How to help kids manage their emotions

Children can have big emotions. How can you help your kids manage and process these emotions better? Here are some tips:

1. Five Finger Breathing
2. Help kids process emotions through play
3. Help them feel the emotions as physical sensations in their bodies

Five Finger Breathing

I learned this technique from a friend and it’s brilliant! I was already trying to help my kids take deep breathes when they are upset, but this method gives little kids a perfect visual to follow.

So you basically trace up and down all of your fingers while you breathe in and out. So you hold up one hand with all five fingers extended. And then with the other hand you start going up the side of your thumb, breathing in as you do. Then when you reach the top of your thumb, you start going down the other side of the thumb, breathing slowly out as you go. Then you go up the next finger breathing in. And go down the finger breathing out. You go up and down all of these fingers, breathing in as you go up and breathing out as you go down.

When you finish one hand, then switch and do the other hand. By the time you are done, you will have taken about 10 deep breathes which is usually enough time to calm the nervous system.

Help kids process emotions through play

Kids process emotions while playing. If something bad has happened to them, they will often act it out in play. This is why it’s good for you as the parent to play with them regularly so that you can see what is going on in their life. You will be able to understand better what is happening in your child’s life as you play with them. And you can help them process those negative emotions during play if you are there paying attention.

For example, let’s say someone was mean to them at school. While you are playing with them, the child might reenact what happened at school. “And the teddy bear pushed the unicorn and said ‘you’re ugly!’ And the unicorn says ‘NO, I’m not!’ and goes off and cries.” This play is very powerful because it helps the child to process those negative emotions that they experienced. And if you are there, you can guide them through it and give them advice on how to handle it when someone says mean things. That is why it is very important to play with your kids and be there when they need to talk about things.

Help them feel the emotions as physical sensations in their bodies

Emotions are just physical sensations caused by the thoughts we are thinking. Processing emotions means that you simply feel them. You focus on what the emotion feels like and let it be there for a few minutes.

A lot of times we don’t want to feel the negative emotions so we push them away. We distract ourselves. We eat food. We watch reels. But if we will just sit and feel the negative emotions, they won’t last too long. Emotions are usually processed within a few minutes.

We can help the processing of emotions by using soothing touch. If we feel anger in our chest and throat, we can put our hands on those parts of our body to facilitate the emotional release.

We can teach our kids to process emotions by feeling them instead of running away from those feelings. This will help children be emotionally resilient and be able to handle ANYTHING that comes up in their lives.