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My toddler is 18 months right now and he never stops long enough for me to get a whole phrase out. How have you taught him "emotional regulation"?

By physical actions. I don't explain much to him, I do it / show it.

When he's upset, I put a hand on his back (bare skin) and hold it there, or I hold him on my chest while he breathes and I breathe with him.

Or if he falls over and is further away from me, I look at him, take a few big breaths and suggest that he takes some breaths.

By 18 mo he was often doing the deep breaths automatically.

No offense - I don't doubt that he does deep breaths if you've shown him deep breaths, and that's pretty cool - but don't you think it's a stretch to call that emotional regulation?

What I mean is, if someone showed me "deep breaths" I wouldn't conclude "people have emotions, they can affect us adversely, some times we don't control them if we're absent minded, better put some conscious effort into keeping them in check", least of all when I was 18 months.

I do the same thing with my kid and a lot of the time it helps with stopping and tantrum and getting my explanation in.

I also got him to do a few times a full 5 minutes of yoga in a row jaja.

It sounds like you're talking more about the knowledge of what emotional regulation is and what it means - totally agree that at 18 mo he had approximately zero understanding of that.

I'm talking about the practiced/done skill of emotional regulation. Seeing his ability to self-soothe relative to other kids at 18 months, it's very clear that he has a solid amount of the skill of emotional regulation, even without any understanding of what it means.

I will start doing this.

Nice. Here's how it might go down:

He climbs up somewhere and gets kinda stuck. I go over to him and put my hand on his back and breathe and invite him to breathe. Then I spot him, but I don't help him down, I encourage him that he'll be able to get down.

Often, he only wanted his mom to do the breathing with him. That's fine. He falls, cries, we both offer him a hug, he goes to mom and she breathes with him while he cries and I put my hand on his back while she's holding him and offer him a gentle gaze if he wants to look at me, while I breathe with him as well.

I did this and had positive results.

I didn't do the "hand in skin" part, because he had his clothes on and when I tried putting my hand inside his clothes it just annoyed him more.

He was having a tantrum. I sat on the couch and sat him on my lap facing me. I pulled him towards me chest on chest. He quickly got more annoyed to be held down but I kept him there. I started doing deep breaths. It took him a bit to realize that we were "doing something" but slowly he started settling down and within 10 minutes he had stopped crying. This is in contrast with "normal" where if I hold him down while having a tantrum it just escalates. Eventually I stopped when I noticed that he was about to fall asleep.

It's unclear whether the deep breaths actually contributed or whether this was just a lucky one-off. I'll continue this.

A lot of these could be due to temperment rather than learned behaviour..

More things:

* As much as possible, other than basic bodily needs, made him adjust to us rather than us adjusting to him. This way we're calm and not stressed by things he's doing, which makes it easy for us to be there for him in the way he needs and to be a good example

* Allowing him to have lots of small failures. Whenever I can let him experience a small consequence that won't be too bad, I do. This has been super helpful. He's learned how to prevent lots of bigger ones. I mean for things like small falls.

* Generally allowing him to experience the natural consequences of his actions as much as possible, both good and bad. Even if it has a negative consequence for him, as long as it's not too much.

* Good sleep, minimal medical interventions, generally relying on the body to be an expert at a body thanks to millions of years of evolutionary refinement

* Giving him exposure to as many things that he might enjoy as possible (hobbies and activity wise), and helping him have a positive first experience. Then the rest is on him. But if I can give him positive first experiences to dozens of activities, then I trust he'll be able to find some he loves. If I didn't expose him to them, he might not find them, and if I didn't help him have a positive first exposure, then he might not find an interest. But then after that he's on his own with it other than if he shows a ton of interest in it I'll support his interest

* Not doing things for him that I don't want to do. I keep my "debt" at zero. I don't want to do anything that'll make me build up subtle resentment toward him.

* Allow him to keep the responsibility for things. Yesterday he climbed into a box and gets stuck. Rather than help him out, I put a hand on his back, helped him breathe, then encouraged him that he'll be able to get out, and sure enough he did.

* I don't do things for him once unless I'd do them for him always (if I let him do something once, he'll expect it the next time, so then either I need to disappoint him, or I need to do something I don't want to do)

* I aim to be as predictable as possible for him and to help his world be predictable. The brain is a prediction engine and hates surprises, so I minimize the surprises he has to deal with

* My view is that by 10-13 or so I'll need to have taught him any skills and given him the emotional associations (things I hope he avoids and seeks), because he won't listen much after that. Emotional associations I'll never try and lecture to him, I'll only try and show him so he develops the emotional learning himself

* My view is that I'm aiming to make myself obsolete as a parent. I eventually want him to not need me.

* At first, protect him from the realities of the world. Then, introduce the realities of the world one tiny piece at a time so that by the time he's an adult, it's not a shock that he has to adapt to all at once.