Big Emotions-Little Kids
Ever wonder why your child will throw a tantrum over the smallest of things? Or why your child will start to scream when not getting what he or she wants?
These responses are related to your child’s emotional regulation skills. Emotional Regulation is your child’s ability to identify the emotion he or she is experiencing and use that information purposefully. Children demonstrate unexpected behaviors when they experience emotions and do not know what to do with them. It can be hard for adults to remember what it feels like to not identify an emotion as we can appropriately respond to our emotions by using strategies that have become part of our daily routines.
The single most important thing that can be done with your child to aid in his or her emotional regulation skills is to Label the Emotion. By taking the opportunity to label the emotion by telling your child that he or she is experiencing frustration or sadness or jealousy is shown to decrease unexpected responses as you have now identified the child’s new feeling that he or she is experiencing. The child can then learn what the emotion is and develop strategies to respond to that emotion. If your child is simply told to stop screaming or that what they are upset about is not a big deal, odds are, the response will happen again as the child still does not know what he or she is experiencing, let alone what to do with it.
Next time your child is on the verge of an outburst, you can take the following steps:
Take a moment to label the emotion and check-in with your child.
After that, identify tools to help the child learn what to do when he or she experiences that emotion. Maybe when your child is feeling frustrated, he or she needs to take a break or go for a walk.
Emotions will occur and should occur throughout one’s day. The key skill is teaching your child how to respond to them.
For any other questions, please feel free to reach out via email at alysha@collaborativecorner.org. A timely response will be provided within 24 hours.
Alysha Skuthan MOT, OTR/L
Pediatric Occupational Therapist
alysha@collaborativecorner.org