The emotional skill children can practise before crisis strikes

Research suggests therapies often help by strengthening emotion regulation, prompting calls for families and schools to teach coping skills before distress escalates.

A frustrating encounter in a car showroom can reveal how quickly strong feelings take hold. One moment, a person is simply trying to negotiate a price; the next, their face is hot, their pulse is racing and their voice is rising. Yet the same situation can also show how regulation works in practice. The calmer sales representative who stepped in, listened and redirected the conversation demonstrated something that is often mistaken for personality alone: the ability to manage emotion under pressure.

Psychology Today argues that emotion regulation is not simply an inborn trait, but a set of skills that can be learned. Those skills include noticing what is happening internally, thinking it through and deciding how to respond. Coping, in that framework, is the part of regulation that becomes most important during stress, such as pausing before answering an angry customer. The article says this kind of skill-building is consistently linked to better well-being, and that repeated practice with feedback can strengthen it over time.

The piece draws on a Swedish review of 62 studies on therapy for anxiety, depression and self-harm. According to the article, emotion regulation appeared to play a role in about half the cases in which treatment helped. The connection was especially strong when therapy explicitly taught these skills using an established framework, where the link showed up in about eight out of ten studies. Even when regulation was not the main aim, the review suggests that some therapies may still work in part by helping people become better at managing feelings. The article notes, however, that the evidence is not definitive: most studies could not show whether regulation improved first or whether symptoms eased first, and only a small minority involved children or teenagers.

That limitation is part of why the article argues for earlier teaching. Research with young people points in the same direction, the piece says, with treatment for depressed and anxious teenagers often reducing emotional dysregulation as symptoms improve. It also points to prevention work with children at higher risk, where better coping skills helped explain later gains in emotional and behavioural health. Other programmes aimed at children and families make a similar case. Groups such as Powerfully You, Western Kids Health, The Light House Denver, Radiant Ascension and Regulating Together all build their services around the idea that self-regulation can be taught deliberately, through practice, coaching and supportive relationships.

For families, schools and youth organisations, the practical message is straightforward: name the skill, model it and rehearse it before a crisis hits. The article recommends saying out loud what a feeling is and what to do next, such as taking a breath before reacting. It also stresses that calm moments are the best time to practise coping, because skills learned in low-stress settings are easier to use when emotions are running high. In classrooms and other child-focused settings, the same approach can be built into everyday life through short, repeated exercises, coaching after setbacks and adults who model steadiness themselves. The article’s broader point is that children do not have to wait for therapy, or for a major emotional crisis, to learn how to recognise, reflect and respond well.