May 26: Discharging Big Emotions

A frequent topic that arises in my conversations with parents is how to help children build skills for managing big feelings. Throughout childhood and adolescence, we want to help children learn to identify their emotions and to develop a toolbox of adaptive coping skills to help them manage challenging emotions such as anger, frustration, sadness, jealousy, or anxiety.

When children are upset or stressed, adults often encourage them to take deep breaths or engage in some other activity focused on slowing down. If your child is able to use these types of soothing strategies to help manage big feelings, that’s terrific. Calming activities like breathing techniques definitely play an important role in emotion regulation.

However, for many children who struggle to manage challenging emotions, calming tactics do not feel like enough. An alternative approach is to encourage children to implement strategies focused on safely discharging physical energy. For example: kicking or throwing a ball, squeezing a stuffie or beanbag, pounding on clay or play dough, screaming into a pillow, shredding paper from the recycling bin, dancing to loud music, or engaging in vigorous physical activity such as running, jumping, or doing burpees.

In some situations, and for some children, the act of engaging in this type of physical discharge will directly lead to feeling more regulated. Similarly, many adults can relate to going for a run, walk, or bike ride when they feel stressed or upset as a way to help settle their emotions. Other children benefit from engaging in a release of physical energy followed by a soothing activity to help re-regulate behavior and emotions. For example: reading, listening to an audiobook or mellow playlist, coloring or doing a craft, building with Lego, taking a bath or shower, or patting a pet.

The notion of a toolbox of coping skills is so appealing because ideally we want to help children develop an array of different skills and strategies to support managing emotions in different types of situations and at different moments in time. For example, if a child is frustrated when they are at school, they may not be able to access strategies for physically discharging energy. However, they can certainly learn the skill of asking to walk down the hall to fill their water bottle, taking a quick bathroom break, or getting a drink of water as a means of creating some space and giving themselves a moment to settle down and re-regulate.

My final thought to share is a reminder that developing emotion regulation skills is an important social and emotional goal that many individuals work on throughout childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. If/when your child inevitably has a time when they struggle to access adaptive coping skills, remember that developing these skills is a work-in-progress, and moments of struggle can help you identify areas for future skill building.