Speaker Tricia DeFazio urges parents to 'practice the pause' and model emotional regulation for children

Tricia DeFazio, an educational consultant, speaker and author, led a parent workshop on emotional regulation that emphasized parents as role models and offered practical tools families can use at home and at school.

“An emotionally regulated adult is the best thing that we can give a child,” DeFazio told attendees, framing the session around the idea that adults who model calm help children learn to regulate their own emotions. She described anger, sadness and other emotions as normal and said the goal is to teach children how to experience and release feelings rather than suppress them.

DeFazio recommended simple practices parents can adopt, including naming emotions aloud, offering choices during a child’s big emotion to restore a sense of control, and using a brief “practice the pause” breathing or time-out strategy before reacting. She led an interactive activity in which parents identified personal coping strategies (music, walking, physical activity, crafts) and completed a “What Helps Me” wheel to share with their children and teachers.

DeFazio cited classroom observations to illustrate patterns she’s seen: staff reported many challenging referrals occurred on the playground and during midday hours; she recommended communicating a child’s preferred calming response to teachers to reduce mismatched adult responses (for example, giving a hug to a child who instead needs space).

The presenter also discussed gendered expectations around emotions and urged adults to make space for sadness as well as anger so children are not funneled to a single acceptable expression of feeling. DeFazio closed by encouraging parents to practice self-care, ask for help when needed and share the “What Helps Me” tools at home and with school staff. Bilingual materials were available; she said Spanish-language books of her work are due in August.