Big Emotions in Tiny Humans- Explanations and Resources

Let’s be real, no one has a complete handle on their emotions, especially this past year. As adults, it’s okay to still be figuring out the best way to identify and express emotions in a safe an healthy way. Burnout from work, family, and about a million other stressors does not make it any easier.

As adults, we all have the ability to help children to identify and express their emotions. The importance of teaching children about emotional awareness, regulation skills, and expression cannot be overstated. Learning these skills will help them navigate their life and relationships (and probably make your life a little easier as well).

An emotional and screaming child. Small kids find it difficult to regulate their emotions — Emotional Rescue: Activities for Emotional Development CREDIT: TINA RUPP
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What does “emotion” actually mean?

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What do I mean by “emotion”? Emotion, in simplest terms, is a physiological response to the environment. On the other hand, emotional regulation is the ability to monitor and adjust an emotional response in order to reach a goal. This means when a child has difficulty with emotional regulation, they act out behaviorally or shut down. The emotional regulation piece is the aspect that I, as a child psychologist, most commonly deal with.

As a counselor, it’s my job to help kids discover their feelings. It’s often not as easy as it sounds, especially when the vast majority of children reply with an underwhelming, “good’ when prompted to reflect on how they are feeling (good in fact isn’t technically considered a feelings state).

Skill Building for Emotions

The truth is, just like any other skill vital to healthy social and emotional development in your child, learning how to identify and cope with emotions needs to be supported and encouraged. For a small child, big feelings can feel scary and overwhelming. When your child doesn’t fight against their feelings, undue stress and anxiety is eliminated.

Once a child develops the skills to identify their emotions, they can begin to develop self-awareness around what calms and soothes them. This is a process of trial and error where you can come alongside your child to help them observe and identify what seems to lower their physiological stress.

Just think about how much smoother your day will go when your child is able to identify frustration and actively work towards calming themselves, instead of throwing a usual tantrum. Another benefit of working with your children on emotional regulation is that you get to practice identification and find new ways to handle your own big emotions.

Learning Emotional Systems

Bronfenbfenner's ecological systems theory. Illustrates the individual, micro, meso, exo, and marcro systems in a child's life that impact their development

A child learns behaviors, emotions, and other social implications from the space around them. Their immediate surroundings (family, peers, school) have the most significant impact on their development. The picture here illustrates Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. As you can see, a child is impacted by multiple systems throughout their life, but foremost they are influenced by their family and peers.

Children learn to embrace their emotional state by realizing that it is normal and ok to feel the way they do. It’s our job to give them opportunities to label their feelings correctly. Emotional memory is strong! We can harness that power by helping students connect their experiences in the classroom with their emotions. By recognizing and acknowledging their feelings during a learning activity or classroom event, we can increase the chances of it sticking in our students’ long-term memory. You see, that’s why emotions for kids is so important!

Milestones for Emotions

There are many ways to foster the development of emotions as a child grows. It is important that an adult takes into consider a child’s developmental age to understand what they can focus on to foster emotional and social development.

A table of social-emotional milestones for children based on age and tips or tricks for caregivers to foster healthy development — Milestones and caregiver actions by child age (The Beguiled Child)

Types of Emotional Intelligence

Common examples of emotional intelligence in children (and adults) include:

Emotional Rights: It’s important for children to understand and assert their rights when it comes to emotions. This helps them maintain healthy boundaries with their friends and peers, and be respectful to teachers and adults.

“I feel…” Statements: To learn how to express their feelings appropriately, children can be taught how to use “I feel…” statements. Instead of an emotional breakdown a child can practice “I feel..” statements to identify and get help processing their emotions. This allows for healthy conflict resolution.

Self-Regulation: A great example of this is when a child feels themselves becoming frustrated or angry and is able to take a step back to recognize their emotion and express it constructively, rather than lashing out.

Expressing Themselves to Others: When a child is able to say “I’m mad because he stole my toy.”

Listening to Others: They engage with active listening and questions when someone else is speaking. Helpful in identifying emotions in others and, thus, in themselves. Helps to relate to others socially.

Coping with Big Emotions

Self-soothing is a vital emotional regulation tool. It’s an emotional skill that many young children do quite naturally, but as we get older, we often stop doing it.

Coping with Extreme Emotions: Sometimes we must step in and help kids deal with the emotional roller coasters they sometimes find themselves on. Their extreme emotions get out of control and they need help finding their way back to calmness. We must realize that addressing the whole brain is key to understanding how to help them best.

“An escalated adult cannot de-escalate an escalated child.“
Child Abuse Prevention Month | Arizona Department of Child Safety (az.gov)

Remember “STEEP”

Stay Calm– It’s important for you to remain calm, no matter how hard it may be.
Time– Kids need time to get through emotions, they are still learning and may be able to self-sooth if you give them time.
Explain– Help children to identify feelings by labeling them and explaining them in age-appropriate terms.
Expectations– Have realistic expectations based on their developmental age. A 2-year-old cannot label and sooth themselves as quickly as a 6-year-old.
Positive Reinforcement– Praise them! Validate them! This teaches kids that feelings are okay and accepted in a safe space you have created for them.

Check out some of the books regarding emotional development on a previous post!