Why Children Scream. Voice, Emotion and Regulation

Children scream, shout, cry communicating through their voices. How can adults understand and support this self regulation in children?
About this Event

Overview

• This engaging, interactive, experiential workshop explores the fascinating relationship between voice, emotion, play, sensory processing, and the nervous system.
• Drawing on neuroscience, child development, play therapy, attachment theory, and contemporary neurodiversity-informed perspectives, participants will explore how children's vocal expressions can reflect different emotional states, communication styles, sensory experiences, and regulatory needs.
• Together we will consider how behaviours often interpreted as disruptive, excessive, or unusual may serve important functions in self-regulation, sensory processing, communication, play, and emotional expression.
• Suitable for child therapists, education staff, social workers, foster carers, adopters, educational psychologists, CAMHS staff, third sector children workers and anyone caring or living with children.
  

Overview of the content·

• Why children scream, shout, whisper, sing, and vocalise.
• How the nervous system shapes the voice—and how the voice can shape the nervous system.
• The difference between a terror scream, a play scream, a protest scream, a panic scream, and a release scream.
• How culture influences what we hear as acceptable, alarming, playful, or disruptive.
• The power of attunement and co-regulation through voice.
• The hidden functions of whispering and quiet vocal communication.
• Voice modulation techniques to support regulation in individuals and groups.
• Creative, practical tools that can be immediately applied in therapeutic and educational settings.
• How to develop a more confident, intentional, and therapeutic relationship with your own
• Practical activities that can be used immediately with children.

Facilitator: Elisa Fontana

Elisa Fontana is a BAPT-registered Play Therapist and Clinical Supervisor with a background in Psychology, Early Years Education, Drama and Music Studies. She is Coordinator of the South London Play Therapy Support Group and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Roehampton for the Play Therapy Foundation Course. Elisa’s research includes work as Research Assistant on the Yoga-Integrated Psychotherapy study at Roehampton and a dissertation on mindfulness for adolescents completed at the University of Padova, Italy.

Outside the therapy room, Elisa sings at open mic nights in South London and plays saxophone in local jam sessions. She has designed community art projects centred on recorded storytelling and listening walks.

Her favourite quote is: “Singing is like breathing; screaming is when you need to breathe louder.”