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.