Helping Your Child Learn About and Manage Big Feelings

Many highly sensitive people (HSP) of all ages experience frequent and intense emotions, which can be both a trigger for and a symptom of a dysregulated nervous system.  The younger the HSP, the more intense these emotional reactions may be.  That is because younger children’s brains are not as developed as the adult brain, so their ability to understand and cope with emotions is not as developed.  One of our most important tasks as parents and caregivers of young children is to help them learn to understand, regulate and manage their emotions.  This blog describes some of the most effective tools parents and other caregivers may employ when helping sensitive children with emotional reactivity.

Tool #1:  Become a Detective

As a first step in supporting your child, it’s helpful to get curious about their default ways of expressing emotions and dysregulation.  This may sound basic to some, but many parents of younger children are getting to know their child’s temperament for the first time, and may not have a full understanding about all the ways their child may be showing cues that they’re becoming dysregulated.  Try to notice the events leading up to the emotions, and if your child is old enough, involve them in the detective work.  Taking a stance of curiosity may support you as the parent in taking your child’s emotions less personally.   This, in turn, may help you to remain calm in the face of these emotional reactions, which is  a key element of helping your child regain a feeling of calm when they are experiencing big feelings. 

 Tool #2:  Understand the Types of Emotional Expression

Many highly sensitive children are known for their dramatic “meltdowns,” tantrums and tearful or rageful episodes.  These children are most often identified as highly sensitive because they show everyone how they are feeling.  They are externalizers.  However, some highly sensitive children may be so overwhelmed with emotion that they freeze or dissociate (“space out”).  These children are internalizers.  It is important to get to know the ways that your child is showing you that their emotions are overwhelming them, and to reflect this back to them. Doing so helps them understand themselves and how they experience their feelings.  *See blog post on Internalizers and Externalizers for more information on this!

 Tool #3:  Focus on the body

Whether they are displaying a big external reaction or a more internal one, it’s important to help your child recognize what is happening in their body when they are having big feelings.  This helps your child begin to develop an inner observer, which is a critical step in being able to express and manage emotions in a healthy manner.  The best way to do this is to name what you are observing on the outside, in as neutral and calm a manner as possible.  For example, “Your voice is loud and you are crying and throwing things, that tells me your body is feeling upset,” or “I notice when I just mentioned it was time to get ready to go, your eyes glazed over, I wonder if you’re having some feelings about leaving?”

 Tool #4:  Empathize with the Feelings

As calmly as possible, validate their emotion, even if it seems to you like they are over-reacting.  Saying things such as, “It’s really hard that your brother wouldn’t let you play with that toy,” or “I know you’d rather stay home today instead of going to school,” helps your child understand why they are feeling dysregulated, and know they have your support with their big feelings.  Some parents worry in the moment that doing this will make the emotion bigger, but it is critical to helping the child process the emotion and move through it to a calmer state.

 Tool #5:  Encourage them to Practice Coping

After reflecting and empathizing, it’s important to help your child practice active coping skills.  You might ask them what they think would help them feel better, or talk about what you do when you feel that way and ask if they want to do that with you.  If a child can’t engage verbally, role modeling is the best way to foster coping skills.  For example, I’ll often just start deep breathing when my daughter is too upset to talk, making eye contact with her and softly repeating that I’m there for her when she’s ready for a hug. 

 Tool #6:  Establish Safety with Healthy Boundaries

Safety is a critical component of healthy emotional expression.  If a child is hitting, kicking, biting, self-harming or damaging property, it’s important to set limits on these behaviors while you are validating the feeling.  Saying something such as “I know you’re angry but you can’t hit me,” or “I see you are so sad but it’s not safe to hit your head on the floor,” will help your child know that you are helping them to stay safe even when their emotions and body feel out of control.  Ultimately this helps contain your child’s big feelings and supports them in moving through them.

 Tool #7:  Know When to Get Help

For kids under age 5years, frequent emotional reactivity is normal to some degree.  So much is happening in the brain during those early years, and this often results in emotional dysregulation.  Even the child who occasionally bites or hits when angry is experiencing normal development, as hard as those behaviors may be for those around them.  Developing tools to regulate emotions is a key focus of early childhood, and the tools described above are meant to support you as a parent/caregiver in helping your child acquire skills in this area.  However, there are times when it’s important to obtain additional evaluation and assistance for your child.  These guidelines may support you in understanding when you’ve reached that point:

*If you find that your child is overwhelmed by their emotions multiple times per day and you are unable to help them shift into a more regulated state after 30-60 minutes of practicing the tools discussed above.  If you have a week or two like that, it may be that your child is about to take a developmental leap and therefore this is normal, but if you have months like that, it’s time for further evaluation.

*If your child is harming others or themselves daily: this indicates significant and chronic dysregulation that likely requires more investigation and strategies.

*If emotional reactions are interfering with basic daily activities such as eating, sleeping, playing.

*If you as the parent are finding yourself repeatedly triggered into your own emotional reactions by your child, or you are just feeling too tired and overwhelmed to handle them yourself.

 I have spent the last 20+ years working as an early childhood mental health specialist and intuitive coach, so I have a unique set of skills which may support you in understanding your child’s emotional reactivity.  I can be a detective with you, do a thorough assessment, recommend resources and strategies, and support you in your parenting journey!  If you are looking for support that is holistic, practical and a little bit “woo woo”, I may be the right coach for you!  Check out my services page or go ahead and book a discovery call.

Carolina is an active and proud member of the Sensitive Empowerment Community!  Learn more about this wonderful group through Julie Bjelland’s website at https://www.fatfreecartpro.com/ecom/gb.php?cl=342244&c=ib&aff=383793. There are numerous free and paid resources designed to support Highly Sensitive People on this site!