Children’s and Teacher’s Emotion Regulation In Trauma-Informed Early Childhood Education

Background and purpose: Early childhood education (ECE) centers can offer a trauma-informed support system that may provide protective life experiences to buffer the effects of early childhood trauma and support children’s emotion regulation (ER). ER has been identified as a key element of trauma-informed practices in ECE settings to support trauma-exposed children. There is limited research that explores how teachers describe children’s ER and their own ER in trauma-informed ECE settings. This study addresses this gap by exploring how ECE teachers discuss ER using secondary qualitative data from a multisite mixed-methods study of trauma-informed education practices.

Methods: Data included transcripts from seven focus groups conducted with 13 teachers from three ECE sites in a Western state. ECE sites were recruited by the study’s PI through personal contacts. Teachers were invited to participate in the study and were eligible if they were age 18+, had been teaching in their current classroom setting for at least one month, and were able to participate in study procedures in English. Focus groups followed a semi-structured interview protocol and topics involved trauma and trauma-informed ECE practices. Focus groups were completed through Zoom, with a duration ranging from 30–60 minutes. Collected data were transcribed and checked for accuracy by trained research staff. Data were analyzed using a hybrid thematic analysis approach including deductive-inductive coding processes.

Results: When talking about ER in trauma-informed interventions, teachers discussed both children’s ER and their own ER. When describing children’s ER, teachers discussed instances where children independently engaged in ER, and some teachers described this as an indication that classroom ER strategies were effectively helping children increase regulatory capacity. Teachers suggested that engaging with parents was a key component in supporting children’s ER and might help children continue to learn classroom ER strategies at home. Across the focus groups, teachers consistently described their own relational strategies with children to promote ER (e.g., co-regulation, regulatory modeling). Teachers also frequently described their own ER in the context of trauma-informed interventions. For example, teachers described attunement to their own and their colleagues’ emotional states and used strategies both proactively and responsively to support their own and each other’s ER. Strategies included talking about their emotions with colleagues and stepping away when they needed to regulate. As one teacher described: “...I've had, I mean situations where... I've had to be so calm, but I'm actually really emotional and I just need to maybe go cry for a minute before I can get back with the class.”

Conclusions and Implications: Findings highlight how teachers describe children’s and their own ER in trauma-informed ECE settings. Teachers’ own emotional competency was identified as integral to supporting their own emotional wellness and to enabling them to effectively engage in relational ER strategies. Trauma-informed ECE trainings may benefit from integrating how to support teachers' emotional wellbeing and how teachers can best work with parents to support children's ER. This study may inform trauma-informed education practices to support ER in ECE settings and improve outcomes among trauma-exposed children.