What is The Zones of Regulation framework?

The Zones of Regulation is a complete social-emotional learning curriculum, created to teach children self-regulation and emotional control.

It’s often taught in school or therapy settings but parents can use and teach The Zones of Regulation at home, too. Implementing strategies across different environments increases the success of the program.

What does it teach children?

The program teaches a variety of social-emotional skills to children, starting with early emotional skills and advancing to self-regulation and navigating social situations.

Here are some skills covered in The Zones of Regulation:

• Identifying your emotions by categorising feelings into four coloured zones (blue, green, yellow and red)
• Self-regulation: Achieving the preferred state of alertness (zone) for a situation. This is all about regulating your body and emotional regulation
• Identifying triggers: Learning what makes you “tick” and why
• Coping strategies: Various techniques and strategies that help achieve emotional regulation and manage strong emotions
• Size of the problem: Introduces the idea that the size of your reaction should match the size of your problem, how to identify the size of your problem, and strategies for problem-solving
• Expected behaviour vs unexpected behaviour: This also covers perspective taking and how your behaviour affects the thoughts and feelings of the people around you

"Teachers encourage pupils to recognise and manage their emotions well."

- Inclusion Quality Mark assessment, 2025

How do we use The Zones of Regulation at Julian’s?

We display shapes with the colours of each Zone in each classroom. The children are encouraged to check in by moving their names to a corresponding Zone. This helps children to identify and name their emotions and enables teachers understand how their pupils are feeling and support them as needed. We also display some strategies next to the Zones which aim to help children to self-regulate.

All staff members use the language of The Zones of Regulation and encourage children to describe which Zone they are in. We also provide 1:1 and small groups support using ZoR strategies.

For further information, please review The Zones of Regulation workshop slides: