Big Feelings, Little Bodies: Helping Kids Manage Emotions

Tearful outbursts, anxiety, and anger, oh my! Children, both younger and older, have a lot of feelings that may come out in all types of ways, ranging from socially appropriate to harmful and everything in between. As a caregiver, seeing your children in emotional distress may cause a range of reactions in you as well, from sadness to stress and frustration.

In fact, children are uniquely pre-dispositioned to bouts of intense emotion (more on this in the next section). So, you need to teach your children to regulate their emotions to help them navigate the world and treat emotions that may feel too intense.*

Why Kids Have Big Feelings

In short, kids have big feelings because they are people. Most likely, if you or anyone else you know were to look inward, some big feelings will be there, at least occasionally. The difference between you and children is that you have decades of experience plus a fully developed brain to help you manage your emotions.

Speaking of the brain, it develops from the bottom up. As we age, people use the information around them to create neural pathways, and the different sections of the brain become more complex as we gain more skills.

At birth, children have the most development in the lower regions, which govern reflexive behaviors, such as crying when they’re hungry. On a survival level, having this area of the brain developed first has served us well. After all, we can tell our caregivers when there’s something wrong, long before the neural pathways that control our ability to speak and dictate which language we use come into play.

As children age, their brains develop, and they slowly gain more control over their feelings. However, until the mid-to-late-20s, the prefrontal cortex remains underdeveloped. This area of the brain sits right behind the forehead and regulates thoughts, actions, and emotions. With an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, children do not have the ability to control their emotions as well as adults do, and even incidents that seem minor to an adult can lead to an emotional reaction from a child or teenager.

However, these emotions often are not child’s play. In fact, teenagers are at an increased risk of anxiety, depression, or even rash and aggressive behaviors because of their heightened emotions. Likewise, younger children are also likely to experience emotional difficulties, and depression and anxiety are now showing up at younger and younger ages.

How to Help Kids with Big Feelings

Take Them to Therapy

Counselors, psychologists, and social workers have been specifically trained to help people manage their emotions. If your child can see a professional, it might help them work through their difficult emotions in a safe space with someone who is not their caregiver, which is especially helpful for kids who don’t want to be open with their parents or guardians.

Of course, not everyone can afford therapy, which is part of the reason we compiled this list of tips to use at home. But there are some situations that absolutely should not be handled solely at home and may require emergency professional intervention. These situations include:

• Talk of death or dying, especially (but not exclusively) if they have a plan or access to lethal means
• Self-harming
• Talk of a desire to hurt themselves or others, including but not limited to plans or acquiring means to carry it out
• Hearing voices that tell them to hurt themselves or someone else, especially (but not exclusively) if it’s accompanied by periods of time in which they feel out of control of their bodies

If any of this happens, take your child to your local mental health hospital and request an assessment immediately, even if you’re not sure if your child is serious about their desires to hurt themselves or someone else (it’s safer to go to the hospital and risk looking like you overreacted than to do nothing and risk being wrong). Do not let them out of your sight until they have either been admitted or cleared to go home by a psychiatrist.

Fortunately, many health insurances will cover these hospital stays, and you can work with the billing department to find a payment plan that works for you. If they need ongoing outpatient care, Talkspace also takes many insurances and will match them with a qualified therapist.

Educate Them

The more you normalize feelings in your household, the more open children may be with you about what’s going on in their bodies and minds. Tell your children that it’s normal to have feelings, and that emotions are just our bodies giving us information about situation. Encourage them to name their feelings and to get specific. If needed, print out a feelings wheel or get a facial expression chart and do a daily check-in to see how they’re doing.

In addition, remind them that feelings are our own personal reactions, but that doesn’t mean we get to treat people however we want. Work with them through some of the techniques below if they feel like they need to calm down instead of doing something that would hurt themselves or someone else.*

Breathe with Them

Literally! When we’re stressed or on high alert, our bodies have evolved to prepare us to fight or run away. So, our breathing becomes shallow and rapid. To counteract anxious thoughts or tense emotions, taking slow, deep breaths cues our bodies into knowing that we’re safe and don’t need to respond to our outside world in a rash way.

Specifically, exhaling longer than you inhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps the body calm down. Many therapists encourage people to use the 4-7-8 method, which prompts participants to breathe in for 4 seconds, hold their breath for 7 seconds, and exhale for 8 seconds.

Breathing techniques also works for panic attacks! It’s actually physically impossible to have a panic attack and consistently breathe deep at the same time. So, once the person can get in the deep breaths, the panic attack should subside. If it doesn’t, take the child to see an emergency medical provider, as the main symptoms of a panic attack (shortness of breath and a tight chest) are also common in medical emergencies.

Help Them Channel Their Energy

When a child experiences a strong emotion, they may be tempted to act out in ways that are considered socially inappropriate and even harmful to themselves or someone else. However, telling a child not to release their emotions means that the big feelings don’t have anywhere to go, and they can build until they overwhelm the child.

Instead of encouraging kids to bottle up their emotions, help them find appropriate ways to get it out. For example, a child with a tendency to hit when they become angry can be encouraged to hit a pillow instead of a person or take up boxing. Likewise, a teenager who cuts themselves might try painting on the areas they want to cut.

Get Outside

Being outside has many benefits for adults and children alike! First, the sun provides an excellent source of vitamin D, which boosts mood. Second, the outdoors give everyone the perfect opportunity to get active, which releases endorphins and makes everyone feel good.

Outdoor play is particularly healthy for children because they learn about the world by playing in it. Ask your child to tell you details about the things they notice, and try to practice staying in the moment.

Teach Mindfulness

Speaking of staying in the moment, big feelings often come when we overthink about the past or worry about the future. Noticing the present instead brings children into the moment and helps their brains, which may be producing cortisol and other stress/anxiety-inducing hormones, that they’re safe and don’t need to activate the fight or flight response.

Mindfulness doesn’t have to be just meditation, either (although it definitely can be!). In fact, most children don’t yet have the impulse control to stay still for a long period of time, so meditation may not be the most appropriate fit. Instead, ask them to tell you 5 things they notice with each sense. Remind them that there are no right or wrong answers and the point is to just notice what’s going on in the moment!

Discuss Alternative Reactions

Let’s be real for a moment: all of us, even those who are the most emotionally well-adjusted, have days where we blow up, breakdown, or say things we regret. That’s normal and human, and your children are going to have those moments.

When they do, take a pause and tell them you understand why they feel that way but that they can’t treat other people in that manner. Help them brainstorm some alternatives to their reaction. These can vary from walking away and doing a soothing activity until they calm down, addressing the person directly and non-confrontationally, and so on.

Stay in the Know

Touch base with your children about their emotions as often as possible. If you notice them pulling away, isolating, or experiencing a change in their mood, ask them about it. In addition, ask if them and their teachers if they’ve been bullied at school, as bullying puts children at risk for developing mental health problems.

Likewise, you’ll want to monitor their social media usage. Many children use the internet to bully each other, which means that bullying doesn’t necessarily stop when a child leaves school. Further, sometimes internet strangers groom and abuse children entirely online, which can lead to trauma and other emotions that require professional care.

As a caregiver, remind your children that often that there is nothing they could say or do that would make you care about them any less, and then act on your words. By demonstrating that you are a safe, calm, and reliable person no matter what’s going on, your children are more likely to tell you what’s really happening with their emotions.

Advocate for Accommodations

In some cases, children may have more difficulty managing their big feelings than others do. For example, children with autism are often extra sensitive to stimuli and may have meltdowns in the middle of the school day. Once you’ve taught your child the above techniques, approach the school about possible accommodations, such as the child being allowed to leave the classroom when things get to be too much.

Being a Role Model

Now that you know how to address your child’s big feelings, it’s time to think about the other person in the equation: you! Of course, you likely don’t throw tantrums or have a hair-trigger anger streak, but if you want your kids to regulate effectively, one of the best things you can do is make sure you’re giving them a great role model.

If you need help regulating your emotions, read up on how to find a therapist!

*The information and techniques provided in this article are backed by the most recent scientific research. However, they are not a substitute for professional care. If you or your child believe the emotions are too difficult for the child to manage on their own, please seek the help of a licensed counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist.