The Self-Regulation Workbook for Children Ages 5 to 8: A Parent-Child Resource for Engaging in Healthy Coping Skills and Building Connection

Both caregivers and children can benefit from this workbook offering helpful guidance on essential emotional regulation skills such as co-regulation, frustration tolerance, expressing feelings, caregiver reflection, and child self-control, through fun and engaging activities.

Written by experienced child therapists who are parents themselves, this workbook uses the foremost knowledge and methods to help both caregivers and children build strong relationships and instill useful regulation tools in their everyday lives. Follow along with fun activities used to teach caregivers how to realistically adapt to meet children’s emotional needs. Activities and guidance include:

• How to use play and connection as a baseline approach
• Naming and noticing feelings
• Guidance for building emotional resilience and reflection in your child
• Emotion regulation strategies for the caregiver to use during tough moments
• How to use parent reflection to better understand and respond to challenging child behaviors
• How to set limits and repair ruptures
• Guidance from enduring theory and research on child emotion regulation
• And so much more!

The Self Regulation Workbook for Children Ages 5 to 8 can be used as a family activity, a child-caregiver activity, a caregiver-only intervention, and a child-only activity that fosters confidence in those striving to provide an emotionally supportive environment for children.

Kahlila Robinson, PhD, is a psychologist in private practice in New York City. She received her doctoral training from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She has worked with people from across the life span, and from all walks of life. She has specialized training and experience working with children and families, in parent mental health, and with adults with relational trauma. She has worked in hospital and clinic settings, as a mental health consultant in preschools, and as diirector of parent mental health of a nationally recognized early intervention program in the Bronx, NY. She is a supervising psychologist for child and adult psychology graduate students at City College. She is an advocate for the availabilty of high-quality mental health services for underserved and vulnerable populations. She lives with her husband and children in New York City.

Sarah Gerstenzang is passionate about healthy human development. She currently works as a therapist with foster and adoptive families and previously held policy and administrative positions in child welfare. She holds a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. She is the board president of the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of NY and has served on numerous advisory committees, including Fostering Families Today magazine, the Effects of Early Life Adversity on Brain Development (NIMH grant with Nim Tottenham, PhD) and on the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative. Sarah has been a foster and kinship parent and one of her three children was adopted from the New York City foster care system.