How can we accept that our children are doing the best they can with the tools they have in the moment? How can we give them tools to help get their needs met?
Co-regulation
Before kids learn to calm themselves, they can learn from us modeling healthy skills and behaviors for them. One of the most important things we can do for our kids is provide a safe environment to process what they’re thinking and feeling, and practice healthy behaviors. This is called co-regulation, and it’s a collaborative effort between us and our children. Key to creating that space is managing our own stress, by modeling some of our own self-care and self-regulation. This co-regulation stage is critical to our child’s ability to self-regulate as they get older.
Stress and ACEs
We can help validate and empower our kids and teens who have been through tough times or are living with ACEs by acknowledging that their body may be making more stress hormones than the average person.
That can look and feel like having trouble sleeping, difficulty focusing on tasks or paying attention and learning, or struggling with self-control or self-regulation. That’s normal because of what they’ve been through. Our bodies have a mechanism designed to protect us from harm. Because they’ve been through some harm, that mechanism is even stronger.
We can assure them that they don’t need to feel shame, or blame themselves for how they’re feeling or reacting. Their experiences – and the fact that their bodies stepped up to take on the challenges in their lives – are not their fault, and we are here to help provide understanding and support as they learn to manage the reactions and challenges that impact their bodies and their lives.
Behavior is communication
It’s helpful to remember that behavior is communication. Rather than needing to “fix” our child’s behavior, we can look for ways to understand their behavior as our child’s attempt at communicating.
When our kids are struggling with big emotions, the first thing we can help them do is regulate. Check out the tools below to help kids deactivate their fight, flight, or freeze response and return to a calmer state.
Next, we can relate to them, validating how they’re feeling. This helps strengthen the attachment bond.
Once they’re able to think more clearly, we can help them put words to their emotions, reason and problem-solve together, and reflect on any new insights.
Breathing activities for kids
Breathing tools help us calm ourselves, and remind us we can use our own life force — breath — to help control how we feel.
Soup and flower
Draw a bowl of soup on one side of a small card or piece of paper. Draw a flower on the other side. Smell the flower (in through the nose), then blow on the hot soup (out slowly through the mouth). Repeat, and keep the drawing in an easy-to-access place for future use. (Or cup hands for imaginary soup, “hold” the flower – no paper necessary.)
Blowing bubbles
This simple and beloved breathing activity slows our minds and helps kids be present in their bodies.
Balloon breath
With hands on their belly, have your child “blow up their belly” like a balloon by breathing in deeply through their nose while keeping the belly soft. Then have them deflate their belly by breathing out through their mouth. Repeat for a few minutes.
4-1-5 breathing
Have your child sit with their feet grounded on the floor. Breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of one, then exhale for a count of five. This helps shift the nervous system response from the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) to parasympathetic (“rest and digest”).
Cool-down corner
Most of us are familiar with time-outs. Time-outs are dictated by parents and used to discipline. Cool-downs are not time-outs. They’re a self-regulation tool for kids to use themselves to prevent the need for a time-out.
STEP 1
Choose an area at home to place a set of tools and call it the “Cool-Down Corner” (or “Cool-Down Spot,” etc.). These tools can include a small pillow, slime, putty or play doh, fidget spinners, a soft blanket, paper and crayons, a fan, a pinwheel (great for breathing exercises!), and any other ideas you may have.
STEP 2
Introduce the Cool-Down Corner to your child by modeling how to use the tools while explaining what we’re feeling. For instance, we can say “I’m feeling frustrated. I’m gonna go to the Cool-Down Corner and try drawing for a while.” After a while, we can say that we feel better, ask if we can get a hug, and resume our tasks and our day.
STEP 3
The goal of the Cool-Down Corner is to help our child recognize the need to regulate on their own, and to gradually learn to use the tools to manage their big emotions in safe, healthy ways.
Grounding techniques for kids
These are tools kids can use to reconnect with their bodies when they’re feeling out of touch or out of sorts.
Push against the wall or touch the furniture
Simple tactile experiences can help kids be present in their bodies.
Go for walks together
The rhythm of walking is grounding and calming, and being together helps build your relationship.
Have kids do a body check
Ask kids to check into their bodies (listen to their heart, feel their belly, how does their skin feel, etc.)
Teach self-soothing with energy
Have your child rub their hands together, and place their hands where they want healing or positive energy — on their heart, anywhere they feel hurt or injured, give themselves a hug, etc.
Provide comforting touch
Make sure hugs — and any kind of touch — are welcome to the child.
Meditation for kids
These creative prompts engage our child’s imagination to help change how they’re feeling.
COLOR VISIONING
Have your child sit quietly and focus on breathing. Then guide them through this exercise:
- Imagine a red circle, and place it on your chest. Imagine things that are red. Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth.
- Picture a larger, orange circle around the red one. Imagine things that are orange, while continuing with conscious breathing.
- Then picture a larger yellow circle around the orange one, and a green one around the yellow one, and a blue one around the green one.
- Then imagine a biiiiig purple circle covering your whole body. Imagine things that are purple.
- Then exhale all your stress, in your whole body. Breathe in and out, slowly.
HAPPY PLACE
This exercise gives kids a safe, happy place to go within themselves when they need to. Have them settle into a comfortable position and then lead them through this exercise:
- Paint your happy place in your mind, a place you want to be more than anywhere else.
- Imagine every detail while you calmly breathe.
- Describe the place out loud or draw it on paper. Make it so detailed that you’re transported, using all your senses — sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell.
Remind kids that they can visit that place in their mind (or in their art!) anytime they want.