Emotional regulation is not an innate skill. None of us are born with the ability to recognize, monitor, and adapt our emotions depending on the situation. The importance of modeling self-regulation is discussed frequently with our families, peer clinicians and the children in our clinic. The earlier regulation work begins, the better but we’ve found that it is a lifelong process. As parents and therapists ourselves, we still practice our own regulation on a daily basis. No one is infallible. Room for growth exists within everyone.

After a recent conversation about the role of both parents in therapy in our clinic and our partner clinics in Omaha and Italy, we stumbled across THIS article about Fathers & Self-Reg in Families. The author provides a fresh and honest perspective about sometimes struggling to be helpful to his wife and connect with his kids in meaningful ways. The lessons he learned about fatherhood, regulation, and what it means to be a healthy family is worth the read. We encourage you to share it with any parent who yearns to be involved on a deeper level but might not know where to begin. Regulation is a great place to start.