Are We Building Capacity, or Simply Managing the Moment?

Regulation strategies can be remarkably effective. Movement changes state. Environmental modification reduces demand. Relational support helps a child recover. Structure creates predictability. A sensory intervention may make participation possible.

The child settles. The session continues. The immediate problem is solved. But occupational therapy needs to ask another question:

What happens beyond the moment?

Immediate success matters

There is nothing insignificant about helping a child participate today. Sometimes the appropriate therapeutic goal is exactly that. Support the child through the transition. Help them remain in the occupation. Reduce distress. Restore participation.

But if our intervention repeatedly ends at successful management of the immediate moment, we may miss an important part of our role.

We need to consider whether today's support is contributing to future capacity.

What is changing over time?

Perhaps the child still needs support.

But are they:

• recovering more quickly?
• remaining engaged for longer?
• initiating a strategy?
• recognising when they need help?
• tolerating slightly greater demand?
• returning to the occupation?
• requiring fewer prompts?
• participating across more contexts?
• taking greater ownership?

These changes may be more meaningful than simply asking whether dysregulation occurred.

Progress doesn't always mean the support disappears. Sometimes it means the relationship between the child and the support is changing.

Co-regulation should be dynamic

Co-regulation isn't intended to keep adults permanently at the centre of children's regulation.

Nor should independence be pursued by withdrawing support before sufficient capacity exists. The challenge is responsiveness.

Within The Regulation Hourglass™, I describe this as:

Step In / Step Back.

FREE DOWNLOAD HERE:⬇️

https://www.theregulationhourglass.com.au/lp-know-when-to-step-in-and-when-to-step-back

We provide support when the child's available capacity is insufficient for the occupational demand.

Then we keep observing.

• As capacity becomes available, we alter the support.
• That might mean reducing prompts.
• Increasing choice.
• Allowing more processing time before intervening.
• Handing one component of the task back to the child.
• Or simply remaining available rather than actively participating.

What are we measuring?

This brings us back to where we started September.

If the primary outcome is: “The child remained regulated,” we may overlook important change. Instead, consider: What can this child participate in now that they couldn't participate in before?

And: How has the support required for that participation changed?

Those questions allow us to capture both present participation and developing capacity.

Support should have direction

Not every support needs to disappear. Humans use environmental, relational and practical supports throughout life.

• Glasses don't represent failed visual independence.
• Calendars don't represent failed executive functioning.
• Asking another person for help isn't necessarily dependence.

 So the goal shouldn't be to remove every support.

Instead, we need to consider whether support is:

• purposeful,
• proportionate,
• responsive,
• participation-enabling,
• and providing opportunities for increasing agency where appropriate.

Beyond the Moment

Perhaps this is one of the most important questions in regulation-informed practice: Is what I'm doing simply helping this child through this moment, or is it also contributing to their future capacity?

Sometimes the answer genuinely needs to be: Right now, we're getting through the moment. That's okay.

Timing matters.

But across intervention, we should also be able to see a direction of travel. 

• From greater support towards greater agency.
• From recovery with us towards increasing recovery with less of us.
• From accessing skills in highly supported contexts towards accessing them across more of everyday life.
• From participation being made possible for the child towards participation increasingly being owned by the child.

That's why I return repeatedly to this principle: Support today builds capacity for tomorrow.

Not because every support must eventually disappear. But because good support should help create possibilities beyond the moment in which it was provided.

Reflective supervision questions

1. How do you currently distinguish successful regulation management from developing regulation capacity?

2. For a child you've supported for six months, what can they participate in now that they couldn't before?

3. Has the amount or type of support required changed?

4. Are there supports you're trying to remove that may actually be appropriate long-term accommodations?

5. Where could you provide slightly more opportunity for agency without withdrawing necessary support?

6. What is the direction of travel in your intervention?

Support today builds capacity for tomorrow.

Right support. Right time. Right state.

Warmly, 

Beryl Smith 

The Regulation Hourglass™