How to manage emotions

Supporting your child

Younger children need adult support to manage their emotions. This can also be true of older children, particularly in times of crisis.

When supporting your child to manage their emotions, it is important to be aware of:

• your own emotions
• your reaction to these emotions
• how they may affect your child’s emotions (also known as co-regulation)

Difficulties in managing emotions can result in an ‘overload’ of emotions or frustrations, outbursts or shut down.

Responding to emotions

Sometimes we respond to an emotion or situation in the same way and we have to teach ourselves to respond differently. This is always possible but can take longer than expected.

The skills needed to manage emotions include:

• noticing how our body is feeling - understanding how emotions physically feel inside our body
• noticing how our mind is feeling - build-up of emotions in our body enables us to identify our own ‘warning signs’
• identifying or ‘naming’ our emotions
• understanding what can cause our emotions or frustrations
• identifying strategies to help us feel better and to prevent our emotions from becoming 'out of control'

When supporting young people with emotions, you can:

• talk about your own feelings and what you do or say to manage your own feelings
• label feelings in everyday life. For example, looking angry may be caused by feelings of frustration, embarrassment or being overwhelmed
• accept the feeling of anger and teaching new ways of managing the feeling safely