Bobcat Stories

Whole-Child Wellness 
By Dr. Becky Bone
Bosque School Neuroscience Teacher and Counselor

An important executive functioning skill is self-control or emotional regulation. The ability to regulate one’s emotions is important not only for academic success, but is paramount in establishing and maintaining relationships, and is defined as the ability to manage and control one’s emotional responses to situations. Individuals who can effectively regulate their emotions have a higher likelihood of performing well in school (or work), improved mental and physical health, higher life satisfaction, stronger relationships, and higher emotional intelligence. 

Dr. Marc Brackett is a clinical psychologist and professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University and the founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Brackett is the lead developer of  RULER, which is an evidence-based, systemic approach to social and emotional learning. 

This approach conceptualizes emotional regulation as involving several steps; the letters in RULER stand for the operations that aid in regulating one’s emotions. We must first recognize what the emotion is, understand why we are having the emotion, correctly label the emotion, and be able to successfully express the emotion, all before we are able to regulate the emotion. 

One of the ways we aim to help students with emotional regulation skills is to build emotional literacy. Being able to identify and correctly name our emotions is crucial for emotional regulation. This is often referred to as “Name It to Tame It” and means that in order to regulate our emotions, we must first be able to correctly identify and name the emotion. Dr. Brackett also developed a Mood Meter to help delineate different types of emotions. The axes of the Mood Meter are pleasantness and energy, and where you are in relation to those two parameters will determine what quadrant of the Mood Meter you are in. Each quadrant represents a particular kind of emotion; the Red quadrant is associated with anger, the Blue represents emotions related to sadness, the Yellow is associated with happiness, and the Green represents feelings of calm. 

Our neuroscience classroom has a Mood Meter poster on the wall, and every class, students place themselves on a particular emotion in one of the four quadrants. It is a great way to build emotional literacy skills and normalize that we all feel a variety of emotions, all emotions are reasonable, and by building our literacy for emotions, we are one step closer to being able to regulate these emotions. Below is the Mood Meter that Dr. Brackett developed. His book, "Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive," is a great resource if you are interested in learning more about the social-emotional importance of emotional regulation.