Emotions and behaviour

How your child behaves tells you how they are feeling.

Young children can often become overwhelmed by big emotions and need your help to feel calm.

Children need practice to learn how to recognise what they are feeling and ways to express them which are ok.

Babies

By responding to a crying baby with love and reassurance and helping them to calm with gentle touch and tone of voice you are teaching their brains and body how to calm down.

Toddlers

At around 18 months old, toddlers often begin to have ‘tantrums’. They experience big emotions and often struggle to cope with them.

When a tantrum occurs it is the emotional part of the brain in control, meaning they find it difficult to listen and understand.

Once they are helped to calm down they are then better able to listen and learn different ways that they can cope with that feeling next time.

Recommendations

The Start for Life website recommends these steps to support your child if they are struggling with their emotions:

Step 1

Regulate: Sooth your toddler to help them calm down and name their feeling for them.

Step 2

Relate: When your toddler is calm, show them that you love them even if they are angry or upset.

Step 3

Reason: Once calm, your toddler can learn. You can simply explain what is ok and what is not ok.