Emotional regulation, the ability to manage, modulate, and appropriately express emotions, is one of the most important skills a child can develop. It underpins academic readiness, social competence, mental health, and lifelong wellbeing. Yet it is also one of the slowest-developing capacities, relying on brain regions that do not fully mature until the mid-twenties. For young children, emotional regulation is very much a work in progress, and the adults around them play a critical role in supporting its development.
Why Toddlers and Preschoolers Struggle
The prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for impulse control, planning, and emotional management, is among the last areas to mature. Young children literally lack the neural infrastructure to regulate their emotions the way adults can. When a three-year-old screams because their banana broke in half, they are not being manipulative or unreasonable. They are experiencing a genuine emotional response that their underdeveloped regulatory system cannot contain. Understanding this neuroscience helps adults respond with empathy rather than frustration.
Co-Regulation: The Foundation
Before children can self-regulate, they must be co-regulated by caring adults. Co-regulation means that the adult provides the calm, steady presence that helps the child move from distress to composure. This might involve speaking softly, offering physical comfort, acknowledging the emotion, and waiting patiently for the storm to pass. Over hundreds of repeated experiences of co-regulation, children gradually internalise the strategies and begin to apply them independently.
Naming Emotions
Children cannot manage emotions they cannot identify. Building an emotional vocabulary (happy, sad, angry, scared, frustrated, disappointed, excited, nervous, proud) gives children the language to recognise and communicate their internal states. Naming emotions regularly, in context, helps children develop emotional literacy. Books that explore characters’ feelings provide safe contexts for discussing emotions.
Teaching Strategies
As children grow, adults can teach specific strategies for managing big emotions. Deep breathing, counting slowly, using a calm-down space (not as punishment, but as a safe retreat), drawing or writing about feelings, and physical movement (running, jumping, squeezing playdough) all provide children with tools they can use when emotions become overwhelming. The key is to teach these strategies during calm moments, so children have them available when distress hits.
Modelling Matters
Children learn more from what adults do than from what adults say. A parent who narrates their own emotional regulation (“I’m feeling frustrated about this traffic, so I’m going to take some deep breaths”) teaches their child more about emotional management than any formal lesson. Conversely, adults who frequently yell, slam doors, or express emotions explosively model a dysregulated approach that children may internalise.
In early childhood settings, educators who create warm, predictable environments where emotions are welcomed, named, and supported lay the foundation for lifelong emotional competence. Tracking each child’s emotional development using tools like Personhood360 helps educators identify children who need additional support and document the strategies that work, sharing these insights with families for consistency at home.