To teach a child emotional regulation, break it into three steps and find the one they’re stuck on. First, they need to recognise what they’re feeling and notice that they need to do something about it. Second, they need a strategy that suits the feeling and the place they’re in. Third, they need to actually use it, with your help to begin with. Many children get stuck at the first step, so that’s where most of your teaching time should go.
What is emotional regulation?
Emotional regulation is how we learn to deal with the things that set our feelings off. It means noticing what’s going on in our body and mind through the day, and responding in a way that’s good for us and the people around us. A child who can regulate knows what to do when they’re upset, can be flexible when they need to be and can hold back from an impulsive outburst.
It has nothing to do with squashing feelings. All emotions are OK, and each one is telling us something about what we need. Self-regulation is listening to that and moving from one state to another without being carried off.
It’s hard, too. Most adults are still working on it.
Why is self-regulation so hard for children?
Try this. Stop for a moment and think of one word for how you feel right now. Not earlier, not later: now.
Plenty of adults find that surprisingly tricky. You start scanning your body for tension, a few thoughts arrive, and the word may or may not come. If we find it hard after decades of practice, a child who’s had far less will find it harder.
Feelings shift hour to hour, and anger alone comes in lots of strengths. Most of us say “I’m fine” when we’re not, because saying otherwise feels exposing, so a child needs to feel safe with you before they’ll tell you anything true.
It also explains why a carefully taught breathing exercise goes out of the window when it matters. If a child hasn’t noticed the feeling building, they won’t know it’s time to use it.
Step 1: help them recognise what they’re feeling
This is the biggest step, and the one to start with. A child needs words for feelings, a sense that feelings come in different strengths, some idea of what happens in their body, and an understanding that thoughts and feelings are linked. Some practical ways in:
- Check in about feelings a few times a day, and check in out loud yourself (“I’m feeling really frustrated right now”). It shows that everyone’s feelings change through the day, you included.
- Teach emotion words explicitly, with clear visuals. Start where the child is, even if that’s just “OK” or “not OK”. Older pupils might use an emotion wheel, where “scared” opens out into “worried” and “nervous”, then “intimidated” or “unsure”.
- Name what you see. Dr Dan Siegel’s phrase is “name it to tame it”: “I can see you’re really upset right now.” Once the feeling has a word, it’s something the child can use rather than something that swamps them.
- Point out body and face signs. A child can’t see their own face, so say what you see them doing. With younger children, draw round a child, pick an emotion such as anxiety and label where it shows: clenched hands, tight jaw, flushed cheeks, a fast heartbeat.
- Grade the strength of a feeling with colours or a one-to-five scale, and use it for happy feelings as well as hard ones. “You’re more than happy, I’d say you’re ecstatic” builds vocabulary and a sense of scale in one go.
Sometimes it’s easier for a child to tell you what they’re thinking than what they’re feeling, so ask that too. This step gets the most time in our course 3 steps to teaching emotional regulation, because nothing else works without it.
Step 2: build a toolkit of self-regulation strategies
Different strategies suit different feelings and different places. A child who calms down on the trampoline at home can’t use that in the middle of a lesson, so they need a range: some for a low-level wobble, some for when things are building, some for when it’s really high.
Start with what the child already likes and find lots of versions of it. A pupil who settles with deep pressure might squeeze a toy to stay steady, press her hands together under the desk when it rises, and go to a quiet room and wrap up in a heavy blanket when it peaks. If she’s self-conscious, choose strategies other children won’t notice.
Strategies tend to fall into a few families: relaxation (breathing), movement and sensory. Let the child try them and tell you whether each one worked, didn’t, or was OK. Keep the OK ones. They’re often the ones that help when a feeling is still small.
Then make the toolkit portable. A poster on the classroom wall is no use in the corridor, but cards on a keyring fit in a pocket and go wherever the child goes, ready for the moment they can’t think what to do.
Step 3: practise, then use strategies for real
Practise each strategy many times while the child is calm. Then try it in a real moment. A strategy that feels “nice” in calm practice may not work when the child is upset, and the only way to find out is to try.
Expect to help, a lot. Children may need you beside them many times before they manage alone, and that’s fine. Two things make a difference here:
- Model your thinking out loud: “My head’s a bit foggy and I feel panicky, so I think I’m anxious today. I’m going to walk the dog, because that always calms me down.”
- Notice when it works, and say so. “After that run you came back in and got on with your work.” Pointing out what changed builds motivation, and it shows the child you’re in this with them.
Emotional regulation in neurodiverse children
Autistic young people may experience emotions differently, so don’t impose a neurotypical idea of what feelings should look like. Some feel emotions more deeply and for longer. Some feel them later, after they’ve had time to process what happened, so the feeling can seem to come out of nowhere. Some struggle to put a name to it but know they’re feeling something.
Give them time, and keep going over it even when it feels like you’ve covered it before. Let them communicate in whatever way works: typing, drawing, objects, thumbs up or down. A pupil who knows lots of feeling words may still prefer a thumbs up. If a child thinks very literally, cartoon faces and emojis may not help, and real photographs often work better.
The broad rule for everyone is to keep tweaking the approach until it fits that child.
Can children practise calm through play?
Yes, and it’s a good idea. Telling a child to “calm down” only works if they know what calm feels like in their body, and the middle of a meltdown is a hard place to learn that.
Excitement and anxiety cause a lot of the same physical feelings: a racing heart, sweaty palms. So you can get a class giddy with a lively game, then bring them back down with your usual signal for calm, a long out-breath (hissing like a snake works well) and a sensory anchor, like spotting three green things or noticing how their feet feel. Katie’s course Playful approaches for teaching emotional regulation shows how to run it.
If you’re worried about a child’s emotional wellbeing, rather than just their regulation, talk to your SENCO or follow your school’s procedures, and tell your DSL if you have any concern about their safety. You’ll find more on supporting pupils’ mental health on our health and wellbeing page.
Emotional regulation training for school staff
If you’d like to take this further, our short course 3 steps to teaching emotional regulation goes through each step in more depth. It has more ideas for building feelings vocabulary, spotting body signals and choosing strategies, plus specific advice for autistic young people. It’s written for teachers, teaching assistants and anyone supporting a child who struggles to manage big feelings.