Self-Reg talks
In Podcasts
May 6, 2022
“Dr. Stuart Shanker is the visionary founder of the MEHRIT Centre, an organisation dedicated to understanding how stress affects human behaviour and to help both kids and adults self-regulate how they respond to stress in order to improve their lives. This turned out to be an absolutely fascinating conversation that was so good I broke it into 2 parts.” – Paul Taylor
Dec 9, 2021
Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Stuart Shanker about the neuroscience and philosophical underpinnings of self-regulation. They discuss his clinical and research background in working with children and why he emphasizes a just society with self-reg. They discuss the 5-step method of self-reg and why stress management is important.
July 12, 2021
Listen to Stuart Shanker as he discusses his new book “Reframed”, and how self-reg benefits everyone. He is a world-leading authority and bestselling author on the topic of self-regulation and child development, and the former president of the Council of Early Child Development.
August 31, 2021
Listen to Dr. Shanker as he talks about how his life’s work has focused on the beneficial role that positive stress plays in children’s development and learning, and the harmful effects of excessive negative stress on parents, educators, and children.
March 24, 2021
Listen to Stuart Shanker talk about the constant barrage of distractions from smartphone notifications and other electronic media have penetrated our ability to concentrate and seriously slashed our productivity.
June 28, 2021
Stuart Shanker went on The WGBU News with Shelley Irwin to unpack the unique science and conceptual practices that are the very lifeblood of Self-Reg.
February 17, 2021
Stuart Shanker is renowned for using cutting-edge neuroscience to help children feel happy and think clearly by better regulating themselves. In his new book, Reframed, Shanker explores self-regulation in wider, social terms. Whereas his two previous books, Calm, Alert, and Learning and Self-Reg, were written for educators and parents, Reframed, the final book in the trilogy, unpacks the unique science and conceptual practices that are the very lifeblood of Self-Reg, making it an accessible read for new Self-Reggers.
February 2, 2021
Stuart Shanker, author of “RE:Framed,” discusses stress, self-regulation and how to get through bad behaviours we’ve picked up during quarantine.
August 19, 2021
How can a society be justly organized? Does it depend on the ability of the citizenry to self regulate? On this episode, Dr. Stuart Shanker discussed his new book, Reframed: Self Reg for a Just Society.
June 21, 2021
Learning self regulation is one of the most important things people can do, regardless of age. How can we, as parents, instill that discipline in our children?
Listen to Dr. Shanker talk about helping our children deal with stress.
August 10, 2021
Listen to Dr. Shanker talk about his Journey that led him to the conclusion that the possibility to create a truly just society exists. This realization inspired Dr. Shanker to write his book REFRAMED: Self-Reg for a Just Society.
June 28, 2021
Listen to Dr. Shanker define how he encountered 447 definitions of self regulation. He simply defines it as “How do we manage stress?” He explains that there are maladaptive and growth promoting ways of dealing with stress. CJ shares her own personal story that happened right before the interview and Dr. Shanker shares his observations of how CJ coped with stress.
March 19, 2021
Listen to Dr. Stuart Shanker talk about how we stress children out and many specific solutions to help our children grow and prosper from these events.
November 25th, 2020
Use the embedded player to listen to the recent ‘Tell Me Your Story’ podcast with Richard Dugan, featuring Dr. Stuart Shanker. In this podcast Dr. Shanker discusses his study of stress, his inspiration behind the development of Shanker Self-Reg®, what lead him on his quest for a Just Society, and ultimately to writing his newest book REFRAMED: Self-Reg for A Just Society.
Articles
Read the article “What is Self-Regulation? What is Self-Reg?” by our founder, Dr. Stuart Shanker, in Early Childhood Ireland‘s magazine; Early Times.
Why It’s ‘Self-Reg,’ Not Self-Control, That Matters Most For Kids
“As parents, it can be natural enough to conclude that when our kids act up or act out — at home, at school, away at the beach or park on family summer vacation — we should tell them to calm down and be sure they follow through.”
Five Ways to Help Misbehaving Kids
Bad behaviour is often a sign that children are stressed—and punishment isn’t the best solution.
Self-Reg and the Joy of Learning
“These are inegalitarian times. I am not referring to the socio-economic meaning of the term, although the steepening of the social gradient, as Wilkinson and Picket show in their new book, The Inner Level, is deeply worrying in every conceivable way.”
The Power of Paradigms
“It amazes me that in this day and age, anyone could still believe that social status is genetically determined. If molecular biologists have taught us anything over the past century, it is that the stars really don’t determine our destiny; and neither do mysterious little particles that Hugo de Vries called ‘pangenes.”
Looking at ADHD With a Self-Regulation Lens
“There is a widespread tendency to see self-regulation as a normative skill, akin to walking and talking— a milestone that children need to master if they are going to succeed in school. By this way of thinking, self-regulation rests on self-monitoring, self‐management, and self-control. If a child has trouble inhibiting impulses, paying attention, and regulating emotions, this can only mean that he has not yet mastered self-regulation.”
Why Does My Child Hate Math? Part 3
“In his classic, The Myth of Laziness, Mel Levine made the critical point that when a young child gives up on arithmetic, it’s a sign, not that he is not trying hard enough, but rather that he is trying too hard and expending too much energy.”
Why Does My Child Hate Math? Part 2
“Children are going into fight-or-flight at the mere thought of doing math. Self-Reg helps us to understand why this is happening and what we might do about it. An alarmingly large number of early learners have come to abhor math by Grade 3: they have developed what is referred to as ‘High Math Anxiety’ (HMA).”
Why Does My Child Hate Math? Part 1
“Math shouldn’t be seen as just a tool or a compulsory subject. It is an enriching mental experience. Yet more and more young children are fleeing from it, right at the start.”
When to Push a Child
“We all want the best for our kids, and these days there is a growing chorus of voices telling us that this means pushing them to work harder. Just about every aspect of a child or teen’s life these days is a competition. But to excel at school, sports, the arts, spelling, debating, social media, even texting (yes, there is a US National Texting Competition), means going that little bit further than others are prepared to go.”
Reframing IQ
“I once gave an interview on CBC radio in which I predicted: “Where IQ was the major construct of the 20th century, in the 21st century it will be self-regulation.” My intention at the time was hardly to belittle the extensive research that has gone into IQ. Nor was I suggesting that self-regulation would turn out to be a better predictor of long-term outcomes than IQ.”
Why Is My Child So Mentally Lazy?
“I once made a catalogue of the most common parental laments around schoolwork, and at the top of the list were ‘Why won’t my child try in Math (or science, French, or history…)?’ ‘Why can’t I get him to study for exams?’ And my personal favourite: ‘What on earth possesses my child to randomly circle answers on a test and not care in the least about failing?”
Help, I Don’t Speak Limbic
“It was a conversation like dozens of others that I’ve had. A 14-year-old teen had just gotten into trouble at school for the silliest of reasons, and when threatened with suspension he just kept repeating over and over: ‘I don’t care.’ The school agreed to give him ‘one last chance,’ but warned his parents that their son had run out of ‘last chances.’ Which is why his mom had come to see me.”
Self-Reg and Holiday Stress: Restoring the Balance
“I rather suspect that the above picture is so iconic that everyone will immediately recognize the film that it’s from. But even if there are some who don’t, I’m sure they will still get the point. Because one way or another, we‘ve all experienced a version of the holiday frenzy so vividly captured here.”
The Truth About Lying
“Lying is the quintessential example of misbehaviour, but confabulating is a stress behaviour. The big challenge in helping a child develop truthfulness is recognizing which is which, and knowing how best to respond when we’re dealing with confabulation.”
Reframing Temperament: “Difficult” vs. “Stressed”
“For some time now I’ve been telling parents and educators that there’s no such thing as a bad kid. It’s a point that everyone seems to instantly get. But aren’t there some children who are at a much higher risk of becoming a bad kid? Children that are a ‘handful’ from the moment they pop out of the womb: fearful or irritable, hard to settle or soothe? Children born with a difficult temperament that strongly influences the development of their personality?”
“Lumos Solem”: Breaking Free from a Stress Cycle
“A particularly powerful depiction of this point occurs in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Harry, Hermione and Ron dive blindly through a trapdoor in order to escape from Fluffy, the three-headed guard dog, and land in some sort of spongy plant that starts to ensnare them in its tendrils.”
Caught in a Stress Cycle
“We may not be the most stressed generation ever but we are certainly the generation that talks the most about how stressed we are. We are constantly bombarded with messages that play on this theme: ‘You need to take a holiday,’ ‘Pamper yourself,’ ‘Buy this miracle product.’ But despite all the attention that stress receives, we are seeing more and more stress-related problems. A contagion of anxiety affecting all ages.”
Self-Regulation vs. Self-Control
“There is a profound difference between self-regulation and self-control. Self-control is about inhibiting strong impulses; self-regulation is about reducing the frequency and intensity of strong impulses by managing stress-load and recovery. In fact, self-regulation is what makes self-control possible, or, in many cases, unnecessary. The reason lies deep inside the brain.”
Self-Reg: The Nature of Stress
“Kids today are under way too much stress. Pretty much all kids, all ages. We know this because we’re seeing more and more children and youth with stress-related conditions: e.g., problems in health, allergies, behaviour, mood, attention, weight, resilience. Even more worrying is the large number of kids who are apathetic, oppositional, volatile, selfish and self-centred, easily frustrated and defeatist, negative and unhappy if not downright miserable.”
Organization Updates
Shanker Self-Reg® Trademark Approved for the European Union
Self-Reg Global is pleased to share that Shanker Self-Reg® is a registered trademark in all European Union countries.
Shanker Self-Reg refers to all intellectual property related Dr. Shanker’s Self-Reg framework and method for understanding and supporting self-regulation in children, youth and adults, including five-step Shanker Method, and the five-domain Self-Reg Framework for considering self-regulation and stress across five interrelated domains: biological, emotion, cognitive, social and prosocial.
This trademark represents the brand of The MEHRIT Centre, and gives the Centre the exclusive right to use or approve the use of Shanker Self-Reg in services, products and education related to enhancing self-regulation in human development, including publications, curricula, clinical applications and social media.
The Shanker Self-Reg trademark applies in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
The trademarks Shanker Self-Reg® and The Shanker Method® have been registered in Canada and the US since 2017. See the TMC website for further details.
For further information, please contact the MEHRIT Centre: info@self-reg.ca