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Emotion Regulation in Children

Topic key points  

  • Emotion regulation refers to the ability to identify, understand, and manage one’s own emotions in various situations. 
  • It is an important part of a child’s social and psychological development, impacting their relationships, academic performance, and overall mental health.  
  • As many parents know, navigating the big emotions of babies, toddlers, kids and adolescents is one of the more challenging aspects of being a parent.  
  • As a coach, you can help support parents with knowledge, strategies and resources to better navigate this challenging but important aspect of parenthood.  

Introduction to Topic 

“Emotion regulation calls on so many skills, including attention, planning, cognitive development, and language development,” – Pamela Cole, PhD, a psychologist at Penn State University who studies emotion regulation in early childhood. 

The task of learning how to recognise, understand, articulate and respond to our emotions is a huge one for children (and their parents). This process takes time and unfolds in stages as children develop and grow. It is important to recognise that although there are developmental norms when it comes to emotion regulation, each child is different and will develop at their own pace and rate depending on their context, genetics, age, gender and neurotype. 

Despite this, there are some general principles that can be helpful for parents to understand:   

  • A child’s ability to understand and manage emotions develops over time. When a child is young, they may need help recognising and naming emotions. As they grow, they will learn strategies to manage emotions without your help.  
  • Responding to challenging emotions can be hard as a parent, but how parents respond plays an important role in shaping the way a child’s emotion regulation skills develop. This is especially true for younger children, who often rely on co-regulation with caregivers to regulate their own emotions.  
  • Emotional invalidation prevents kids from learning how to manage their emotions. When we teach kids that their emotions are valid, we help them view what they feel as normal and manageable, which in turn makes it easier to recognise and respond to emotions in helpful ways.  
  • When we teach kids to identify and respond to emotions, we give them a framework that helps explain how they feel, which makes it easier for them to deal with those emotions in a socially appropriate way.  
  • There are different ways to respond to ‘meltdowns’ and tantrums, but some helpful principles based off the research literature are: 
  • Start by regulating yourself. We can only regulate children down to the level we are at. Centring and calming yourself first will also help you respond more intentionally.  
  • Validate and name. The saying ‘name it to tame it’ is very true for helping children through big emotional storms. Identifying and reflecting back the emotion to children can help them feel seen and develop their own ability to recognise and articulate emotions. This can be something as simple as ‘I can see that you are feeling really sad right now’ or ‘You are really angry because we have to leave the park’. Doing this can also help children learn about what triggers their emotional responses.  
  • Take time out. Sometimes the best thing to do is take time out and go somewhere quite to calm down. This isn’t always possible but can be helpful.  
  • Give limited choice. Giving some choice to children during a big emotional storm can help them feel autonomy and empowered. This might be something like ‘Do you want to leave the park now or in 1 minute?’ 
  • Don’t try to problem-solve or teach in these moments. When kids are overwhelmed with emotions, the parts of their brain required for these activities is impeded. Focus on helping them regulate and the lessons/problem-solving can come later.  
  • Finally, encourage parents to be patient and go easy on themselves. Learning how to regulate our emotions is an often messy, confusing and life-long task. If all else fails, encourage them to focus on calming themselves and being present and available for their child.  

Process Considerations 

  • Given the difficult aspects associated with the topic, validating the parents experience and encouraging self-compassion for the parent as well as compassion for the child is usually helpful.  
  • Many children look to their parents for how to regulate emotions. When a child is upset, encourage parents to first try their best to centre and regulate themselves. This will help them respond more intentionally and provide valuable co-regulation opportunities for the child. This might be challenging for some parents. If you sense that is the case, consider taking a step back and explore how the parent is doing.  

Included resources 

  • The ‘Parent Like a Psychologist’ podcast has some useful episodes on a range of topics, including emotion regulation 

Copy for Clients  

As we discussed, navigating a child’s emotions is one of the more challenging but important aspects of being a parent, and you are certainly not alone in getting overwhelmed by it at times. Below are some resources that you might find helpful based on what we talked about.