How to Help Your Child Regulate Their Emotions

Emotional regulation is an essential aspect of self-regulation—which includes managing our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors—and a foundational skill for kids to become confident, resilient, and caring adults.

Dr Becky Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist

12 min read

In their early years, kids often experience emotions that feel too big to manage in their bodies, which is why they come catapulting out as difficult behaviors like hitting, throwing, biting, or screaming. When kids feel out of control, they act out of control.

When we look at behavior in this way, it’s easier to understand why telling a child “Don’t hit!” rarely leads to the result we want. Behavior is just the surface of a child’s experience. If we want to create long-term change, we need to help kids regulate the intense feelings happening underneath the behavior.

The ability to cope with intense feelings is called “emotional regulation.” It is an essential aspect of self-regulation—which includes managing our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors—and a foundational skill for kids to become confident, resilient, and caring adults.

As a parent, you play an important role in helping your child learn to cope with big feelings (and, ultimately, improve behavior). So, where should you begin? We’ve got you covered.

How to teach kids emotional regulation skills

While every kid’s timeline is different, the process of building emotional regulation is the same. Kids need adults to stay calm, validate their experience, and model coping skills in the face of overwhelming emotions. The big idea: Children learn to self-soothe through the experience of being soothed by their caregivers.

Here are six practical ways to turn this idea into action:

1. Manage your own emotions

As a parent, building your kid’s emotional regulation skills starts with building your own emotional regulation skills. You are the sturdy leader of your family, and your calm presence in the face of your child’s emotional turbulence is the most important parenting tool you have.

The next time you start to feel frustrated or angry—especially if your child is around—practice regulating your emotions by pausing, taking a deep breath, and saying kind words to yourself: “This feels hard because it is hard, not because I’m doing something wrong.”

And if you lose your cool and yell, it’s okay. Remember: Good parents aren’t perfect, good parents repair.

2. Talk about emotions with your child

One of the simplest ways to start talking about feelings in your home is by naming how you feel. Yes, parents have feelings—and it’s okay for our kids to know this! In fact, talking about our feelings without making our children feel guilty or responsible is one of the best ways to teach empathy, model self-regulation, and help our kids set boundaries between themselves and others.

Here are a few scripts you can use to talk about your feelings with your kids:

“When I’m crying, that means I’m feeling sad. Tears or no tears, I’m still your strong mom who can take care of you.”
“I just wanted to tell you I feel frustrated because of work today. I’m safe and you’re safe, I just need a few minutes in my room alone. You did nothing wrong. This is one of those times I need space to take care of my feelings.”
“Am I happy? Hmm… you’re paying close attention to how I feel, huh. That can be great, to notice how others feel… and it can be kind of tricky, right? It’s my job to take care of my feelings, and I take that job really seriously. It’s never your job to do this.”

By naming and deshaming our feelings, we teach our kids that it’s normal to have feelings. We also show them it’s safe to talk to us about how they feel.

3. Help your child recognize their own emotions

Kids come into the world with all of the emotions… and none of the coping skills, not even the words for their emotions! When your toddler can’t fit puzzle pieces together, all they know is that they feel something intense inside and they need to get the feeling outside! Cue: screaming and stomping feet.

This is why simply naming your child’s feelings—without trying to change them or give advice—is so powerful. When you name a feeling, you start to build your child’s relationship to those intense sensations. Over time, they will learn to differentiate between feelings, so they can pause and reflect before they react.

4. Validate and accept your child’s feelings

When you name feelings, validate that it’s okay for your child to feel the way they do. Our feelings are important messengers about what matters to us, what we like, and what we dislike.

Here are several scripts to validate your child’s feelings:

“It’s okay to cry. Tears tell us when we feel sad. I’m here with you.”
“Wow! You have so much excitement in your body! Let’s think of how we can move our bodies while we wait for your friends to come over.”
“You’re allowed to be angry. It’s hard when things don’t go the way you want.”

Don’t expect to receive a “Thanks daddy! I do feel angry” in response. Yes, building emotional regulation takes time, but you will start to notice changes.

If your child resists when you talk about their feelings, there’s nothing wrong with your kid. And there’s nothing wrong with you. They just need a different approach. You might have a Deeply Feeling Kid (DFK), who feels things more intensely, escalates quickly, and rarely responds to “typical” parenting approaches. Simply saying, “I’m here. I’m not scared of your big feelings” or trying an interactive game, like Thumbs Up & Down, are helpful strategies for DFKs.

5. Allow kids to express all feelings (yes, even tantrums)

Here’s an inconvenient truth: Tantrums are actually a healthy sign of child development (doesn’t mean they’re an enjoyable one!). They are a child’s way of saying, “I know what I want, even when you say no. My whole body is showing you that I’m angry/frustrated/disappointed!”

So, what’s a parent to do? Your job is NOT to end the tantrum. During a tantrum, you have two jobs:

Keep your body calm. Try a mantra such as, “I am safe. This isn’t an emergency. I can cope with this.”
Keep your child safe. This means emotional and physical safety. Recognize your child’s feelings, while setting a firm boundary around any dangerous behavior. Yes, this might mean holding your child’s wrist or picking them up. Say, “You really want the blue shoes. You’re allowed to be frustrated and I won’t let you throw. I know you can find a different way to show me how you feel.”

Allowing the tantrum isn’t reinforcing “bad behavior.” It’s part of helping your child learn to recognize their desires, while building emotional regulation skills to manage disappointment, frustration, and anger. These are the skills that will help them calmly ask for a raise in their first job or communicate their needs with a partner as an adult.

Feeling overwhelmed by your child’s tantrums? Check out our workshop on Managing Meltdowns to learn 20+ emotional regulation strategies that will benefit you and your child.

6. Teach them coping skills

Here’s a key reframe when it comes to building emotional regulation: Your child is not the problem. The lack of skills is the problem. You and your child are on the same team against the problem. This mindset empowers you to work with your child to add coping skills and tools to their “emotional regulation” toolbox.

Different tools work for different kids. Here are a few tools you can try with your child:

Mantras: Create a short mantra you and your child can use when they’re having big feelings, such as “I’m a good kid having a hard time” or “I can do hard things.” When our bodies feel overwhelmed, mantras offer a grounding sense of rhythm and predictability.
Hot cocoa breathing: Hot cocoa breathing is a core emotional regulation tool, for ourselves and our kids. Pretend you’re holding a cup of hot cocoa, breathe in deeply with your face over your imaginary cup, and breathe out slowly to cool it down!
Emotional vaccination: Emotional vaccination prepares us for big moments by strengthening our regulation skills before the full-force emotion arises—just like a vaccine prepares your body for a virus, emotional vaccination prepares your body for a feeling. For example, talk to your child about what it might feel like to go to the doctor in the days leading up to their appointment.

While we can’t protect our kids from distressing feelings in life, we can prepare them to handle distress in healthy and effective ways. As you model regulation and actively teach coping tools, you help these skills become second nature in your child.

Most importantly, you’re not alone in this. Parenting is the hardest job in the world, but it gets a little bit easier when we’re in it together. And that’s exactly why Good Inside exists.

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Intro
How to teach kids emotional regulation skills
1. Manage your own emotions
2. Talk about emotions with your child
3. Help your child recognize their own emotions
4. Validate and accept your child’s feelings
5. Allow kids to express all feelings (yes, even tantrums)
6. Teach them coping skills