June 2025 Tools for Helping Children Regulate their Emotions and Behavior

June 17, 2025

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Culture, knowledge, and experience help shape our beliefs about emotions and what constitutes socially acceptable behavior. Reflect on your perceptions about emotions and behavior. How did you learn what behavior was expected of you? How did you learn about emotions and how to express them? Keep in mind that children, just like adults, have wants, needs, emotions, and challenges. The difference is that children are still learning how to express those needs and feelings in socially appropriate ways.

Children need guidance from you about what is, and is not, socially acceptable. Learning to regulate, or control, emotions is part of a child’s social and emotional development, and it is a skill that develops over time. As your child learns about emotions and how to express them appropriately, they will begin to regulate their own behavior. The following tips will provide you with the knowledge and tools you need to help your child learn to regulate their emotions and behavior.

  • Develop a loving, interactive relationship with your child. As you hold or hug your child, make eye contact with them and talk or sing in a soothing voice. Establishing a good relationship with your child shows them that you are someone who will take care of them and can be trusted. When a child has strong, trusting relationships with the adults in their family, they are more likely to trust and accept guidance from them.
  • As you talk and sing with your child, use words that describe feelings. Choose books that label feelings such as The Way I Feel by Janan Cain and sing songs such as If You’re Happy and You Know It. Books that describe how to manage emotions, like Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney or Peaceful Piggy Meditation by Kerry Lee MacLean, are also helpful. Learning vocabulary to label emotions will help your child express their thoughts and feelings. Children who have not learned and practiced the vocabulary to explain how they feel may resort to pushing, pulling, or biting to express anger or frustration.
  • Use mirrors and pictures to label emotions. Sit with your child in front of a mirror and practice expressing different emotions. For example, “Show me what your face looks like when you feel happy.” You can also point out the feelings of people in photos or book illustrations. The National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI) offers a free printable handout that contains photos of children expressing different emotions and instructions on how to use them.
  • Practice a consistent routine. A daily routine helps your child know what to expect and how to respond to it. Predictable routines provide children with a sense of safety and build trust between them and their caregivers. Provide opportunities for children to participate in managing changes to their routine so that they have an opportunity to discuss their feelings and make choices. Opportunities to make choices promote independence and develop confidence. For example, “Tomorrow we need to go the bank. Do you think we should go after breakfast or after lunch?” This kind of approach provides a reasonable choice, and allowing your child to make the decision provides them with a sense of control, which means they are more likely to respond positively to the change in routine.
  • Practice deep breathing. Each night before bed, practice deep breathing with your child. Explain that when we feel strong emotions like anger, frustration, or sadness it can help our bodies relax to take deep breaths. Try breathing like a bunny by taking two quick breaths through your nose and one long breath out through your mouth. By teaching this coping technique to your child, you are giving them a tool to use when they need to calm down in stressful situations. This is also a method you can use to calm yourself down.
  • Teach your child how to soothe themselves when they are upset. Sometimes the best solution is to take a break. We all have bad days when we are not feeling our best, and we just need a few minutes alone to reset ourselves. Prepare a basket with a favorite stuffed animal, a pillow, a blanket, books, a glitter jar, drawing paper and crayons, or relaxing music. Use the glitter or mind jar to explain how deep breathing can help our bodies slow down, just like the contents of the jar. When you notice your child seems tired or is having a tough time making appropriate choices, suggest a relaxation break. Pull out the basket and help them set up the blanket and pillow. Then, ask them to choose one of the relaxing activities. Make sure you relax, too. It is important for children to see that everyone needs a break sometimes.
  • Help your child work through a tantrum. Sometimes strong feelings of anger, disappointment, fear, or frustration can overwhelm children and result in a tantrum. Carry a favorite comfort item (stuffed animal, blanket) with you when you are away from home. If your child becomes upset enough to have a tantrum and you are in a safe place, drop the comfort item next to your child, and wait for them to soothe themselves. Use the time it takes your child to calm down to calm your own emotions. Then say, “Thank you for calming yourself down. Let’s talk about what just happened.” If they will not accept the comfort item right away, then lay it next to them within reach and step away to give them space, but stay nearby in case you are needed. If you are not in a safe place, like the aisle of a grocery store or a parking lot, then you will need to move your child. Pick them up with their back against your body and move them to a safe location. Then, offer the comfort item.
  • Encourage your child to develop friendships. Friendships provide children with a support system. As children play together, they practice language skills, express ideas and feelings, offer each other support, and develop a sense of humor. Developing friendships can also introduce your child to other cultures and help them learn to accept people different from themselves. Playing with children their own age gives your child the opportunity to practice negotiating, trading, sharing, compromising, and working through conflicts.
  • Teach children strategies for resolving conflicts peacefully. Teach your child to use dice to decide who will go first or how long someone can play with a toy. Invite children to roll the dice. The person who rolls a “1” or the closest number to a “1” can go first, next closest second, and so on. If two children want the same toy, they can roll dice to decide who will use it first, then roll two dice to determine how many minutes they can use the toy before passing it to the other child. If one dice shows a “2” and the other dice shows a “5,” then they can use it for twenty-five minutes. Once you have used this technique several times, children will be able to use it on their own. Your child can also play Rock, Paper, Scissors or Odds and Evens to determine who plays first or settle disagreements.
  • Use American Sign Language (ASL) with your child. Children who are still developing verbal skills, such as infants, toddlers, or a child with a special need that affects speech or hearing, may resort to biting, pinching, hitting, kicking, or pushing to communicate. When children are in a state of stress, they may find it difficult to speak, and it may be easier for them to use ASL. For example, if you and your child are playing at a park and your child becomes upset, you can sign the word “help” as you move toward your child so they know you are on your way. If your child is about to do something dangerous, you can sign the words “stop” and “wait” as you move toward them to intervene. You can also teach your child the ASL words for feelings. You can learn some basic ASL online with the American Sign Language University.
  • Get up and move when energy levels are high. If you notice your child is having a tough day, smile, put on their favorite song, and start dancing. You can also go outside to throw and kick a ball or toss a sponge back and forth indoors. Exercising for a few minutes opens up the lungs to get oxygen flowing, creates endorphins that will improve your child’s mood, and makes it easier to practice self-control.
  • Set your child up for success by creating expectations instead of rules. It can be difficult for children to remember a lot of rules. Instead, try using expectations (categories). For example, you can use the following three categories: (1) We are safe and healthy, (2) We are respectful, and (3) We are kind. Using categories instead of rules invites your child to reflect and think about behavior, which leads them to understand why it is not safe, healthy, respectful, or kind. Stopping to reflect on their behavior promotes self-control. For example, if your child forcibly takes a toy away from another child, you can say, “Is it kind to take someone’s toy?” You can then discuss what a kind solution would be. For example, “Asking to use a toy and waiting your turn is the kind thing to do.” NCPMI offers a free printable poster with the following expectation categories: (1) We are safe, (2) We are kind, and (3) We are responsible.

The most powerful tool for teaching your child how to regulate their emotions and behavior is to be a role model for your expectations. As the psychiatrist Carl Jung once said, “If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”

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