Teaching Regulation as a Developmental Skill in Schools with Leah Kuypers ~ 1335

Leah Kuypers: If a kid isn’t reading on target, then we put a lot of support into that learner to try to help scaffold this so that they can build these skills and become successful. And regulation is a developmental skill as well, yet historically, we’ve taken a very different approach than reading in how we manifest this skill set.

The red zone is not the bad zone, and I think that’s another huge misconception. We all get angry. We all experience the red zone. It’s also learning how to manage that, so that maybe I don’t lash out verbally at someone or hurt someone in that moment. So it’s okay to have those feelings, and we just need to have safe behavior and not harm ourselves or others.

Tim Villegas: Hi, friends. Welcome back to Think Inclusive: Real Conversations About Building Schools Where Every Learner Belongs. I’m your host, Tim Villegas. Today’s episode is about regulation, not as a behavior to manage, but as a skill to actually teach.

And if you’ve ever been in a school that uses the Zones of Regulation, you know how much that distinction matters. My guest is Leah Kuypers, an occupational therapist, internationally recognized trainer and speaker, and the creator of the Zones of Regulation.

Her framework is used in schools around the globe, and in 2024, she released an updated digital curriculum that builds on everything she’s learned from 15-plus years of watching it work and watching it get misapplied. We talk about what the zones are actually designed to do, how co-regulation was baked into the model before anyone was really using that word, and what it looks like when a whole school builds its climate around this framework from elementary all the way through high school.

And there’s a story Leah tells about a five-year-old that I keep thinking about. It says everything about what the zones can do when the adults get out of their own way.

Before we meet our guest, I wanna tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by IXL. IXL is an all-in-one platform for K-12 that helps boost student achievement, empowers teachers, and tracks progress in one place. As students practice, IXL adapts to their individual needs so that every learner gets just-right support and challenge, and each student gets a personalized learning plan to close gaps. Check it out at ixl.com/inclusive. Again, that’s ixl.com/inclusive.

All right, after a quick break, it’s time to think inclusive with Leah Kuypers. Catch you on the other side.

Leah Kuypers, welcome to the Think Inclusive podcast.

Leah Kuypers: Thank you so much, Tim. It is an honor to be a part of this community.

Tim Villegas: It’s an honor to meet you. As someone who has been in public schools—I taught in public schools for 16 years—I have definitely used Zones of Regulation, and knowing just a teeny bit about your story, it’s wonderful to have you on, and I think that this will be a great conversation.

Just in case someone is like, “Zones of Regulation, what is that?” Do you mind briefing our audience? What is Zones of Regulation?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah, of course. The zones is a way to think about, a way to communicate around, and a way to help manage our emotions, our energy levels, our states of alertness.

It creates a framework that we can think and co-regulate around, really giving us an easy way to structure all these different ways we feel into these four colored zones. There’s the blue zone: low energy, down feelings. The green zone, which is more of that calm energy—focused, kind of neutral emotions.

The yellow zone gets higher energy. Our emotions start maybe ramping up a little bit, but we think of still having some of that executive functioning a little more accessible in the yellow zone. And then the red zone is when we have really big, overwhelming feelings. It can be feeling panicked or devastated, furious, or positive emotions like elated, euphoric. A guiding principle is all the zones are okay. We really try to honor the emotions that we have and help give strategies to support the regulation of those zones or feelings, to give us a sense of wellbeing and accomplish our tasks and goals in front of us.

Tim Villegas: Wonderful. Thank you. And what I remember about the zones and there being this misunderstanding—I’m sure we’ll get into more of this—but that the zones have an assigned value, or that green is good, red is bad, right?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah. We’ve really tried to move away from any sort of misapplication like that, ’cause over the years I have seen it misapplied and be transformed incorrectly into more of a behavioral or discipline model, which is completely counter to my intent and mission around the zones. As the work has evolved over the years, I’ve made it become very loud that this is not the way the zones should be applied.

It is not using the zones with fidelity when we’re using it with that kind of behavioral lens or having one zone be preferable, because it’s really counterintuitive then for the child who is now going to be masking to be in this preferred zone that they perceive maybe from their teacher.

And then that’s gonna create dysregulation within them, as it’s like, “That’s not really honoring how I feel or where I’m at, but I’m trying to please my teacher or do the right thing.” I recognize the green zone can feel really good and comfortable, and maybe it is where we do our best learning, and that’s not where a lot of our kids are.

That’s not necessarily where us adults are either. It’s really about being aware of where you’re at and deciding, do I need to regulate to have a better sense of wellbeing or to feel a sense of accomplishment of what I’m trying to do here? And sometimes that means regulating our green zone even, because maybe we need more energy for the task in front of us, or maybe we need less energy to fall asleep at night, for example.

That really was a very unfortunate way some of the zones got applied in different settings that was never my intent, and so I’m just trying to really correct that and steer the conversations. Our new digital curriculum that we released last summer in 2024 almost makes it foolproof so that that can’t happen if you’re using the Zones of Regulation digital curriculum, which is essentially the second edition, if you will, of the original book.

Tim Villegas: Okay. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. So I’m gonna put a pin in this conversation about viewing zones through a behavioral lens, ’cause I think that’s really interesting. If I don’t get to it, remind me.

But I would like to start with this question about implementation, because—gosh, this is me not doing my homework—but the Zones of Regulation, when you first published it… I taught, let’s see… in 2010? I wanna say 2010. Is that right?

Leah Kuypers: It first was written as my capstone in 2008, for my master’s, and it was really based on my work as a clinician. I’m an occupational therapist working in the schools, and I was also in the role of an autism resource specialist.

So it really came out of that work, and I started presenting on it before it became a published book. It became widely accessible in 2011 as the print curriculum. And so people found it at different parts of their career along this pathway.

Tim Villegas: And widely adopted. So you’ve seen it grow and being implemented for over a decade, right? And so I’m wondering, as schools are evolving in their implementation and embedding of zones into the daily life of the school and how they support learners, what are some really great ways you’ve seen schools embed zones into the life of the school?

Leah Kuypers: It’s been humbling and just really thrilling to see how the Zones has launched and taken off in different settings, schools, districts. There is a school in rural Australia that we found out about because of a media clip that Google sent us as it flagged the Zones of Regulation, and it was on ABC Australia or something like that.

It talked about how the Zones is being used as a school-wide practice and how they’ve embedded Zones themes with Aboriginal art techniques to create murals and artwork throughout the school, to honor their identity as well as to really create the climate of the school—that all zones are okay and that this is part of our practices to support our wellness in this setting.

So I thought that was really cool. I’ve worked with a middle school in Madison, Wisconsin, that integrated the Zones check-ins into a playground and outside landscape remodel, so that they could take principles of the Zones and support learners in check-ins and positive mental health, and embed tools into the yard or the outdoor space that they had, so that kids could find ways to support their zones while they were out at recess time as well.

So I thought that was a very cool application too. Both of them speak to building this climate around regulation and emotional wellbeing that the Zones can really help to strengthen—that this is a common practice, a common language, common visuals that make it more accessible for everyone to take part of.

Tim Villegas: Clearly this idea of regulation and the need for being aware of your emotional and even biological state is like this touchpoint in education. When you zoom out, this filled a need, right? We’ve needed this in schools for a long time.

And so this was a way for schools to support learners. And not just learners with disabilities—all learners. As the examples you gave show, it’s for everybody. It’s for everybody in the school. Yeah, go ahead. What were you gonna say?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah, I was gonna say, and support learners and in equal parts support the staff—the educators, the adults in the building. Because being in education, like you, I’m sure you can relate to how many times you’re standing there not sure what to do and how to support these kids. I didn’t feel equipped. I felt like there weren’t the resources that I needed to do my job successfully to help these kids do their job successfully.

So I wanted positive practices for kids, and to be proactive and truly teach them the skills and help them develop the competencies around regulation. But I also wanted to give the adults a positive, proactive way to make their job easier too, and hopefully resort less to those punitive disciplinary measures that I saw being so ineffective, but often what was resorted to for lack of knowing where to turn.

Tim Villegas: Right. And I’m glad you brought up educators, because one of the things that I’ve been learning—I think our audience has been learning—about regulation is this idea of co-regulation, and how, when an educator enters a space with learners, it affects the learners.

And I think for a lot of us, that just makes intuitive sense, but naming it, I think, is really powerful. So I’m having a hard time remembering—in the book, ’cause I used it as a resource when I was an educator, but I’m removed from the classroom—how much of this idea of co-regulation was part of your early work? And if it wasn’t, is it in the new iteration, the digital curriculum?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah, it’s interesting to reflect on, because the original title of the book was something like The Zones of Regulation: A Curriculum to Foster Emotional Control and Self-Regulation—I believe that was the official very long title.

First of all, co-regulation—this was, like, 20 years ago when I was writing it—was something almost exclusively only taught or talked about with infancy and toddlers. And yet we were doing so much co-regulation, but the focus was on self-regulation. That conversation has really evolved, and what the zones really does is create a co-regulation model for the adults, by giving common language, by giving visuals that we can communicate around as well, and really helping the adult strengthen their strategies to support learners.

So all of that was inherently built into the original curriculum without really directly calling it out.

Now, fast-forward to 2024, as we released this updated version of the curriculum, I made the decision just to talk about regulation and not point out self-regulation versus co-regulation, because so much of what we do is this continuity between the two.

We adults are co-regulating still. You’re maybe connecting with your partner, your spouse, a family member, a trusted friend when you have a hard day or wanna share an exciting part of your life too. And as we’re looking at our kids and how we’re supporting them, yes, they’re self-regulating some of the time.

They’re also co-regulating a ton of the time, and being attuned to that as the adult, using the zones, you’re inherently going to be co-regulating with them. And I wanted to recognize that I’ve never met a person who’s mastered self-regulation, myself included. So I wanted to take away this pressure to build these efficient self-regulators and make that the expectation—that, “Oh, we use the zones and all these kids are gonna self-regulate, and I don’t have to worry about this anymore.”

Because the reality is that they still need you as a co-regulator. That’s still your role in the life of really anyone who you care about or you’re in service of. And so I think for those reasons, it made more sense just to talk about regulation than self-regulation.

Tim Villegas: No, that makes sense.

Leah Kuypers: And we’ve built out a whole stack of tools in the digital curriculum that is co-regulation tools that they can use to help support regulating their zone.

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When I was supporting teachers on using zones—which sounds really funny ’cause I’m talking to you about this. But I know there’s a lot of people like me that did that, so I guess I shouldn’t feel too weird about it. Particularly for learners who are using AAC devices or who are non-speaking, or maybe have an intellectual disability, I think it was hard for educators to wrap their minds around, “Well, how do I do that with them?”

Like that profile. And it was always kind of an interesting conversation, like, “Okay, zones—it’s okay for these kids, but for these kids we need something different.” So I’m wondering, is that something that comes up when you are talking about zones? And back to implementation, have you seen good ways of applying zones to learners with that kind of profile?

Leah Kuypers: Yes. That profile of a learner is really the learners who inspired me to create this. I wanted to give them a simple language that they could access. So from really the very beginning, the origins of coming up with the zones, having their PECS book or their assistive tech device, we would program in, “Here’s the blue zone feelings,” with a couple emotions in it, “Here’s the yellow zone feelings,” to give them that language.

What we found then is that having that way to communicate really gave them that self-expression. They could share out how they were feeling, rather than maybe resorting to a disruptive behavior or something. We have now really built in a lot of iconography and created a whole AAC library with our digital curriculum to really make that so much more easy and accessible for adults to, say, program into a device or create your laminate-and-Velcro communication boards or whatnot.

Because those are learners that really inspired me to try to think through the system and give them tools and resources, so I really wanted to make sure that we had the tools for them, the visual supports for them, to make this be meaningful for their communication needs.

Tim Villegas: Did you have more?

Leah Kuypers: Well, there was one student—and if you’ve heard me give a podcast or a training before, you might recognize this story. But there was this five-year-old that I was working with when I was first flushing out the zones in my mind, and we were using it in his classroom.

He had an intellectual disability. And over time—well, in pretty quick time—he became really efficient and aware of his feelings and using the zones. And so he would be able to check in—we always did check-ins during morning meeting and as they came back into the classroom throughout the day from moving around the school, and we’d invite them to do it on their own as well.

And one day, of his own will, he checked in in the red zone, which was huge for him. Usually the red zone is the hardest zone for most kids to check in, just because our feelings are really big and intense and overwhelming. And we created the climate that it’s okay to check in in the red zone. We all get mad, we all get scared and have these big red zone feelings.

So first of all, we were like, “Oh, wow, he checked in in the red zone. That is such an awesome step forward. He’s letting us know where he’s at.” And then he put himself into timeout, and we’re like, “Well, wait a minute. You don’t need to go to timeout. No one’s sending you to timeout.”

And again, this was a school that I worked at that really fueled my creativity and my drive and motivation to create this, because I saw way too many kids in restraint and seclusion, and I was trying to prevent that from happening.

So we’re like, “Did he just check in in the red zone and put himself in timeout?” Unfortunately, he had associated those two. Not because we were saying, “If you’re in the red zone, you go to timeout,” but as he was building awareness of “I have these big feelings,” that all too often resulted in timeout staff coming.

So with that, we rewrote that script for him and created a space in the classroom that was the regulation station—a non-punitive space to use tools and not have adults sitting there trying to problem solve or discuss with him. And a low sensory load.

And so by the end of his kindergarten year, we were able to recommend moving him from a Federal Setting Four placement back into his community school, and decrease that restrictive environment for him. Which was a huge win for him—he got to now go to school with his brother and his family. As well as for the district, and just the resources that are needed to educate a kid in a Federal Setting Four versus a Setting Three.

Tim Villegas: I’m not familiar with that term, but it sounds to me like some sort of out-of-public-school placement. Is that right?

Leah Kuypers: A public school placement where it’s all special ed classrooms—no exposure to non-disabled peers.

Tim Villegas: Gotcha. Okay. I think most states have some sort of iteration of that, right?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah. So this was the school that bused the kids from all over the county. It was primarily kids whose behavior concerns were too much for them to be able to successfully participate in a general ed setting or a self-contained classroom in a general ed school.

Tim Villegas: Right. I wanna go back to what you said about a behavioral lens when looking at zones.

When you created zones, and even now—should we be looking at zones through a behavioral lens? Meaning—I’ll give you an example. This might help. So if a student, like the example you gave, checked in on red because he was aware that he was in the red zone, a behaviorist view might be like, “Okay, I’m gonna reward him, and I’m going to give him positive reinforcement for checking in on red.” And maybe that positive reinforcement is connected to some sort of token system, some sort of reward system. That seems plausible to me, right?

If you are viewing supporting learners through a behavioral lens, how do we parse out this idea of self-regulation as self-reinforcing, and then also certain educators and systems supporting learners in being self-aware by using rewards and token systems and stuff like that? Does that question make sense? ‘Cause I was really trying hard to be clear.

Leah Kuypers: Yeah, I think so. What we’re trying to dissect is, what is the behavior you’re trying to reinforce?

If the behavior you’re trying to reinforce is self-identification of where you’re at through a communication board or visual, or self-expressing with whatever means, then I can see the value of positively reinforcing that. You know, “Nice job checking in.” We have a learning target in our digital curriculum that is: I can check in in each of the four zones privately or with another. So I also wanna make space to honor that not every learner is gonna feel comfortable self-expressing that.

In that way, I wouldn’t want to put the pressure on to have to show someone else. Kids come to us with lots of different reasons that might make that difficult. Maybe they have a history of trauma, and maybe there’s not a trust there with the adult that would make them comfortable.

So I would caution against maybe using that behavioral goal, and maybe our learning target is a little more inclusive then, of being able to let learners represent their awareness in whatever way honors them.

Tim Villegas: Right. So that way you’re really not shaping the behavior of expression, right? You’re letting that learner express how they want to express, as opposed to being like, “This is the only way that you can express how you are feeling.”

Leah Kuypers: Right. I mean, if the end goal is that you’re trying to build self-awareness, then yeah, I think it’s in our best interest to try to really honor the child’s ways that are going to facilitate that with the most comfort.

Tim Villegas: I think that strictly viewing particularly problem behavior in schools through a behaviorist lens is evolving, right? Whether you say, “Okay, well, I still adhere to ABA or PBIS principles, but we’re doing it in a different way,” or you’re saying, “I’m rejecting that viewpoint and we’re going a different way totally,” I feel like where things are going is this idea of self-awareness and regulation, not only for the student, but also for the educator.

And not only for this idea of co-regulation, but a school-wide support. It seems to me that people are really moving in that direction, and I think a lot of that has to do with what we’re learning about the brain and neuroscience. And thank goodness for people like Ross Greene, Mona Delahooke—I’m trying to remember other people that are in this line of work.

Leah Kuypers: Daniel Siegel?

Tim Villegas: Yes. Thank you.

Leah Kuypers: He’s another great one. And Tina Payne Bryson—they have some great work on that too.

Tim Villegas: Yes. So I guess my question is to you, do you see this shift, and how are you feeling about that and where Zones fits into all of it?

Leah Kuypers: Well, I’ve felt that using a behavioral principle model has in many ways tried to shape a behavior without giving the foundational skill building needed for that behavior to flourish—speaking in a positive lens, positive behavior. And so what I found through my practice as an OT was that kids needed instruction, and they needed exposure, and they needed practice, and they needed a safe climate, a safe space, to do this and for that positive behavior we’re aiming for to flourish.

I also saw many point systems and many reinforcement classroom management systems fail so many kids. It was 100% predictable which kids were always gonna be on the undesirable level. And I just found that using that kind of behavioral lens to try to manage behavior just made these kids feel singled out—shame, low self-esteem.

So I wanted to do better by them, and I saw that teaching them a lesson through this behavioral lens didn’t build the skill sets. I’m like, “Why don’t we really truly teach them lessons in this?” Where’s a curriculum to really help them build this skill set, help that brain develop these pathways?

And so that’s really, to me, what the Zones is about: trying to fill that gap and truly build these skills, develop those pathways so that they are more perceptive and able to have that self-awareness, which is then foundational for their regulation. It’s very hard to regulate what you’re not aware of.

And help them build out problem-solving skills and responsible decision-making around their regulation so that they could really think through this process. Ultimately, I constructed it as a pathway to support regulation so that we could really stair-step them through it. And there certainly are opportunities—if they try a tool, even if it doesn’t work, why not reinforce that positively with acknowledgement or a tool award or something? And maybe together as a classroom you’re trying to earn a popcorn party after you’ve tried 200 tools or something.

I think there’s opportunities to still incorporate some of that behavior management in a positive lens. Yet I also feel like they need more instruction than just, “Do this. Okay, you get that. Do this. Okay, you get that.” Because I just didn’t see the connection between that for kids. They needed a lot more structuring and scaffolding of the skill set to be able to perform it.

Tim Villegas: Right. It’s like—Jessica Minahan, actually, is one of the… she wrote a book called The Behavior Code. And I’m almost positive this is her, so if this is not her, Jessica, I’m so sorry. But I think it aligns. It’s this idea that misbehavior or problem behavior is due to underdeveloped or lack of skills, right? And so to your point, why are we creating this system of positive reinforcement or rewards or whatever when we haven’t even taught the skill yet?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah. And I think it’s so fascinating to think about regulation in this lens of how we develop other abilities, like reading. Reading is a developmental ability. We put a whole lot of effort into teaching and shaping those abilities for our learners to ultimately be able to access and read independently, right?

And if a kid isn’t reading on target, then we put a lot of support into that learner to try to help further scaffold this so that they can build these skills and become successful. And regulation is a developmental skill as well, yet historically, we’ve taken a very different approach than reading in how we really manifest this skill set.

And unfortunately, I think many, many kids have been done wrong by our systems, where these behavioral practices were put in place to expect this from them without giving them the support and the nurturing needed to really truly foster this skill set. And I think when a lot of people hear that regulation is developmental, it clicks a little differently.

It moves away from seeing these kids as good or bad, or that they did right or wrong. We’re all on this developmental continuum around regulation, even as we’re in our adulthood. Some of our learners excel in this, as some of our learners excel in reading at a young age. And some of our learners are gonna need more support, and that’s not because they’re bad. It’s just where they’re at in their development.

Tim Villegas: I wonder what Zones of Regulation looks like beyond elementary school—secondary, middle school, high school. I think especially for people who have done it, it’s pretty easy to picture what this looks like in elementary school. Do you have any good examples of implementation in secondary?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah. Where you come in with zones at secondary is going to be informed by how rich of an experience your primary-age learners had with zones, because you can start zones from scratch in secondary, and our curriculum is aligned for doing that with that population.

We specifically created the Zones digital curriculum knowing that there’s a lot of secondary-age learners who never got this instruction and really need it and can benefit. My own son was in middle school while I was writing the second curriculum, and he was a great sounding board, telling me, “Mom, no, that’s not cool. They will not do that.” And now he’s in high school and still says, “No, this is relevant.”

So we tried to really write the second curriculum having nothing that seemed babyish, but still using simple language—we wrote it at about a third, fourth grade reading level. Also knowing we have a lot of kids new to country or where English is not their first language, and wanting to make it accessible for them. And using pictures and illustrations that represented adults as well as kids, so that we really are reinforcing the message that the Zones is for everyone.

And then creating what we called geared activities to reinforce each concept in the curriculum with differentiated entry points and activities, so that our gear three activities really speak toward our secondary—really meant for middle school, high school age learners—to apply their learning and really extend it beyond the learning targets. So with that said, that’s what it can look like for a middle school or high school just picking this up.

And we work with a lot of secondary-age schools. My kind of utopia of what this can look like is that these elementary schools are really digging into the curriculum, applying it, and over time, that direct instruction does not need to be as intense, and that can fade out.

And what grows is the climate factors. With all of our concepts in the curriculum, we have climate practices embedded. And with each concept, we have one key climate practice that we put up front and a whole bunch of climate practices at the end of the concept, because we know regulation doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

That space needs to be welcoming. They need to feel that regulation is the norm, that they’re not the exception. We need to have a place that honors that all feelings, all zones are okay, and we’re all working to manage our own feelings and zones. And so we really highlight these climate practices to build success.

And as these kids are growing, the zones is this metacognitive framework. So with time, with repeated exposure, they’re going to build that metacognition of being able to self-identify what zone they’re in, understand the context, the situation they’re in, with more complexity and nuance. They’re going to be able to make more decisions.

Do I need to regulate? Yep, and I’m in the blue zone. Here’s my blue zone toolbox—this one’s gonna work great in this setting. And then reflect: “Yep, my regulation’s working for me,” or, “Nope, maybe my regulation’s not working for me. Let me revisit this pathway.” So that’s the zones pathway that is really sequenced through the curriculum.

So as the learners in the primary years are building this pathway, in middle school and high school we can revisit the four zones. We can vary our visuals—maybe it’s less illustrated and more like an energy meter, for example, with the zones and emotions written on it without the faces.

There’s lots of ways to visually represent the zones that can change with the kids. And then we have to look at our triggers, which are going to differ when we’re in high school versus elementary school. The complexity of the situations, and how you regulate at home versus at school versus in community.

So what does my, say, red zone toolbox look like when I’m at school? What’s my toolbox for when I’m at home? What’s my toolbox if I’m out with friends in public? And so we can get into those complexities and update these—what we call signature practices in the curriculum—to be relevant for whatever stage of life you’re in.

And those can be the core features we go back to in the curriculum year after year. But all around is, “Hey, we use the zones in this school. Here’s the four zones. Let’s take a minute.” We check in every day as we get settled into maybe our crew or homeroom, with the zones, just to keep it fresh.

I’ve worked with Tacoma Public Schools, where they licensed zones to be part of the digital interface that kids are checking in on. So they have a digital check-in as part of their system, and then they self-insert their tools—if I’m checking in in the yellow zone and decide I need to regulate, what are my tools and strategies?

And so they’ve created the resources for kids to kind of grow with them. And that’s a very unique example, but they’ve also created the climate for this to be successful, to grow with the kids too, and nurture them and their wellbeing with the zones as that anchor.

Tim Villegas: And that’s Tacoma, Washington?

Leah Kuypers: Mm-hmm.

Tim Villegas: Oh, nice. Washington State’s got some really interesting things going on, so that doesn’t surprise me.

Leah Kuypers: Yeah. I’m afraid they lost that grant funding, though.

Tim Villegas: Oh, okay. Leah, I am wondering—having created Zones and then having it be implemented in so many schools over so many years, I’m sure it is not without its critics. What to you is the biggest critique of Zones? And is the critique really a misunderstanding of what you’re trying to do? I know that’s kind of a leading question, but let’s start there.

Leah Kuypers: I’ve seen different critiques—like, why would we use colors to talk about feelings, for example. And I don’t feel like that is actually the case when you get into the curriculum. We’re talking a lot about “I feel in the whatever zone.” The colors assist; it creates a system to help us organize how we feel. We don’t avoid talking about actual feelings and self-labeling with an emotional term in the curriculum.

I think that’s a misunderstanding. In the heat of the moment, now, if a kid tells me, “I’m in the red,” I get it. And I’m not gonna try to filter out, “Well, are you furious? Are you irate? Are you panicked?” The simple system is helpful to co-regulate with this individual and understand how to be attuned to them. But that also can be an entry point for kids. Maybe they’re like, “I’m irate.” Maybe they’re like, “I’m in the red.” Or maybe they just feel the body signals, like the heat flushing through them. However they come to that self-awareness, I think, is valuable.

There’s not one that’s better than another. It’s just that self-awareness—being able to recognize where you’re at in that moment is going to then inform you in how you may manage that.

Tim Villegas: Right. Any others?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah, so there’s that. And we kind of fleshed out the thinking that there’s a behavioral lens, with the red zone being the bad zone. And this isn’t behavioral, so it’s about, “Yep, I’m in the red zone, and do I need to manage that?” If there’s a big scary event, you’re going to have red zone feelings, and that might be protective in nature—to run away from that danger or to fight back from that danger.

And so the red zone is not the bad zone, and I think that’s another huge misconception. We all get angry. We all experience the red zone. It’s also learning how to manage that, so that maybe I don’t lash out verbally at someone or hurt someone in that moment. So it’s okay to have those feelings, and we just need to have safe behavior and not harm ourselves or others.

So that’s where that regulation of those feelings comes into play, which the zones creates that structure to help us do.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you self-identifying those critiques and then showing where there might be some misunderstanding.

I am wondering about how this can apply to other situations other than school—meaning in the community, at home, places of worship, wherever. What strategies have you seen people using zones in these other environments?

Leah Kuypers: Yeah. I’ve seen zones applied to sports and kind of sports psychology, as we look to maybe prepare for a competition, and then manage ourselves when we’re in that competition, and how we respond when we win or lose after that competition. The zones is an easy fit with people participating in competitions, and it doesn’t have to be athletic in nature either.

We’ve worked with juvenile centers, with zones in juvenile and even adult corrections, adult day treatment centers. We’ve worked with the Boys and Girls Club, integrating into after-school care and classes.

The Girl Scouts, I think—they approached us, or maybe it was the Cub Scouts. One of the scouts approached us to see about a zones badge that could be earned.

Tim Villegas: That’s awesome.

Leah Kuypers: So yeah, it’s really limitless. We say, “Who can use the zones?” Almost everyone. Who can teach the zones? Anyone interested in fostering regulation.

Tim Villegas: That’s great. That’s amazing.

Leah Kuypers: Inpatient hospitalization. I was on with a customer service rep with a major US company, and we were just waiting for something to work through on the computer side, and she was like, “So what do you do? What’s this email—thezonesofregulation.com?” So I was telling her, and she goes, “Oh my God, we need this here.”

Tim Villegas: I know.

Leah Kuypers: Like, corporate America, yeah.

Tim Villegas: Yes, yes. Oh my gosh. I’m remembering a conversation from when I was still working in schools, when we were more steeped in the language. We had just gotten out of a meeting with our principal, and we’re not feeling great, and walking into a colleague’s room, it’s like, “I am in the red zone.” I’m sure you’ve heard that before. I think it’s really useful to have language, right? To have a common language to express how we’re feeling.

So I wanna say thank you. Thank you for your work in this, for bringing this to the world. What an honor to speak with you about this. I really appreciate it.

Leah Kuypers: Well, thank you. I also just commend the work you’re doing. It’s also very important work and messages to get out there. I can tell we share a passion in supporting this community together. Thank you for inviting me to be a guest on your podcast.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. And so if any of this is interesting and you wanna learn more, you can go to… is it zonesofregulation.com, I’m hoping?

Leah Kuypers: Yes, that would be the website, yep. We’ve got a lot of free resources on there. We have a lot of information and blogs on case studies and research, white papers and whatnot, to learn more.

Tim Villegas: Wonderful. We spent a lot of time talking about what the zones gets right, what gets misunderstood in practice, and where it shows up far beyond the school building. And all of that brought me to one more thing I wanted to ask Leah before we wrapped up.

All right. I like to end my time with guests with a mystery question, and they’re just random questions that are written on some index cards.

Leah Kuypers: I hope it’s not “What’s your favorite new Taylor Swift song from The Life of a Showgirl,” because I’m gonna have a hard time choosing if that’s the case.

Tim Villegas: Oh, okay. Well, I have to be honest that I have only listened to it very much on the periphery. Is it “The Fate of Ophelia”?

Leah Kuypers: Well, I have a 12-year-old daughter. But I think the tables might have turned from a year or two ago, where she was the big Swiftie, and now I think I’m flipping.

Tim Villegas: My wife is a huge Taylor Swift fan. And I have two girls, so they are all in on the new album, and I’ve only listened to a few songs. And don’t get me wrong, I like Taylor Swift. Okay, so here we go. I pick a random question—nothing Taylor Swift related. And what is it? This question is: what’s a question you hate to be asked? I’m so sorry. “What’s a question you hate to be asked” is the mystery question.

Leah Kuypers: Hmm. What’s a question I hate to be asked?

Tim Villegas: And we’ll both answer it. If you have one right off the bat, you go ahead. I don’t know if I have one right off the top of my head. Actually, I’m gonna change this a little bit.

I was at a conference yesterday. It was actually a marketing conference, so it related to my job as a communications and marketing professional, not necessarily to inclusion or education. And this person asked me what I did. As someone who works in the field of education and supporting learners with disabilities as part of your job, I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this—when you tell someone about your job and that it’s related to disability at all, they’re like, “Oh, you have angel wings.”

Someone actually told me that yesterday. And it took me… I was feeling a certain way, and I did not know exactly how to respond, so I didn’t actually respond. I just changed the subject.

So there really wasn’t a question that was asked, but I don’t like it when someone assumes about me, “Oh, you must be an angel for doing what you do, and you’re so special.” That really rubs me the wrong way. So I took it a little bit of a different way. If you wanna go that way too, that’s fine.

Leah Kuypers: Well, as soon as you started talking, I instantly knew the answer. It’s, “What do you do for a living?” That is such a loaded question. It depends on if I wanna have a conversation with them. So I sometimes will say I’m a teacher, or I’m a therapist. If I say I’m an OT, often they don’t know what an OT is, so if I just say, “Oh, I’m a teacher or therapist,” we move on really quickly.

Sometimes I might say I’m a business owner, or I own my own business, which is the truth, and not something I always necessarily identified with. But especially in this digital curriculum era that I’m in—we’re self-publishing it and have now moved into this ed tech company, and I’m having to really learn a lot of CEO skills—lately I’ve been saying more that I’m a business owner. And then I might get, “What kind of business do you have?”

I love pickleball, and I was playing pickleball recently, and they said, “Oh, what kind of business do you have?” I said, “I have an SEL curriculum.” And I’m a really humble person—I don’t really wanna talk a lot about me or what I do. I think ’cause, like you say, then they think you’re just like some… you get this, “Oh, you’re so…” And I’m like, “No, I’m just a human, just like you.” I just found something meaningful to me that I wanted to invest my time, my resources, my brain around. So I said, “Oh, I’m an SEL curriculum developer.”

And most times people just kind of go, “Ugh, I don’t even wanna talk about this.” But this guy was like, “Wait, social emotional learning?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” And he was a school principal, so that turned into a really cool conversation. He’s like, “I just typed out SEL this morning before I came here.”

But especially pre-pandemic, I used to travel a lot to speak, and you get in a seat next to someone and they’re like, “What do you do?” And I’m just like, “How do I answer this so I’m not stuck in a conversation for two hours?”

So yeah, that’s my least favorite question. And sometimes it just feels really embarrassing when they make it about me being someone special. So I really relate to you on that.

Tim Villegas: Yes. Okay, good. Oh my gosh, that’s great. Can I ask—’cause you said you still call yourself an OT—do you still have clients?

Leah Kuypers: I don’t have a direct caseload. I like to think of myself as a systems therapist. I work with schools and districts as essentially my clients mostly, and really help implementation on a broader landscape. And I still am a registered and licensed OT. I do a lot of training and development of curriculum for OTs and many other people too.

Tim Villegas: Wonderful. Well, thank you. Leah Kuypers, thank you so much for being on the Think Inclusive Podcast. This was a lot of fun.

Leah Kuypers: Yeah, thank you. This was a good way to end my week on a Friday.

Tim Villegas: That was Leah Kuypers. Here’s what I’m taking with me: the comparison Leah made between regulation and reading. We build whole systems around teaching kids to read—interventions, scaffolded supports, differentiated entry points. We do all of that because we understand reading is developmental. But with regulation, we’ve historically expected the outcome without teaching the skill.

Leah’s framing moves us away from good kid, bad kid, toward: where is the learner in this development, and what do they actually need from us?

One practical step for educators: take one recent behavior incident and look at it through a developmental lens. Ask what regulation skill was underdeveloped and what instruction or scaffolding might have helped, not what consequence was applied.

Share this episode with a colleague who’s building inclusive schools, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow Think Inclusive wherever you get your podcasts, and if you have something to share, you can always email me at tvillegas@mcie.org.

Okay, let’s roll the credits. Think Inclusive is brought to you by me, Tim Villegas. This show is a proud production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Writing help from Claude, editing by Ray from the internet, scheduling and extra production help from Jill Waggoner. Our original music is by Miles Kredich with extra vibes from Melod.ie.

Big thanks to our sponsors, IXL and Adaptiverse. Visit ixl.com/inclusive and adaptiverseapp.com. If you’ve made it this far, you’re officially part of the Think Inclusive inclusion crew. Want to help us keep moving the needle forward for inclusion? Head to mcie.org and click the Donate button. Give $5, $10, $20. Any amount helps us keep partnering with schools and districts to move inclusive practices forward and support educators doing the work. Find us on the socials almost everywhere @thinkinclusive. Thanks for hanging out, and remember, inclusion always works.