The Boundary Shift

January 21, 2023

Balance, Boundaries, and Belief…

January 25, 2023

Coping with Emotions

Coping with emotions is a key milestone in a child’s developmental stage. For elementary school-aged children, there are some things to keep in mind when teaching them how to cope.

First, there is a social cost to crying at school—being teased or excluded because your child cries too much is a very real thing children have to confront. Therefore, developing coping skills can help your child successfully negotiate their first journey into independent social situations. In doing so, they’ll be able to cope with intense emotions rather than crying about them.

The key to identifying and tolerating emotions is remembering that emotions are short-lived signals our body sends us to let us know something isn’t quite right with the situation. Teach your child to identify the feeling. Allow them to experience the intense emotion without interfering and “rescuing” them. Remind your child that emotions are short-lived. In the moment, the feeling might be intense, but the intensity and the emotions will pass, and will help them learn to tolerate the feelings.

Finally, teach your child that emotions are signals our bodies and brains send us to alert us—they are essentially an alert system to help us navigate social situations. Positive emotional experiences occur in situations in which people feel loved, cared for and safe. Negative emotional experiences tend to occur in situations where the perceived sense of safety is threatened, situations of loss, grief or unknown.

Child reading list

“Bubble Riding: A Relaxation Story Designed to Teach Children Visualization Techniques to Increase Creativity While Lowering Stress and Anxiety Levels” by Lori Lite

“Stress Can Really Get on Your Nerves!” by Trevor Romain

“Listening with My Heart: A Story of Kindness and Self-Compassion” by Gabi Garcia

Parent reading list

“Listening to My Body” by Gabi Garcia

“Helping Children to Cope with Change, Stress and Anxiety” by Deborah Plummer

“Helping Children to Cope with Stress” by Avis Brenner

Signs & Behaviors

Children who can cope tend to:

Identify their emotions

Tolerate intense emotions such as fear, anger and sadness

Understand emotions are short-lived

Understand feelings are alerts or signals telling us we need to pay attention to the environment because something positive or negative may be happening

Recover quickly from intense emotions (especially negative emotions)

Use a number of different coping skills

Use language to talk about their emotions with others

Use empathy and theory of mind skills to self-regulate

Children who can’t cope tend to:

Avoid situations that elicit intense emotions

Throw tantrums that are inappropriate for their age

Use verbal and physical aggression

Develop anxiety and depression

Isolate themselves

Develop low self-esteem

What you can do

Model appropriate emotional literacy skills by identifying your own emotions and tolerating them

Use self-care to take care of your emotional health and well-being

Teach healthy coping skills

Identify emotions and triggers

Identify the accompanying bodily sensations associated with emotions

Practice deep breathing

Practice mindfulness

Use empathy to help identify how others may feel

Use the ability to predict what may happen in social situations in order to regulate your own emotions

Label your feelings for your child until they learn how to do it

Talk about emotions as a part of everyday routines

Be patient as your child learns to deal with their feelings

Actively listen by rephrasing what they say to you

Don’t solve their problems

Don’t rescue them from their feelings; help them tolerate the emotions

Conversation starters

“Where in your body do those feelings happen? What kind of sensations do the feelings create?”

“What do you need in situations where your feelings get too big to handle?”

“What are the things that make you feel mad, sad or scared? What are the things that make you feel happy, surprised or proud?”

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