How to Help Children Manage Their Emotions

Emotions are part of a child’s emotional and psychological development. Fear, sadness, frustration, anger, anxiety or jealousy are natural childhood experiences and play an important role in how a child learns to understand themselves, others and the world.

However, children are not always able to understand, organise or express what they feel. Often, emotions appear through behaviour: irritability, tantrums, withdrawal, agitation, school difficulties or sleep changes can be indirect ways of communicating emotional suffering.

From the perspective of psychodynamic theory and attachment theory, helping a child manage emotions does not mean eliminating difficult emotions, but helping the child feel them in a safe, understandable and regulated way.

The importance of the emotional relationship

Attachment theories show that children develop their capacity for emotional regulation through relationships with caregivers.

When an adult is able to:

• welcome emotions;
• respond consistently;
• help give meaning to what the child feels;
• transmit emotional safety;

the child gradually internalises this capacity for self-regulation.

In other words, before learning to calm themselves alone, a child first needs to be emotionally helped to regulate within a relationship with another person.

Emotions need to be understood, not only controlled

Sometimes, when faced with intense emotions, adults tend to focus only on behaviour:

• “Don’t cry.”
• “That is no reason to feel like this.”
• “You have to control yourself.”
• “Behave.”

Although often said with good intentions, these responses can lead the child to feel that certain emotions are excessive, wrong or difficult to accept.

From a psychodynamic point of view, when emotions do not find space to be recognised and thought about, they may end up being expressed in other ways:

• anxiety;
• aggression;
• withdrawal;
• relational difficulties;
• physical symptoms;
• low self-esteem.

A child needs not only limits, but also to feel that what they feel can be understood.

Helping the child name emotions

Young children do not yet fully have the capacity to identify and organise internally what they feel.

For this reason, the adult can function as someone who helps translate the emotional experience:

• “You seem very angry.”
• “I think that made you sad.”
• “That was difficult for you when it happened.”
• “I understand that you felt scared.”

When emotions gain a name and meaning, they become less frightening and easier to integrate.

The importance of emotional safety

A child regulates better when they feel:

• predictability;
• protection;
• emotional availability;
• consistency in relationships.

This does not mean an absence of frustration or conflict, but the existence of a sufficiently safe relationship so that the child can deal with difficult emotions without feeling alone or emotionally lost.

Attachment theories show that children with emotionally safe relationships tend to develop:

• greater self-esteem;
• better emotional regulation;
• greater trust in relationships;
• more capacity to tolerate frustration;
• greater emotional autonomy throughout development.

Behaviour has emotional meaning

From a psychodynamic perspective, a child’s behaviour is often understood as a form of emotional communication.

Behind a tantrum, aggression or opposition there may be:

• feelings of insecurity;
• need for emotional attention;
• fear;
• difficulty dealing with separations;
• anxiety;
• jealousy;
• frustration;
• unspoken suffering.

Instead of looking only at the “difficult” behaviour, it becomes important to ask: “What might this child be trying to communicate?”

Adults also regulate through their own emotional presence

Children are very sensitive to the emotional state of adults.

When caregivers can maintain some capacity for calm, containment and reflection in the face of a child’s intense emotions, they also help the child organise emotionally.

This does not mean that parents have to be perfect. It means only that the emotional relationship can function as a space of safety and repair.

When to seek psychological help?

Some emotional difficulties are part of normal development. However, it may be important to seek psychological support when:

• anxiety is persistent;
• there are significant behavioural changes;
• important school difficulties appear;
• the child seems very sad, irritable or withdrawn;
• there are intense relational difficulties;
• persistent regressions occur;
• symptoms significantly interfere with everyday life.

Child psychotherapy can help a child understand and express emotions more safely, promoting healthier emotional development.