children’s behavior. Vygotsky called the range of devel- opmentally appropriate expectations the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (John-Steiner & Mahn 1996). The ZPD is the “growing edge of competence” (Bronson 2000, 20) and represents those skills a child is ready to learn. Expecting children to demonstrate skills outside the ZPD is ineffective and often detrimental. Punishing young children when they fail to sustain attention longer than a few minutes or fail to calm themselves quickly when frustrated does nothing to help them learn self-regulation. Likewise, failing to provide challenging opportunities for children to advance their
skills can hinder their growth.
As they develop, most children begin to use self-regula- tion skills without prompting or assistance. They develop strategies to manage incoming information, choose appro- priate responses, and maintain levels of arousal that allow them to actively participate in learning. When children routinely self-regulate without adult assistance, they have