Emotional Wellbeing: Helping Your Child Cope with Big Feelings

Emotional wellbeing is fundamental to a child’s overall development, influencing their ability to learn, form relationships, and navigate challenges. Young children experience emotions intensely but often lack the skills to regulate and express them effectively. Supporting emotional development from an early age fosters resilience, self-awareness, and positive mental health. This article explores strategies for helping children manage big feelings and develop emotional resilience.

Understanding Emotional Development

Emotional development begins in infancy and continues throughout childhood. According to psychological theories, such as Erik Erikson’s stages of development, early experiences shape a child’s ability to trust, express emotions, and regulate stress. As children grow, they move from instinctive emotional responses to more complex emotional regulation, which is influenced by their environment, interactions, and learned coping strategies (Gottman et al., 1996).

Parents and caregivers play a crucial role in guiding children through this process by providing a secure attachment, modelling emotional expression, and teaching coping mechanisms. Children who receive consistent emotional support are more likely to develop resilience, which enables them to manage stress, adapt to change, and develop problem-solving skills.

Techniques for Supporting Emotional Wellbeing

1. Encouraging Emotional Expression

Children need to feel that their emotions are valid and that they can express them safely. Parents can:

• Label emotions: Help children identify their feelings by naming them, e.g., “I can see you’re feeling frustrated because your tower fell over”. This builds emotional literacy, making it easier for children to communicate their needs.
• Use storytelling: Books and role-playing can help children understand emotions in different contexts. Stories with characters experiencing similar feelings can provide comfort and perspective.
• Create an open environment: Encourage children to talk about their feelings without fear of judgement or dismissal. Active listening and acknowledging their emotions can help them feel understood.

2. Teaching Self-Regulation Skills

Self-regulation refers to a child’s ability to manage their emotions and behaviour in response to different situations. Strategies include:

• Breathing exercises: Simple techniques such as deep belly breathing or ‘blowing out candles’ (exhaling slowly through the mouth) can help children calm down during moments of stress.
• A calming area: A designated space with comforting items, such as soft toys, sensory objects, or books, can provide children with a retreat when emotions become overwhelming.
• Modelling calm behaviour: Children learn by observing their caregivers. Demonstrating how to manage stress (e.g., taking deep breaths, using positive self-talk) encourages them to adopt similar techniques.

3. Building Emotional Resilience

Resilience helps children cope with challenges and setbacks. Parents can support this by:

• Encouraging problem-solving: When children face difficulties, guide them to think of solutions rather than immediately solving the problem for them. Asking, “What do you think we could do about this?” fosters independence.
• Teaching positive self-talk: Help children reframe negative thoughts into more constructive ones. For example, changing “I can’t do this!” to “This is hard, but I can try again,” builds perseverance.
• Supporting healthy risk-taking: Allowing children to try new experiences, even if they might fail, strengthens resilience and teaches them that mistakes are a natural part of learning.

4. Strengthening Emotional Security

A strong sense of emotional security helps children feel safe and confident in managing their emotions. Ways to promote this include:

• Consistent routines: Predictability in daily activities provides children with a sense of stability, reducing anxiety and emotional distress.
• Physical connection: Affectionate gestures such as hugs, holding hands, or sitting close together during difficult moments can provide comfort and reassurance.
• Spending quality time: Engaging in shared activities, such as playing, reading, or simply talking, reinforces a child’s sense of being valued and supported.

Final Thoughts

Helping children cope with big feelings is a continuous process that requires patience and understanding. By fostering emotional expression, teaching self-regulation, building resilience, and ensuring emotional security, parents can provide children with the tools they need to navigate their emotions effectively. In turn, this supports their overall emotional wellbeing, leading to healthier relationships, improved academic outcomes, and long-term mental health benefits.

By prioritising emotional development in childhood, parents and caregivers lay the foundation for a resilient and emotionally secure future.