How To Teach Emotional Regulation To Your Child

Emotional regulation is a huge tenet of everything I teach and an enormous part of being a parent.

It’s defined as “a person’s ability to effectively manage and respond to an emotional experience” which essentially means, being able to effectively face and manage through challenging and uncomfortable emotions.

For adults, “an emotional experience” can be anything from losing your keys, to having a tough conversation with a family member, to running late for work, to realizing your 7-year-old lied to you. (The options are endless)

For your child, an emotional experience can be anything from not getting their favorite plate at breakfast, to having to wear the socks they hate, to being picked last in basketball practice, to waiting for a turn on the swing.

You can see how each and every day provides us with countless opportunities for our children (and us!) to slowly learn to work through these emotional experiences in a healthy way.

Teaching emotional regulation skills is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your child and something that will truly serve them throughout their entire life.

The best part? It’s never too early or too late to start teaching.

Let’s take a look at what emotional regulation actually looks like.

It’s the difference between:

Feeling angry, storming off, and slamming a door OR feeling angry and saying “I’m so angry I could slam this door! I won’t, but that’s how angry I feel right now.”
Throwing a fit when you have to wait your turn to play with a toy OR feeling frustrated that you have to wait, taking a deep breath, and asking for a turn when the other child is done.
Losing a race to a friend and then having a meltdown OR feeling disappointed that you lost the race and telling yourself: “I’m upset but I need to keep practicing if I want to get faster.”
Notice that emotional regulation is not about NOT feeling the emotion.

In every example, your child still feels their emotion: anger, disappointment, frustration, sadness etc.

It’s about feeling the emotion and ALSO managing, containing, and expressing it in a healthier way.

So, how do we teach emotional regulation?

✔ Slowly, over time, and with lots of practice, patience, and realistic expectations for what your child is developmentally capable of.

For instance, your 2-year-old is simply not capable of the same amount of regulation as your 8-year-old…and yes, even your 8-year-old still needs much practice.

✔ By allowing your child to feel all emotions (even the tough ones) without rushing, dismissing, ignoring, or stifling them.

I know this may seem counterintuitive! Isn’t allowing your child to feel upset or sad the opposite of regulating their emotions!?

The reality is, in order to learn how to manage emotions, we must first be allowed to feel them. We then begin to learn that emotions naturally pass once we allow them to and eventually, we learn tools to help manage and process them.

✔ By working to build your own regulation skills and modeling them in tough moments.

You are practicing alongside your child and parenthood gives you plenty of opportunities to practice your own emotional regulation 🙂

To get you started, here are some scripts you can consider to walk your child through these big moments!

“I can see that you are very upset. Take your time to feel upset and when you’re ready, you can tell me what you want to do. No, you cannot hit me when you’re upset. But yes, you can feel upset.”

“You’re right, this is hard! Let’s breathe and take a little break. And then we will try again. When things are hard, we come up with a plan and we try harder.”

“I know this doesn’t feel good. Do you have any ideas for how you can help yourself feel a little better? I have some and I’d love to hear yours.”

“You might be upset when it’s time to leave and that’s ok. Feeling upset—sure! Screaming and yelling when you’re upset—No, can’t do that. What can you do instead? Yes, you can tell me how upset you are and I will listen.”

Don’t worry about getting caught up trying to say the exact right thing. The most important thing is your intention, tone, and body language.

Think to yourself: the feelings are ok and we are practicing how to express them in a healthy way.

For more practical and precise strategies to build emotional regulation, resilience, and coping skills in your child (and yourself!), check out my online parenting courses. They are filled with my over 35 years of work and life experience, raising my own three children and helping thousands of families feel more secure and whole:

​The Everything Toddler Course (ages 1-3) is the only course you’ll need to successfully manage the toddler stage and all of its beautiful, messy challenges. This is the foundational course that sets the stage for your child’s most formative years. It covers tantrums, hitting, independence, potty training, sleep, social skills and so much more.
​​The Everything 3-7 Course (ages 3-7) Because your parenting strategies need to grow along with your child. This course will equip you to handle all the NEW challenges you may be facing, like lying, bragging, teasing, jealousy, outbursts, anxiety, sleep, pushback, talking back, and much more.
​The Everything Siblings Course (for all ages) Reduce the daily friction and increase long-lasting connection between your children. Practical and proven tools for teasing, fighting, arguing, jealousy, competition, sharing, attention, fairness, bringing home a new baby, twins, copying and so much more.