Temper tantrums that children throw have become so common that parents accept this as the norm. However, if your five-year-old is still throwing a tantrum and finding it hard to express his or her emotions, you may need some intervention.

While you do want to help your child deal with emotions, spoon-feeding them as they are undergoing emotional turmoil is never ideal. You want to teach your child the art of self-regulation and dealing with emotional outbursts.

You may not understand how important teaching emotional regulation is, but when children are in control of their emotions, they are mentally healthy. Children who learn to deal with emotions when they are feeling overwhelmed will enjoy healthier relationships with others and will be able to problem-solve when the need arises.

What is Self-Regulation?

When you work on getting your child to learn self-regulation, you are teaching them how to deal with their emotions in sticky situations. In stressful situations, children who can self-regulate can control themselves and calm themselves down. Many children, however, face difficulties with self-regulation and controlling their emotions.

How Can You Notice If Your Child Struggles with Self-Regulation?

Every child is different and every child will react to an overwhelming situation in their unique way. Some children have an immediate reaction where they have a full outburst the minute that something triggers them emotionally. Other children allow strong feelings to build up until they can handle it no longer and eventually end up throwing a terrible tantrum.

If you notice that your child struggles with soothing himself or herself, you need to start teaching your child how to deal with the gamut of emotions that come out all at once.

You must remember that since every child is unique, it may be harder for some children to regulate emotions even if you try these techniques. Different personality types will have diverse reactions to the tips that we suggest.

Promoting Mindfulness

“Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

One of the key things to note when helping children deal with emotions is getting them to understand what emotions they are feelings and why some emotions illicit a stronger reaction than other emotions. 

Teaching children to be mindful of feelings entails getting children to label feelings. It is important to get your child to identify emotions and to teach your child what should occur when a specific emotion is felt.

It is equally important to teach your little ones to slow down and take note of how they are reacting to a particular situation. You can also go a step further by getting your child to assess how their specific reaction is perceived by other people.

Encouraging Meditation

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness is important but meditation too has value especially when you want to help your child stay abreast of his or her emotions.

It is important to get your child to sit for 5 to 10 minutes daily with closed eyes. Convince your child to be present in the moment and and just enjoy meditating and thinking about being in the moment. A core element of meditation is breathing and being fully conscious while taking each breath.

Teaching your child breathing techniques is a great as they can use these breathing techniques when they are feeling stressed or sad.

While mindfulness and meditation are what you should focus on, you can try out other activities with your child to promote mindful meditation.

Exercises to Teach Mindfulness and Meditation

• Drawing faces showing emotions: To get younger children to express how they are feeling without using words, you can ask them to draw a face that shows how they are feeling inside. This is a great way to understand if your child is feeling happy, sad, or even hungry. Once your child draws the different emotions, you can label the different feelings.
• Breathing exercises: Make exercising fun by playfully teaching your child core breathing exercises such as belly breathing or balloon breathing. Teaching your child breathing techniques will assist your child when he or she has to control  his or her breath when it becomes faster in moments of anger and rage.
• Fill Your Burger: Get your child to understand that emotions are much like the filling in a burger. Explain to your child that just as he or she has a choice of filling when making a burger, he or she can also decide which emotions he or she wants to feel. You can use concrete objects like toy burger fillings and buns to complete this task. If children fill their burgers with too many negative emotions, you can encourage them to remove some ingredients (feelings) from their full burgers. 
• Mindful walking: A great way to encourage children to let go of all thoughts and feelings clouding their judgment is to encourage them to walk up and down. They should be thinking as they walk. This is a great way for children to do some thinking and to clear their minds completely. Sometimes all it takes for children to calm down is for them to forget how they are feeling and move on to something else. Mindful walking allows one to get to grips with innermost thoughts only to put them aside thereafter.
• Situation cards: Write down situations on pieces of paper. Get your child to choose a piece of paper. You need to get your child to tell you how he or she will react in the situation that was penned down on the piece of paper. A good idea would be to mention the feelings that could come up in a set situation. By doing this, you are getting your kid to think about how to handle feelings and upsets.
• Promoting relaxation and self-care: Children also have emotional outbursts when they feel too tired or if they have no time to relax. Therefore, get your child to read, listen to music, take a hot bubble bath, or enjoy time with a stuffed animal or pet. 

Mindful Parenting and Teaching

While it is important to teach your child how to be more mindful, it is also important to reflect and see if any of your actions are causing your child to have meltdowns or throw tantrums. Children, just like adults, enjoy routine. Sometimes going against a routine or introducing a new routine may cause your child to feel too overwhelmed. This may manifest in a complete meltdown.

As parents, we do need to give children the chance to experience different emotions so that they can learn how best to deal with all emotions. However, we must take care not to upset our children’s lives by making drastic changes. Sometimes you too will have to introduce new routines or new targets one step at a time. This may curb unnecessary meltdowns and help your kid to adjust more seamlessly to change.

Teachers to need to be mindful of all children and how certain behaviors on their part can affect children's emotions. Teachers must be mindful of how a drastic shift or added pressure can illicit an unwanted response from a child or children. By doing this, teachers can also avoid necessary emotional outbursts in the classroom setting.

Both teachers and parents need to remember to discuss emotions and feelings with children often. Engaging in discussions about feelings during a variety of situations or in different places equips children with the needed vocabulary to talk about feelings and better express their feelings. 

Lastly, parents and teachers ought to note that for the most part they are children’s role models. If parents and teachers shout and scream when they are angry, sad, or afraid, they cannot expect children to react differently when they are feeling the same. Without realizing it, parents and teachers set the tone for how to react in all situations.

The Take Away

The next time you are shocked at how your child is reacting to a situation, don’t complain about your child’s behavior. Start to work on improving the way your child reacts by teaching your child how to get a hold of his or her emotions. Better yet, teach your child to regulate emotions in all situations.

Role model positive reactions to strong emotions and hope and pray that your child follows in your footsteps.