New insights into building emotional regulation skills in children highlight importance of adult support

A child psychologist emphasises that emotional regulation is vital for children’s growth, with recent guidance stressing the role of adults in helping children manage their feelings through techniques like co-regulation and mindfulness.

Children often experience emotions in waves too big for them to manage alone, and that is where emotional regulation comes in. In a piece published by the Daily Journal, a child psychologist explains the idea as the set of skills people use to notice, understand and respond to feelings in a way that is appropriate to the moment rather than overwhelming it. The article frames the subject as central to everyday development, not just behaviour in a difficult moment.

Broadly, emotional regulation is not about pushing feelings away. Psychology resources note that it includes techniques such as reappraisal, where a person reframes a situation, and mindfulness, which helps create space between feeling and reaction. Those skills are associated with better well-being, stronger relationships and greater resilience under stress.

For children, the process is often gradual and heavily shaped by adults around them. Harvard Health says co-regulation, in which a parent or caregiver helps a child calm down and name what they are feeling, can be an important bridge towards independent regulation. Other child-development writers describe the skill as closely linked to emotional intelligence, because children first need to identify emotions before they can learn to manage them.

Experts who focus on parenting say the goal is not to suppress distress but to build a child’s capacity to sit with it and recover from it. Practical steps commonly recommended include naming feelings, modelling calm behaviour, validating the emotion, offering simple calming tools and repairing after conflict. Guidance also suggests seeking extra help if a child appears to struggle with regulation far more than peers do.