What Is Emotional Regulation in Children? A Parent’s Guide

Emotional regulation is one of the most
important capacities in child development —
and one of the most frequently misunderstood
by parents who confuse it with emotional
suppression. A child who is emotionally
regulated is not a child who never feels
difficult emotions. They are a child who
can experience difficult emotions without
being overwhelmed by them — who can feel
angry without hitting, disappointed without
melting down, anxious without shutting down.

This article covers what emotional regulation
actually is, how it develops across childhood,
what builds it, and what parents can
specifically do to support it.

What Emotional Regulation Actually Is

Emotional regulation refers to the
processes by which people influence
which emotions they have, when they
have them, and how they experience
and express them. Research by James
Gross at Stanford University — one
of the leading researchers on emotion
regulation — identifies several distinct
strategies people use to regulate emotions:

Situation selection — choosing to
enter or avoid situations based
on their emotional consequences.

Cognitive reappraisal — changing
how one thinks about a situation
to change its emotional impact.

Response modulation — influencing
emotional responses after they have
been triggered — through breathing,
physical movement, or other strategies.

In children, these strategies develop
gradually across childhood — and
the development is significantly
shaped by the co-regulatory support
of caregivers. As we discussed in
our article on co-regulation, children
learn to regulate themselves primarily
through being regulated by others first.

Emotional regulation is not:
The absence of strong emotions.
Emotional suppression — pushing
feelings down or hiding them.
Always being calm.
Never crying or getting angry.

Emotional regulation is:
The capacity to experience emotions
fully without being overwhelmed.
The ability to return to calm
after emotional activation.
The flexibility to choose how
to respond to emotional experience.
The capacity to tolerate difficult
feelings without acting on them destructively.

How Emotional Regulation Develops

Research on the development of
emotional regulation across childhood
identifies a consistent developmental sequence:

Infancy: Newborns have essentially
no independent capacity for emotional
regulation — they are entirely dependent
on caregiver co-regulation. Research
by Ed Tronick on early emotional
development finds that the primary
regulatory system for infants is
the caregiver relationship — the
warm, responsive, attuned presence
of a caring adult who notices
and responds to the infant’s signals.

Toddlerhood: Between ages one and
three, children begin developing
the first fragile capacities for
independent regulation — but these
capacities are easily overwhelmed
and highly inconsistent. Language
begins to provide a regulatory tool —
naming feelings reduces their intensity —
but toddlers remain heavily dependent
on co-regulation.

Preschool years: Between ages three
and six, children develop significantly
more regulatory capacity — including
the ability to use simple strategies
like distraction, physical movement,
and seeking adult support. Research
by Stephanie Carlson at the University
of Minnesota finds that executive
function development — particularly
inhibitory control — is closely
linked to emotional regulation
development at this age.

School age: Between ages six and
twelve, children develop increasingly
sophisticated regulatory strategies —
including cognitive reappraisal,
problem-solving, and the deliberate
use of social support. Research
finds that children who develop
strong regulatory capacity at
this age show better academic
performance, stronger peer relationships,
and better mental health outcomes.

Adolescence: The emotional intensity
of adolescence — driven partly by
hormonal changes and partly by
the still-maturing prefrontal cortex —
creates new regulatory challenges
even for children who developed
strong regulation in middle childhood.
Research on adolescent emotion
regulation finds that the strategies
that work in calm conditions may
be less available under conditions
of high emotional arousal or peer pressure.

What the Research Shows Builds
Emotional Regulation

Warm, responsive caregiving.
Research consistently finds that
the quality of early caregiving —
warm, responsive, attuned —
is one of the strongest predictors
of emotional regulation development.
The co-regulatory experience of
a calm, responsive caregiver
literally builds the neural
architecture of self-regulation
over time.

Emotion labeling and vocabulary.
Research by Matthew Lieberman
at UCLA on affect labeling —
putting feelings into words —
finds that naming an emotion
reduces activity in the amygdala
and increases activity in the
prefrontal cortex. In plain language:
naming a feeling makes it smaller
and more manageable. Parents who
consistently name emotions —
their own and their child’s —
are building regulatory capacity
with every labeling interaction.

Modeling regulated emotional
responses. Research on observational
learning and emotional development
finds that children develop their
primary emotional regulation strategies
by observing how the adults around
them manage emotional experience.
A parent who models: “I’m feeling
really frustrated right now —
I’m going to take a breath before
I respond” is providing one of
the most powerful regulatory
education moments available.

Allowing the full experience
of emotions. Research on emotional
suppression and regulation finds
that children who are allowed
to fully experience their emotions —
who are not told to stop crying,
not to be angry, or not to feel
what they feel — develop stronger
regulatory capacity than those
whose emotional experience is
consistently suppressed. Suppression
reduces the opportunity to practice
regulation — which is what builds
the capacity over time.

Teaching specific regulatory
strategies explicitly. Research
on emotion regulation interventions
finds that teaching children
specific strategies — deep breathing,
physical movement, cognitive
reappraisal, seeking social support —
produces measurable improvements
in regulatory capacity when
taught explicitly and practiced
in calm moments so they are
available when needed.

Physical activity. Research
consistently finds associations
between physical activity and
emotional regulation in children —
exercise reduces cortisol,
increases serotonin and dopamine,
and provides a physical channel
for emotional discharge that
supports regulatory recovery.

Sleep. Research on sleep and
emotional regulation finds that
sleep deprivation significantly
impairs emotional regulation —
even modest sleep restriction
produces measurable increases
in emotional reactivity in children.
Protecting sleep is one of the
most direct regulatory interventions available.

What Undermines Emotional Regulation

Dismissing or punishing emotional
expression. Research consistently
finds that children whose emotional
expressions are consistently dismissed
or punished develop worse regulatory
capacity — because they learn to
suppress rather than regulate,
and because they lose access to
the co-regulatory support that
builds regulation over time.

Parental dysregulation. Research
on parental emotional reactivity
and child regulation finds that
parents who consistently respond
to child emotional expression
with their own heightened emotion —
frustration, anger, anxiety —
model dysregulation rather than
regulation, and provide escalation
rather than co-regulation.

Chronic stress. Research on
toxic stress and regulatory
development finds that chronic
stress — from poverty, family
instability, trauma, or abuse —
significantly impairs the
development of regulatory capacity,
because the constant activation
of the stress response system
dysregulates the very neural
systems that support regulation.

Try This This Week

Practice 1 — The Feelings Thermometer
What it is: A simple visual
tool that helps children
identify and communicate
their emotional intensity —
building the emotional awareness
that is the foundation of regulation.

How to do it: Create or
draw a simple thermometer
together with your child —
with levels from 1 (calm and comfortable)
to 5 (completely overwhelmed).

Label each level together:
1 — Calm, happy, comfortable
2 — A little bothered
3 — Upset, frustrated
4 — Really upset, hard to think
5 — Completely overwhelmed

Practice using it in calm moments:
“Where are you on the thermometer
right now?”

Use it during difficult moments:
“I can see you’re at about a 4.
Let’s try to get you back to a 2.”

Why it works: Research on
emotional awareness and regulation
finds that children who can
identify and communicate their
emotional intensity show better
regulatory outcomes than those
who cannot — because awareness
is the prerequisite for regulation.
The Feelings Thermometer makes
the internal experience external
and visible.

Practice 2 — The Calm Down Toolkit
What it is: A personalized
collection of regulation strategies
that your specific child finds
helpful — built together in
a calm moment so they are
available when needed.

How to do it: Together with
your child, experiment with
several different regulation
strategies and identify which
ones actually help them:

Physical strategies:
Deep breathing — in for 4, out for 6
Jumping jacks or running on the spot
A tight squeeze hug
Splashing cold water on the face

Mental strategies:
Counting to ten
Thinking of a favorite place
Repeating a calming phrase

Social strategies:
Asking for a hug
Talking to someone they trust

Create a simple card or poster
of their top 3 strategies —
their personal Calm Down Toolkit.
Place it somewhere accessible.

Why it works: Research on
regulation strategy instruction
finds that children who have
a pre-identified, personally
tested set of regulatory strategies
use them more effectively under
stress than those who try to
generate strategies in the moment.
The Calm Down Toolkit makes
the strategies available before they are needed.

Practice 3 — The Regulation Role Model
What it is: A deliberate
daily practice of narrating
your own emotional regulation
out loud — modeling the
process your child needs to develop.

How to do it: Once each day,
find a genuine moment of mild
frustration or stress and
narrate your regulation process
out loud in your child’s hearing:

“I’m feeling really stressed
about that — I’m going to
take three deep breaths before
I respond.”

“I’m feeling frustrated right now.
I’m going to go for a quick walk
and come back when I feel calmer.”

“I notice I’m starting to get
overwhelmed. I’m going to
give myself a few minutes
before I deal with this.”

The narration does not need
to be dramatic. It needs to
be genuine and visible.

Why it works: Research on
observational learning and
emotional development finds
that children’s primary source
of regulatory strategy is
observation of how trusted
adults manage their own
emotional experience.
The Regulation Role Model
makes your regulatory process
explicitly visible — providing
a model the child can internalize
and eventually use independently.

The Bottom Line

Emotional regulation is not
a trait children either have
or do not have. It is a capacity
that develops — gradually,
through relationship, through
practice, and through the
consistent experience of
being co-regulated by a
warm, available adult.

The parent who names emotions,
who stays calm during their
child’s difficult moments,
who models their own regulation
honestly and explicitly, and
who teaches specific strategies
in calm moments — that parent
is building emotional regulation
in the most powerful way available.

Not through instruction alone.
Through relationship, modeling,
and the ten thousand ordinary
moments of daily family life
in which regulation is practiced,
witnessed, and slowly internalized.

Sources

Gross, J. J. (2015).
Emotion regulation: Current
status and future prospects.
Psychological Inquiry,
26(1), 1–26.

Lieberman, M. D., et al. (2007).
Putting feelings into words.
Psychological Science,
18(5), 421–428.

Thompson, R. A. (1994).
Emotion regulation: A theme
in search of definition.
Monographs of the Society
for Research in Child Development,
59(2-3), 25–52.

Carlson, S. M. (2005).
Developmentally sensitive
measures of executive function
in preschool children.
Developmental Neuropsychology,
28(2), 595–616.