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Self-regulation is much more than just self-control. The term self-regulation is often just used interchangeably with the concept of self-control of own emotions and reactions, but is deeper than that. It is the foundation for general well-being and involves learning.  In a nutshell, self-regulation focuses on goals and keeping to them for purposeful solutions, which is, "the ability to manage your energy states, emotions, behaviours and attention, in ways that are socially acceptable and help achieve positive goals, such as maintaining good relationships, learning and maintaining wellbeing.”

Shonkoff and Phillips (2000) described self-regulation in children as the, “developing the capacity to manage powerful emotions constructively and keep one’s attention focused”. Shanker (2010) described it as “the ability to manage your energy states, emotions, behaviours and attention, in ways that are socially acceptable and help achieve positive goals, such as maintaining good relationships, learning and maintaining wellbeing.”

In children of pre-school age or prep school level, this means being able to do these things in these areas:

Emotions

• Acknowledge carers' preferences. 

• Recognise and apply pro-social behaviour negotiating requests. 

• Start developing empathy for others.

• Expressing own emotions and express them. 

• Manage emotions. 

Cognition / Attention 

• Focus on a task and ignore irrelevant information and stimuli (e.g., noises)

• Shift attention between own thoughts and teacher talk.

• Retain information to use on diverse tasks. 

• Cumulate information and re-use meaningfully. 

• Start to multi-task through scaffolding and modeling. 

Behaviour 

Understand the importance of taking turns. 

Being able to share emotions with others to negotiate better relationships outcomes. 

Focus in class despite stimuli. 

Being able to relax and be calm sitting or in a social classroom situation.

Avoid lashing out, being able to listen and take turn talking back.