SAMMY
My Emotional Regulation Journey
My Emotional Regulation Journey
Loading your child's journey...
WELCOME BACK
Welcome back to your personalised Sammy emotional regulation journey.
Your child's personalised emotional regulation journey with Sammy.
Pick up where you left off in your Sammy programme.
Explore practical parent-support resources across Foundations, Connection, Growth and Everyday Tools.
MY JOURNEY
Supporting children to recognise, name and understand sensations and emotions with warmth and safety.
Children begin noticing body clues and connecting them with their experiences and feelings.
READYChildren begin building a richer emotional vocabulary by noticing, naming and talking about different feelings.
READYChildren explore how feelings change throughout the day and how moving or resting helps shift energy.
READYChildren learn to communicate their feelings and notice how friends and family members might be feeling.
READY
SAMMY 1
Explore all eight weekly sections together at your own pace.
Children begin noticing body clues and learning that their bodies can give them information about how they are feeling.
Noticing body clues can help children begin to understand their feelings before they become overwhelming.
Use calm, curious language and gently wonder together about what your child may be noticing.
"Let's slow down, notice our clues and see what our bodies are telling us."
Explore how different parts of the body can feel during different experiences.
Invite your child to notice different body clues without needing to change or fix them.
Draw, point to or describe what different parts of their body feel like.
Explore the difference between holding tension and gently letting the body soften.
Move softly and loosely.
Stand strong and steady, then soften your body again.
Keep the conversation natural and pressure-free.
Notice body clues during ordinary moments such as getting dressed, eating, playing, resting or preparing for bedtime.
Notice one body clue during the day and talk about what your child noticed.
Take a quiet moment to reflect on your child's week.
SAMMY 1
Giving feelings names helps children begin to understand what they are experiencing and communicate it with confidence.
Children learn that feelings can have different names and that finding a word for a feeling can help communicate what is happening inside.
Feeling words give children a way to communicate their experiences with the people who care about them.
Your child may begin using familiar feeling words or may look to you for help finding the right word.
Model simple feeling words throughout everyday moments without requiring your child to identify a feeling correctly.
Happy • Excited • Worried • Frustrated • Sad • Calm • Proud • Nervous
Find feeling words around the home and talk about what they might mean.
Paper or card, crayons, basket, toys, books or objects.
Create simple feeling-word cards with words or faces.
Stay curious and model your own feeling words.
Finds, chooses and talks about feeling words.
Notice which words your child recognises or connects with.
Create your own family feeling-word cards.
Bounce or stretch.
Use small movements and look around.
Make strong pushing movements, then soften.
Move slowly and gently.
Notice that feelings can show up in different ways and can change.
Keep conversation gentle and pressure-free.
Model feeling words during play, disappointment, connection and moments of uncertainty.
Notice three moments during the day and choose a feeling word for each one.
Take a quiet moment to answer these questions.
SAMMY 1
Children explore how feelings change throughout the day and how moving or resting helps shift energy.
This week helps children notice changes in their feelings and energy throughout the day and explore how movement and rest can support their regulation.
Support your child to notice changes in their energy and feelings throughout everyday experiences.
Explore how different movements and quiet moments can change the way the body feels.
Try changing between active movement and slow, restful movement while noticing how the body feels.
Talk about times when your child feels full of energy and times when their body wants to slow down.
Notice energy changes during ordinary routines such as mornings, after school, playtime and bedtime.
Notice one time your child's body wanted movement and one time it wanted rest.
Take a quiet moment to reflect on your child's week.
SAMMY 1
Explore all eight weekly sections together at your own pace.
Children learn to communicate their feelings and notice how friends and family members might be feeling.
Sharing feelings creates safety, connection, and empathy with others.
Notice small bids for connection, such as a child bringing you a toy or standing near you during big feelings.
Respond with presence and warmth:
Sammy says:
Objective: Build a symbolic bridge of connection and kind words.
Building blocks, cardboard boxes, or cushions.
Small paper cards or notes.
Create two islands on the floor using blankets, connected by a block bridge.
"This bridge connects us no matter what feelings come along."
Builds the bridge and walks their figure across.
Watch how proud the child feels as they name supportive strategies.
Keep the bridge up for the afternoon as a quiet cozy nook.
Fosters non-verbal co-regulation, empathy, and shared attention.
Keep conversation natural, cozy, and pressure-free. It is not an assessment!
"If they are crying or looking down."
"I like feeling proud and cozy!"
"I would give Sammy a big hug! You're okay Sammy!"
Review the day's feelings with gentle acceptance before sleep.
Offer a warm smile or gentle word to someone in your family when they seem busy.
Take a quiet moment to answer these questions.
Celebrate the journey you've taken together and the conversations, connection and learning you've shared.
Claim Certificate
PARENT SUPPORT
Practical guidance to help you understand, connect with and support your child's emotional development in everyday life.
Build a deeper understanding of body states, behaviour and co-regulation.
Strengthen safety, connection, body awareness and emotional communication.
Help children build emotional vocabulary, resilience and genuine confidence.
Simple strategies for routines, choices and transitions.
Understanding bodily energy and state readiness without judgment.
Just like a bank balance, a child's nervous system has energy deposits and withdrawals. When the budget is depleted by sensory load, fatigue, or hunger, children experience emotional dysregulation.
Framing regulation in terms of energy budgets removes blame and helps adults address physiological needs before expecting emotional composure.
Looking beneath the surface action to find the unmet need.
Every challenging moment is a child's best attempt to communicate that they are overwhelmed, disconnected, or lacking the skills to navigate a current situation.
When parents interpret behaviour as a cry for support rather than defiance, responses become compassionate and constructive rather than punitive.
Lending your calm until your child can find their own.
Children are not born with mature self-regulation; they develop it through thousands of experiences of co-regulating with calm, attuned adults.
An upset child cannot calm an upset nervous system. The adult's grounded nervous system acts as the biological anchor.
Building safety and trust as the bedrock of cooperation.
Children naturally want to cooperate with adults with whom they feel deeply connected. Emotional safety opens up the learning centers of the brain.
Without emotional connection, guidance feels like coercion and triggers defensive resistance.
Cultivating interoceptive awareness of physical cues and sensations.
Interoception is the sense of internal body states. Teaching children to identify heartbeats, breathing shifts, and muscle tension enables them to manage distress before it escalates.
Children cannot regulate sensations they cannot feel or understand.
Giving emotional experiences precise, validating words.
Neuroscience reveals that naming an emotion ("name it to tame it") engages the prefrontal cortex and reduces reactivity in the amygdala.
Naming feelings gives form to chaotic internal sensations and validates the child's lived experience.
Equipping children with rich words to express nuances of experience.
Moving beyond basic emotion words empowers children to pinpoint their exact inner state and select appropriate coping tools.
Language development and emotional regulation are deeply intertwined; verbal expression replaces physical acting-out.
Reframing setbacks as natural checkpoints in mastery.
Resilience is not the absence of difficulty; it is the willingness to pause, self-soothe, and re-engage with courage.
Fear of failure causes avoidance and anxiety; normalization of attempts fosters healthy persistence.
Nurturing genuine self-worth through authentic contribution and capability.
True confidence arises from feeling competent, trusted, and valued for who one is, rather than from superficial empty praise.
A child with secure internal confidence navigates social and emotional hurdles with calm assurance.
Creating an environment of external safety through rhythm.
Predictability reduces cognitive strain and cortisol levels in growing nervous systems. When children know what to expect, they feel secure.
Uncertainty triggers vigilant arousal in children who struggle with emotional regulation.
Fostering healthy autonomy within safe parental boundaries.
Offering limited, acceptable choices honors a child's need for personal agency while keeping adult leadership intact.
Power struggles disappear when children have legitimate avenues of control over their bodies and routines.
Easing the physical and mental friction of moving between activities.
Shifting attention from a preferred activity to a new demand requires immense executive function and can feel like a physical jolt to sensitive children.
Transition meltdowns occur when nervous systems are forced to pivot too abruptly.