Self-regulatory skills are fundamental abilities for every human being. They enable us to set and achieve goals and to adapt our behaviour to changing conditions. They include cognitive skills such as controlling actions and directing attention, as well as emotional skills, i.e. recognising and dealing with emotions. Self-regulatory skills also include social skills such as dealing with conflict and the ability to participate in society.
Training self-regulatory skills is particularly important in childhood and adolescence. The regions of the brain that enable action control only mature relatively late. Children and adolescents are therefore more willing to take risks and have more difficulty than adults in selecting actions that maximise their development opportunities.
This includes areas such as academic performance, but also resilience to mental and physical health issues, the ability to cope with crises such as climate change and war, the experience of violence and bullying, and how they use the internet and social media.
Psychological and neuroscientific research has shown that promoting self-regulatory skills can have both a protective effect and long-term positive consequences for children and adolescents, as well as for society. The National Academy of Sciences therefore recommends in its statement “Promoting the self-regulatory skills of children and adolescents in day-care centres and schools” that self-regulatory skills should become a further key perspective in the education system.
On the one hand, this relates to the further development of learning and developmental environments for the purpose of effective class guidance, cognitive activation and constructive support and, on the other hand, specific support programmes which can be integrated into lessons to support the skills of children and adolescents individually. These need to be adapted to the developmental stage of young people and, in addition to structured cognitive interventions also particularly address emotional and motivational aspects.
Scientific findings show that promoting knowledge of mental health, methods of behavioural therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness and compassion, as well as physical exercises, can strengthen self-regulatory skills and thus improve learning performance, mental health and social integration over the long term.