How we talk about regulation

Most people are overloaded. There’s nothing wrong with them.

That sentence is on the front of this site and the rest of it follows from there. This page sets out the words we use and what they mean, so anyone who wants to use them can, without buying anything.

Signals

A signal is what a body does before anything goes wrong.

Shoulders up. Hands tight. Words gone small as crumbs. A voice a notch louder than it needs to be. Sitting down and not being able to start.

Signals arrive early. Most advice arrives late, after the shouting and after the floor. Everything here is built for the earlier moment.

We use the same words for children and adults, at home, at school and at work, because what they describe doesn’t change between them.

The four words

Four words for what a body is doing.

The difference between fast and tight is which way the energy is going. Fast is a body going. Tight is a body holding. A body can do both at once, and often does.

Heavy covers a wide stretch, from tired-out to nothing-much-reaching-me. It’s one word on purpose, because a body in it hasn’t got the spare capacity to choose between two.

They aren’t steps, stages or levels. There’s no order to them and no right one to be in. They’re not colour coded and they’re not tied to behaviour.

Fast isn’t worse than heavy.

And unsure is always allowed. Not knowing which one it is isn’t a failed answer. It’s a common and honest one, and it’s a signal of its own. Nobody has to pick a word to be taken seriously.

A child can point at one. An adult can answer with one at half past nine at night without having to think about it. That’s the whole test, and it’s why the list is four words rather than twenty.

Four, and the same four everywhere. A child says tight and so does the adult standing next to them. That is the point of them, and it’s why we don’t add a fifth when a fifth would be more precise.

Signals, then steps

Every book ends on the same page, in the same shape.

Here are your signals. Here is what to do, in this order.

Find the edge. Press your hands together. Hum something low.

The order matters, because a body in the middle of something doesn’t read a paragraph. It follows a short list it already knows. So the steps get met in a story on a calm day, and they’re already familiar on the day they’re needed.

What we don’t do

Nobody is told to calm down. It’s an instruction aimed at the part of a person that isn’t listening, and it adds shame to a system that’s already full. It’s also why steady is the word here and calm isn’t: steady is coming back, not being still.

No villain and no lesson. Nothing in the stories is anyone’s fault, and none of them end with what should have been learned.

No colour coding and no hierarchy. A state isn’t a traffic light and a child isn’t on a level.

No diagnosis. These are books, not assessments. None of the words here describe a condition and none of them belong in a report.

No optimisation. Nothing here is a routine to keep up, a streak to hold, or one more thing to add to the day.

Regulation before optimisation

Regulation isn’t being calm. It’s how quickly a body comes back after something winds it up. A regulated body isn’t a still one. It’s one that can return.

Most advice, for adults and for children, assumes there’s a steady system underneath to build on. Better habits, firmer routines, one more technique. For a lot of people, and for most children by half past three, there isn’t one yet.

So the useful move is usually subtraction. Less noise rather than more tools. A landing before a lesson. Once there’s something steady to build on, optimise all you like.