How teachers co-regulate children's emotions and behaviour in socio-emotionally challenging situations in day-care settings

This study investigates the ways early childhood teachers co-regulate children's activities, behaviour and emotions in various socio-emotionally challenging situations and how teachers identify the co-regulation strategies they use in these situations. The data consist of 31 video episodes of different socio-emotionally challenging situations among children aged 2-5 years, in day-care activities. The data also include stimulated recall interviews conducted with the teachers (N=8). Based on the video episodes, the video data are analysed by exploring co-regulation strategies that the teachers use in challenging situations. Interview data are analysed by comparing teachers' descriptions of co-regulation strategy use to the co-regulation categories formed in the video analysis. The results of this study show that teachers engage in co-regulation during day-care activities. They use various strategies and combine these when they encounter challenges, particularly favouring activity-related strategies instead of emotion-related strategies. Furthermore, the results indicate that the teachers are, to some extent, aware of their co regulative strategy use, but they could benefit from training that would increase their awareness of different strategies that potentially support children's self-regulation in socio-emotionally challenging early childhood contexts. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.