Emotional regulation refers to the ability to move beyond the pain we experience in life, to tolerate strong feelings and “turn the volume down” on their intensity, and to cope with frustration and disappointment. It is the process by which people influence their own emotions and reactions.
From the moment they are born, babies are learning emotional regulation. In the context of the relationship they form with their parents, also known as “attachment”, children learn about emotions and the reactions that adults have to those emotions. They absorb the emotional states and emotional reactions that they experience via their parents, and these become “hard-wired” in their brains. The next time they experience a similar situation, they respond automatically.
Those automatic responses matter, and matter quite a bit. Research suggests that effective learning and pro-social behavior require strong emotional regulation skills. And, indeed, self-regulation is the cornerstone of good mental health in adult life. Without emotional regulation, adults and children alike are unable to tolerate feeling bad. They may act out, behave impulsively, or withdraw from others. They do not know how to appropriately manage negative emotions, which in turn prompts negative experiences with others, which in turn prompts more negative emotions. The cycle can be vicious.
At school, children who can’t effectively regulate their anxiety or discouragement tend to avoid, rather than engage in, challenging tasks. On the other hand, children who are skilled in regulating their uncomfortable feelings are able to relax and focus on learning. When children are able to, for instance, replace negative thoughts such as “I can’t do this,” with more positive thoughts like, “I can do it if I keep trying”, they are able to regulate their anxiety and therefore persist in work that is challenging. Some recent studies have shown that this ability to successfully manage negative emotions is predictive of school success.
So how do children learn effective emotional regulation?
In short, they learn it by watching us and by being in relationship with us. Parenting styles that are overly soft or overly punitive can prevent children from developing healthy emotional regulation skills, as both styles communicate that it isn’t ok for a child to experience negative emotions. With overly soft parenting the message is often, “It’s not ok that you are feeling bad and I need to fix it for you when you are feeling bad.” With overly punitive parenting, the message is, “It’s not ok that you are feeling bad and so you need to stop feeling that way.” The message that is best for the development of healthy emotionally regulation is, “It’s ok to feel anything you are feeling, but you must act on those feelings in an appropriate way. I will guide you to do so until you are able to do so yourself.”
Here are five strategies that adults and teachers can use to impart appropriate and effective self-regulation coping strategies:
- Adults model health emotional self-management by resisting our own “tantrums”, such as yelling or cursing. We can take a time-out ourselves to regain composure, or attend to our own needs lovingly so that we have emotional reserves when coping with children.
- Adults make a nurturing, close connection with children a priority. It’s vital that children know that the adults in their lives love them, will support them, and, most importantly, will listen to them without judgment. When adults and children have this type of relationship, the adult often needs only to reconnect with the child when he/she becomes dysregulated.
- Adults accept children’s feelings, even when they are inconvenient (as feelings often are). The go-to response to a child’s distress should be empathy. When children feel listened to and valued in their challenging moments, they have the chance to learn that while some emotions don’t feel good, they aren’t dangerous. A child can thereby learn to accept and process his/her own emotions, rather than stuffing them down. This is vital, because when adult support helps a child learn that he/she can live through bad feelings and the sun will still rise the next day, that child learns to be resilient.
- Adults guide children’s emotional responses but resist the urge to punish. When we spank, or shame, or otherwise apply harsh consequences, children learn that the emotions that lead to misbehavior are bad and unacceptable. Children learn, then, to repress those emotions. This inevitably leads to those emotions bubbling out later down the line, which leads to more misbehavior. Our responsibility as adults is to help children learn skills to manage life’s ups and downs until they are able to do it for themselves.
- Adults help children feel safe enough to feel emotions, even while they limit children’s actions. A compassionate tone is most effective, imparting the idea that “You can be as mad as you want, but I will not let you hit anyone.”
These strategies help children to control their emotions as a byproduct of living a healthy emotional life, rather than as a byproduct of being told not to feel, or being punished, or being shamed. All people need to know that emotions are not bad, but rather they are part of the rich tapestry of human experience. Neither adults nor children usually have a choice about what they feel, but people can always choose how they will behave. When people are comfortable with their feelings, they are able to feel intense emotion and experience how that intensity dissipates over time. This leads to better emotional regulation and control.
With a basic understanding of overindulgence and emotional regulation, we are now ready to move on to examining the nine “blessings” that Dr. Wendy Mogel describes in The Blessing of a Skinned Knee. Come back next week to read about the blessing of acceptance, or how to discover your unique and ordinary child. Or catch up on this article series by clicking the links below.
Article 1: The Blessing of a Skinned Kneed
Article 2: Overindulgence
