When your child can’t self regulate, it breaks your heart. You watch them struggle with meltdowns over small things. You see them unable to calm down when upset. You notice how hard it is for them to focus and follow simple directions.
You might wonder, “What’s wrong with my child?” or “What am I doing wrong as a parent?” The truth is, when a child can’t self regulate consistently, there’s often a hidden brain issue at work. Understanding this can change everything about how you see your child’s struggles and how you help them.
The Hidden Crisis: When Brain Development Gets Disrupted
As we learned in this blog series about brain balance, God designed our brains to develop in a specific, clear way. But sometimes this natural process gets disrupted. This leads to what functional neurologist call Functional Disconnection Syndrome.
Functional Disconnection Syndrome happens when the two brain hemispheres mature at different rates. This causes communication problems between them. Instead of working together as a balanced team, one side of the brain works too fast. The other works too slow. This leads to over-reliance on one side. It creates the challenges that so many families face today.
Many of the challenging behaviors we see stem directly from these brain imbalances. When your child can’t self regulate, it’s often a sign that the brain hasn’t built the internal systems needed to handle life’s demands. Understanding this connection is crucial for making changes that can help our children thrive.
Want to know What Each Side of the Brain Controls?
To understand the root causes, it helps to know what each brain hemisphere is responsible for. This knowledge can help you recognize which side might need more support in your child.
The Right Side of the Brain ("The Brake Pedal") Controls
The right brain develops first and handles basic skills:
- Big picture thinking and seeing the whole situation
- Big muscle movements and gross motor control
- Controls posture, balance, and walking
- Processing social cues like body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice
- Calming down when upset and emotional regulation
- Foundation for verbal communication and language development
- Sensing sensations from our gut, heart, and lungs (interoception)
- Sense of smell and taste
- Attention and focus abilities
- Safety awareness and the “cautious brain” functions
- Controls negative emotions and fears
- Enjoys new situations and gets bored with routines easily
- Ability to stop and think before acting (impulse control)
The Left Side of the Brain ("The Gas Pedal") Controls
The left brain develops after 18 to 24 months and focuses on details:
- Detailed thinking and analytical processing
- Fine motor skills and precise hand movements
- Focusing on details and recognizing patterns
- Maintaining routines and following sequences
- Processing positive emotions and motivation
- Logical thinking and problem solving
- Getting motivated and excited about tasks
- The “approach” side of brain with “get up and go” energy
- Processing language through pattern recognition
- Verbal side of the brain and speech production
- Reading, writing, and mathematical skills
- Conscious thoughts and deliberate planning
Think of your child’s brain like a car with both a gas pedal and a brake pedal. The right brain acts like the brake pedal. It helps with impulse control and emotional regulation. The left brain acts like the gas pedal. It provides motivation and the drive to learn. When both systems work together smoothly, your child can handle life’s challenges with confidence.
Why Your Child Can’t Self Regulate: Modern Overstimulation Problem
Today’s world can be very overstimulating for developing brains. There’s a big imbalance in the activities and stimulation that children receive daily.
Our modern environment tends to trigger the left side of the brain (the gas pedal) before the right side (the brake pedal) has had a chance to build its foundation. Think about a typical day for many children: structured academic activities, detailed tasks, bright colors like reds and yellows, sweet floral scents, screen time, fine motor demands, and indoor environments. These experiences mainly activate the left brain functions. This creates an imbalance by making this side stronger and the right side weaker. Which can limit development of skills needed for impulse control and emotional regulation.
The struggles children have related to this, such as trouble focusing, tantrums, or problems following directions, can be frustrating for us as parents and educators. This stress affects everyone involved. It makes it even more difficult for self regulation or co-regulation to happen. Co-regulation is when we help children calm down and regulate their emotions until they develop the skills to do this on their own. This should be the goal before attempting to correct a behavior.
What Causes Brain Imbalances
Several factors in modern life can disrupt the natural brain development process. As parents and as a society, we’ve made choices with the best intentions. We often didn’t understand how they would impact our children’s developing brains. Now that we have this knowledge, we can make different choices that support healthy development. Making changes to your child’s routine now, can have a big impact in their life.
Environmental and Developmental Factors
These changes in how we raise and educate children are having deep effects on developing brains. It’s crucial that we understand them to start making a difference one child at a time.
Environmental and developmental factors that contribute to brain imbalances:
- Limited movement especially during early development when the brain needs sensory input
- High stress or traumatic events during pregnancy and early childhood development
- Poor nutrition that doesn’t support best brain growth
- Exposure to chemicals and plastics that can interfere with brain development
- Early screen time or too much high speed visual stimulation before age 2
- Too early emphasis on fine motor and academic skills instead of whole body movement and social interaction
- Less time for unstructured outdoor play and natural exploration
- Less social interaction and more solitary activities than previous generations
- Overstimulating environments with too much sensory input
The key insight that many parents find freeing is this. Kids need to play first to be ready to learn academic skills later. When we rush the developmental process, we can accidentally create the very problems we’re trying to avoid.
How Brain Balance Affects Every Area of Development
When a child can’t self regulate due to brain imbalances, it impacts far more than just behavior. Brain balance affects virtually every aspect of a child’s development and daily functioning. Understanding these wide reaching effects helps parents see why addressing brain balance is so crucial.
Motor Development and Coordination
- Poor motor coordination and body awareness
- Difficulty with both gross motor skills (running, jumping, balance) and fine motor skills (writing, cutting, buttoning)
- Challenges with bilateral coordination (using both sides of the body together)
- Retained primitive reflexes that should have integrated by certain ages
- Problems with hand dominance development
Physical Health and Body System
- Rapid heart rate, shallow breathing, and immature digestive system
- Food sensitivities
- Compromised immune system leading to frequent illness
- Sleep difficulties and irregular sleep patterns
- Sensory processing challenges with textures, sounds, lights, or movement
- Feeding difficulties and oral motor challenges
Emotional and Social Development
- Emotional reactions that seem out of proportion to situations
- Poor social skills and difficulty relating to peers appropriately
- Deficits in mirror neuron development leading to problems with empathy
- Difficulty reading facial expressions and understanding social cues
- Challenges with cooperative play and turn taking
Academic and Cognitive Development
- Delays or deficits in executive functioning skills
- Problems with working memory and attention span
- Difficulty following multi-step instructions
- Challenges with organization and planning
- Academic struggles that don’t match the child’s obvious smarts
Communication and Language Development
- Speech and language delays or difficulties
- Problems with understanding and using nonverbal communication
- Challenges with pragmatic language (social use of language)
- Difficulty with reading comprehension despite good decoding skills
This wide impact explains why when a child can’t self regulate, it affects their success in school, relationships, and daily activities. Addressing brain balance isn’t just about behavior. It’s about supporting whole child development.
Recognizing When Your Child Can't Self Regulate: Signs of Brain Imbalance
Understanding the signs can help you recognize whether your child’s challenges might stem from brain imbalances rather than behavioral issues. Different types of imbalances create different patterns of difficulties.
Signs of Too Much "Brake Pedal" (Right Brain Dominance)
When a child can’t self regulate because their left brain is overdeveloped compared to their right brain, you might notice:
- Difficulty controlling impulses, even when they clearly know the rules
- Poor safety awareness that constantly worries parents
- Trouble transitioning between activities without major meltdowns
- Constant movement and complete inability to sit still for age appropriate periods
- Extreme difficulty calming down once they become upset or overstimulated
- Increased fearfulness and anxiety in new situations
- Significant challenges with social interactions and difficulty reading social cues
- Trouble understanding when others are joking or being sarcastic
- Lack of empathy or difficulty seeing other people’s perspectives
These patterns are common in children diagnosed with ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Sensory Processing Dysfunction.
Signs of Too Much "Gas Pedal" (Left Brain Dominance)
When a child can’t self regulate because their right brain is overdeveloped without enough left brain balance, you might see:
- Extreme hesitation to try new things, even fun activities they might enjoy
- Big difficulty starting tasks, even ones they typically like
- Overcautiousness and shyness that seems too much for their age
- Learning challenges despite obvious smarts and capability
- Trouble with details, organization, and following multi-step directions
- Difficulty with fine motor tasks like writing, cutting, or using small objects
- Problems with sequential learning and remembering steps in order
- Challenges with staying motivated or excited about activities
These symptoms are commonly seen in children diagnosed with Learning Disabilities and can contribute to academic struggles.
Understanding Leads to Hope and Action
If you’re recognizing your child in these descriptions, understanding why your child can’t self regulate is the first step toward helping them thrive. These aren’t character flaws, yet they’re signs of a developing brain that needs specific support.
The encouraging news? Children’s brains can still change a lot, especially during the early years. When we understand what’s happening and make thoughtful changes, we can help support better brain balance and improved self regulation skills.
What This Means for Your Family
The choices we make as parents truly matter. Brain imbalances that make it hard for a child to self regulate don’t have to be permanent. With the right support and thoughtful activities, children can develop better communication between brain hemispheres and stronger self regulation abilities and better sensory processing.
Here’s the key. When a child can’t self regulate, they’re not being difficult on purpose. Their brain is doing the best it can with the systems it has developed so far. Our job as parents is to understand how our modern world affects brain development and make changes that support healthier growth.
When we change our approach, we’re not just helping one child. We’re creating positive changes that benefit the whole family and potentially influencing how our society raises the next generation.
Important Note
The information in this blog and others on this site is intended for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. If you have concerns about your child’s development, please consult with your pediatrician and ask for a possible referral for a Pediatric Occupational Therapist. You can also search for a pediatric functional neurologist in your area or check out the Brain Balance Centers for proper evaluation and guidance.
Ready to learn specific strategies?
Read our next blog, How to Calm Child Naturally: Brain Supporting Activities, for practical activities you can start using today to support your child’s brain balance and self regulation development, along with resources for professional help when needed.
Pro tip: You don’t have to wait for you child to start showing difficulties in this area. Check out my blog,
Read more on this blog series: Check out our blog- Child Behavior Problems: How Modern Play is Failing Kids to learn how play today has impacted brain development.
Do You Want to Support Your Child's Self-Regulation Journey with Expert-Backed Tools?
If you’re recognizing your child in the signs of brain imbalance described in this blog and want practical support to help them develop better self-regulation skills, Skidamarink Kids has the tools you need.
The Tantrum Tamer App was created specifically to help parents support their child’s developing brain through daily routines, positive reinforcement, and brain-building activities.
Created by a pediatric occupational therapist and mother with 20+ years of experience, this app provides:
- Complete parent education on brain balance and child development
- Interactive tools to increase cooperation and transitions to activities such as bath time and bedtime
- A customizable schedule and reward system designed to build self-regulation
- Expert-backed strategies to manage behavior challenges with confidence
- Daily activities that support healthy brain development
When your child can’t self-regulate, you need more than just information—you need a practical system that works with your family’s daily life.
Download the Tantrum Tamer App today to start supporting your child’s brain balance and bringing more calm to your home.
– Kendra
