Download our bite-sized guide to supporting regulation here:
Supporting regulation in adoptive families
Adoptive families often face intense emotional moments. Helping both parents and children understand and manage these emotions is key to building resilience and healthy relationships. The following guidance is designed to support social workers in their direct work with adoptive families:
1. Understanding the “Volcano of Emotion”
- Emotions can erupt: Explain to families that emotions can build up like a volcano. Encourage parents to pause during tricky moments and consider where their child, and they themselves, might be on the “volcano” scale (from calm, to aroused, to alarmed, to fearful, to terror).
- Recognise triggers: Help families notice when they or their child are moving up the volcano. As emotions intensify, the ability to think clearly decreases, and survival responses (fight, flight, freeze) take over.
- Goal: The aim is to help everyone return to the “base” of the volcano, where curiosity, reflection, and learning are possible.
2. The Three Rs: Regulate, Relate, Reason
Introduce the “Three Rs” framework to families as a step-by-step approach for responding to emotional escalation:
Regulate: First, help the child (and parent) calm their fight/flight/freeze responses. This is the foundation for any further support.
Relate: Second, focus on connecting with the child through an attuned, sensitive relationship. Connection is essential before moving to problem-solving or teaching.
Reason: Third, once calm and connection are established, support the child to reflect, learn, and articulate their feelings and experiences.
Ideas for what can help to regulate
- Holding/rocking
- Walking or stomping, doing something physical
- Bouncing on a trampoline
- Something to drink or eat.
- Taking deep breaths/blowing, eg bubbles
- Listen to music
Encourage parents to notice what helps them regulate in the moment - perhaps pacing, having a cup of tea, seeking quiet, or talking to a friend. Help them extend this awareness to their child, recognising that different strategies may work at different times.
Individual Differences: Remind families that regulation strategies are not “one size fits all.” What works for one person or situation may not work for another.
Building Awareness: Support parents in helping their child learn what helps them regulate, and encourage experimentation with different approaches.
Summary
By understanding emotional escalation, applying the Three Rs, and experimenting with regulation strategies, adoptive families can build stronger, more resilient relationships. As a social worker, your role in modelling, coaching, and reinforcing these approaches is vital.