Tips For Helping Your Child Learn Mindful Emotion-Regulation
Sometimes life gets tough. And as a parent, guardian, or educator, it can be even tougher to watch your child or student endure what you know is a truly tough emotional experience for them.
Today we’re going to write to you about emotional regulation and how you can help the young people in your life build stronger emotional regulation skills. While we all know that these ideas won’t spare them the experience of life’s tougher moments, these suggestions can help young people become resilient as they face them.
Let It Be Tough
This one is a rough one. The natural impulse is to swoop in and be super-person when a child is struggling emotionally at the moment. But our suggestion stands: Let it be tough.
For example, instead of hovering during tough homework sessions, give a child space so they can notice that they’re struggling and attempt to rise to the occasion themselves.
If the struggle continues and a child asks for help, you may want to help with one sentence of English work or a single math problem and then give the child space again to tackle the rest on their own.
Supporting a child while also giving them the chance to solve their own problems and navigate their own difficult emotional responses is key here. As is the fact that they can recognize when they’re struggling and ask for help on their own.
Give Them Chances To Build Up To Emotionally Challenging Experiences
Does your child tend to tantrum in stores, malls, or at nice dinners? Maybe try a quick trip to the store or a brief lunch break. Help them see that the trip won’t be long, and praise them for excellent behavior for these trial runs. Build up their emotional regulation with these other tips and then go for a longer trip or dinner.
Let Them Be The Stress Doctor Or Stress Detective!
Mindfulness creeps into most things we do and this is no different. Letting your child recognize, identify, and address their internal experience is a great exercise in mindful emotion regulation. You can introduce this idea to younger children by telling them they’re going to be a doctor or detective.
When they notice an emotion, ask them to pause and ask for an assistant detective/doctor
Stay with them and ask them to give the emotion a name. If they aren’t sure, ask them to give you their best guess.
Ask them how the emotion feels in their body.
Give them time to explain the emotion as much as they need to and to let you know if it’s getting “bigger” or “smaller:
Acknowledge them for noticing the feeling and talking about it with you
Stay with them until they’re ready to transition to the next activity.
Bonus: Add mindful breathing as needed to bring attention back to the body.
Need some books to help with teaching emotional regulation? Check out this website to learn more!
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