It is so easy for us to get frustrated when a child becomes upset. We want to spend our days teaching children what they need to know to be successful when they leave our care, and an upset child can take that plan completely off the rails.

 In the bustling world of early childhood education, emotional support plays a vital role in nurturing young minds. It’s more than just comforting a crying child; it involves understanding and addressing their complex emotional needs. For educators, providing this support is crucial—it sets the foundation for children's future social and emotional well-being.

 Emotionally supportive environments foster trust and security, essential components for effective learning. When children feel safe, they are more likely to explore, interact, and engage in their surroundings. This blog post aims to guide early childhood educators on how to provide robust emotional support to their students, ensuring every child feels heard, valued, and understood.

The Emotional Landscape of Young Children

Young children experience a wide range of emotions, often without the vocabulary or comprehension to express them. At this stage, emotions can be overwhelming and confusing. It's essential for educators to recognize these emotional cues and respond appropriately. Being observant of the classroom as a whole, as well as individual children, can help teachers recognize when a child needs extra support to handle a big emotion.

 There are many times throughout the day in which children can experience big emotions. The biggest is probably the first part of the day, when the parent is leaving the child. This separation can be hard for children, and some may need extra support to get through it. Other emotional challenges can come through frustration during challenging activities, frustration at having to transition from one activity to another, or even over-excitement about an upcoming event or activity. During these times, children may need extra support to work through the emotions and continue through the day successfully.

Building Emotional Awareness

One of the first steps to supporting children through big emotions is to teach them about what emotions are and what they look like. Having discussions about basic emotions such as happiness, anger, sadness, and surprise can help children learn to identify these emotions when they feel them. Once they are able to name their emotions, they have taken the first step in self-regulation.

Another way to teach children about common emotions is through play. Initiating play with them and talking about how different scenarios make you feel can help them learn to identify these emotions when those scenarios happen to them. For example, if you are having a tea party with some students and a child takes a toy from you, you can pretend to start to cry and talk about the emotion you are feeling, why you are feeling it, and what the children can do to help you feel better. Young children typically do not understand how their actions can affect the emotions of the people around them, and it takes specific role playing and explanation of what is happening for them to understand. To them, they just got a toy that they wanted and they don't understand how that affects someone else unless they are told and shown in a non-judgmental way.

 Another step to the role play is to teach calming techniques to children. While children do not know the names of the emotions they are feeling, they also don't know how to regulate them and calm themselves down. Teaching techniques like stopping to take a deep breath are effective ways to teach children how to regulate themselves. There is no better way to do this than through modeling. When you feel yourself getting overwhelmed or frustrated, it is okay to tell the class, "I'm feeling __________ (angry, upset, overwhelmed). I need to stop and breathe. Can you help me?" Modeling Emotional regulation in this way can show them that everyone, even adults, feel these emotions and need to take a deep breath. And a child is much more likely to actually breathe with you if you frame it in this way, that they are being a helper to you.

The Calm Down Corner

An important step in supporting children through emotional upset is providing a safe space for them to work through this upset. Just as adults need to step away sometimes to regain composure, children do to. Teaching them how to do this and that it is okay to do it can go a long way in showing them how to manage their emotions.

The calm down corner should provide children with safe tools that they can use to express emotions, as well as tools they can use to calm those emotions. Think about the actions that you typically want to do when you are upset. Does throwing something usually make you feel better? For some people it does, and we see this a lot in upset children. How can we provide a safe outlet for that angry energy in our calm down corner? Does cuddling up with a soft pillow make you feel better when you are sad? How can we provide that comfort in the calm down corner? Thinking through different emotional scenarios and how we can provide safe outlets for them can help us teach children proper self-regulation skills that they can use throughout their lives.

Provide Consistent Routines

Children do better when they know what is coming next in their day. Providing consistency from day to day can help provide the foundation for them to know what is coming next. If your classroom has a schedule, then stick to it. If your classroom does not have a schedule, you should make one. Picture schedules help provide visual cues for what is coming next throughout the day, especially for children who aren't able to read. Some children experience big emotions simply because they do not know what is coming next in their day or what to expect, so providing this structure can help them with that. And if there is going to be a change to the routine, let them know about it ahead of time so that they can be somewhat mentally prepared for it.

 Routines are not just limited to the classroom schedule, however. Everything we do in the classroom has a routine, from how we wash our hands to how we dismiss children from circle time to centers. Keeping even these smaller routines consistent from day to day can help provide children with a sense of security and stop any feelings of overwhelm before they start.

Helping a Child Who Is Already Upset

Emotional self-regulation is a huge skill that we can and should be helping children learn. These are skills that will help them and stay with them throughout their lives. So far we have talked about ways to help children identify their emotions and learn how to self-regulate them. But what about the child who is already upset and can't regulate their emotions yet?

 Ultimately, we are the regulation tool for that child until they learn how to self-regulate. So if we respond to their emotional upset with judgment or our own upset we are not teaching the child anything about how to regulate their own emotions and we aren't being an effective regulation tool. The key to being that regulation tool is to model the emotions we want them to exhibit throughout their upset. We have to be the calm in their storm, a calm that they can look to, trust, and feed off of. We have to show empathy to their upset - no matter how empathetic we actually feel. Just as we need people to listen to our upset at times, children need that too. Just as we need a shoulder to cry on at times, children need that too. Just as we need the sense of connection that a hug provides, children need that too.

 So much time and energy has been spent telling adults and teens that their feelings are valid and they should be able to express them, but what about young children? How does a child get that validation when they are upset and we say, "You're ok. Stop crying." We talk about teaching kids about emotions and emotional awareness, but when they begin having the big emotions we expect them to swallow them and move on with their lives.

 The truth is, emotions are messy. While we all feel similar emotions, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution for everybody when it comes to self-regulation. When people get upset, they express that upset in many different ways. But we do know that people can better self-regulate when they have that understanding, empathetic person by their side that listens and helps them through the upset. And this is no less true of children.

 To be an effective regulation tool for children, we have to be willing to listen to them about why they are upset and help them find solutions. We have to provide them with safe ways to express their emotions. And we have to be willing to give hugs and a shoulder to cry on when needed. If we come to a child's upset with upset of our own, we will increase the upset of the child, which will then increase our own upset. Coming to them with caring, understanding, and love can go a long way in helping decrease a child's emotional outburst.