The Zones of Regulation was created by Leah M. Kuypers, MA Ed, OTR/L in 2011 to teach a variety of social-emotional skills to children, starting with early emotional skills and advancing on to self-regulation and navigating social situations.

Here are some key terms from The Zones of Regulation:

• Identifying your emotions: Categorizing feelings into four zones (more on this below)

• Self-regulation: Achieving the preferred state of alertness (zone) for a situation. This is all about regulating your body and emotional regulation.

• Coping strategies: Various techniques and strategies that help achieve emotional regulation and manage strong emotions

• Size of the problem: Introduces the idea that the size of your reaction should match the size of your problem, how to identify the size of your problem, and strategies for problem-solving.

• Expected behavior vs unexpected behavior: This also covers perspective taking and how your behavior affects the thoughts and feelings of the people around you

What Are the Zones Colors & Their Meanings?

The Zones of Regulation uses four colors to help people self-identify how they’re feeling and categorize it based on color: Blue – low energy, Green – Ready to go, Yellow – some loss of control, and Red – loss of control