What is Co-Regulation?

What is co-regulation?

Co-regulation is a way of regulating your nervous system with someone else.

It could be a person,

Also a pet can often be a co-regulator.

And when we think about co-regulation,

I like to think about it as you are borrowing someone's calm or someone is borrowing your calm.

So we hear about co-regulation a lot when it comes to having kids.

So I think it's something that's talked a lot in the parenting space.

And when our kids,

They do co-regulate with us up until the ages of seven and they start to develop their own regulation system.

But when our kids,

Our babies,

When they're little and they co-regulate,

Think about what happens when a kid is upset or a toddler is upset and you go and you bring them,

Maybe they sit on your lap,

You give them a hug,

You just sit with them,

You say,

Oh my gosh,

You were doing this and you took a tumble and your knee hurts,

That is so hard.

And you remain calm and you just be with them in that space and it's like they borrow from you from your nervous system,

The calm to help come back down to baseline.

That is co-regulation.

But as adults,

We can use co-regulation as well.

So that could be after a long day at work or we're feeling stressed about something and we sit on the couch and we pet our dog or we hold our cat if they allow us to hold them or pet them in that way.

It could also be with a loved one or even a friend where you go and you just be in their space.

Maybe you talk about it,

Talk about it.

And just being in their presence helps you to regulate yourself,

Helps you to come down from that state of anxiety,

Stress,

Overwhelm.

And so when you think about what is co-regulation,

Think about borrowing someone else's calm or state of calm or lending your state of calm to someone else who needs it.

And so using someone who's kind of that,

That steady force in your life to help you regulate your nervous system,

Or you can do that for someone else.

And that's co-regulation.