Managing Intense Emotions in Children: When do I worry? What can I do?

Every parent experiences some discomfort with their child’s behavior, wondering if there’s anything they could be doing to see a different outcome. In some cases, people expect very young children to cry in frustration or act out in anger. But at some point, many parents question whether or not their child’s emotions are a typical part of growing up. Here are some typical comments we hear as pediatricians:

“My toddler is screaming for no reason.”
“My preschooler is afraid of loud noises.”
“My 5-year-old is yelling at me: “I hate you!”
“My 8-year-old has become quiet and reserved. Is that OK?”
“My teenager seems to alternate between anger and depression.”

Children’s emotions are, at times, blatantly obvious to us, but at other times, a confusing mystery. Parents frequently ask, “Is this normal for this age?” In this article, we’ll explore this question and offer answers from a pediatrician’s perspective, especially around big emotions, strong feelings, and emotional intensity.

We Are Role Models For Healthy Behavior

A newborn doesn’t start out knowing how to smile, talk, or have much muscle coordination. Newborns depend on adults to provide food and safety. Similarly, they rely on us for emotional connection, language development, and social communication.

Parents who smile, talk to their child, and model emotions will notice that their baby will follow their lead, smiling and speaking with words of their own. When they cry, they can usually be comforted by a calm, reassuring voice. Over time, children can learn to handle disappointment with emotional regulation, effective communication, and the ability to ask for help.

How does emotional childhood development happen?

The “Always-growing” Brain: In the newborn period, the brain starts as a jumble of nerve cells that don’t work together in a coordinated way. With time and experience, a child’s brain cells, called neurons, will begin to work together. Each new developmental milestone occurs through practice and interaction with others. New skills are strengthened through repetition. With each repetition, new brain cells are recruited to work together.

As skills become more complex, larger networks of brain cells learn to work together in a coordinated way. This process, called Brain Integration, explains the normal development of a child’s physical skills as they progress from crawling to walking and then running. Children develop new skills by practicing them repeatedly.

Social-Emotional Development: The process of brain integration also explains the development of children’s language and behavior. A newborn baby, who communicates only through crying, will grow into a child who can control their emotions and use language to shape their environment.

Children’s vocabulary expands rapidly when they learn new words and are rewarded with their parents’ attention and glee. This improves with practice and repetition. With this increase in language, a child learns how to use words to identify a challenge and ask for help. They eventually learn to manage their emotions and cope with disappointment.

All social-emotional skills are encouraged and coached by parents who serve as role models for speech and emotional control. This extends into the school years, where parents can teach their children to advocate for themselves with peers, negotiate in ways that prevent conflict, and develop empathy and emotional awareness of others. The brain can learn all these things with repetition – practice, practice, practice.

Brain Connectivity: In the 1990s, the invention of fMRI and PET brain scans taught us that certain regions of the brain have specific roles. One area of the brain is responsible for logic and learning, while another controls emotions and stress reactions. One region of the brain controls language and vocabulary, while another controls emotions and creativity.

Our brains work best when all areas of the brain connect and communicate well with one another, and when they work together in a coordinated way. This connectivity of brain centers can take years to occur and can be boosted with parents’ help. A well-integrated, connected brain has a strong chance of helping a child develop meaningful relationships, confidence, and social-emotional stability.

Here are some examples of different ages solving their problems and developing emotionally:

• Toddler: A toddler learns to solve problems or challenges with patience and problem-solving rather than throwing a tantrum. As a child’s brain develops, a parent will notice their child learning to regulate their emotions with less frustration, even before receiving help. This occurs because the brain center responsible for logic is beginning to connect with the emotional center and work together. This developing connectivity helps the child learn to solve their problems independently. This may take lots of practice and coaching from the parent to master this skill, but it can be done.
• Preschooler: A preschooler learns how to solve a challenge and use their words to explain their issue. This process occurs when the creativity center of the brain connects with the verbal center, making it easier for a child to find words to explain their predicament, express emotions and ask for help to solve it. For some children, this creative problem-solving occurs naturally and easily. Other children may need a lot of help and role-modeling from parents or teachers to master this. With practice and perseverance, this skill can be learned.
• School Age: A five-year-old becomes upset at their parents and screams, “I hate you and don’t want to be your son anymore!” Her parents give her some time and a safe place to calm down, then discuss the issue calmly. In this case, the emotional area of the brain has taken control of the thought process, preventing the child from using logic and words. Once calm, the connections between the logic and verbal center are back “online” and connect with the emotional center to maintain self-control. Only then can a parent address the reason for the meltdown and help to solve the issue.

What is Age-related Normal Behavior?

It’s important to recognize that typical behaviors change as a child grows. What you might view as a typical tantrum in a two year old, exhibited by screaming, crying, flailing arms, and flopping on the ground would not be expected in a five year old.

Monitoring a child over time and watching their developmental progress is an important part of parenting and discussing concerning behaviors with your pediatrician. Your child’s primary care doctor will help you understand what types of behaviors you can expect as they grow and when emotional dysregulation may need additional support. These are critical discussions to have at your child’s regular well exams.

How Can Parents Support their Child’s Emotional Development?

A two-year-old expresses their feelings by crying and throwing tantrums. Parents can role-model calm, gentle words and label emotions. With practice, the child will learn to do this with less oversight and reduced emotional intensity.

A three-year-old is learning their emotional vocabulary. Parents can teach them to label their feelings, helping children understand their big feelings. and practice this before becoming upset.

Four-year-olds are developing logical thinking and an expanded vocabulary, allowing them to use their words and reasoning to address their challenges and master social-emotional control. It is still a work in progress for some children, but it can be trained with repeated practice, especially during early childhood.

School-age children can be coached to address their differences with words and forethought, helping resolve conflicts before they escalate. Negotiation and problem-solving between peers can be role-modeled and guided, while giving children plenty of time to practice these self-regulation skills on their own.

What about troubling emotions: fear, anxiety, stress, or depression?

Fear: Fear is a natural emotional reaction to a clear and immediate danger or threat. Fears such as being afraid of the dark, loud noises such as sirens, or new environments are a normal part of childhood and are usually short-lived and specific. Parents and caregivers can usually reassure their children and help them to understand and overcome their fears.

Anxiety: Anxiety is uneasiness or worry about a possible future threat. The perceived threat in an anxious child is often more ambiguous and diffuse, suggesting they are worried about potential harm rather than an immediate danger. Anxiety is not uncommon, affecting up to one in five children and can contribute to emotional distress. If symptoms of anxiety last more than six months, please get in touch with your child’s provider.

Stress: Children can feel stress, which is an emotional tension resulting from troubling or demanding circumstances. It can result from family environments, social interactions, academic challenges, or other stressful situations. It is important to know that not all stress is bad.

Positive stress is a normal part of life, short-lived, and can be resolved with help from others. Examples of positive stress include scheduled school exams, sporting events, performances, and public speaking.

Supporting a child through stressful times helps to build resilience. Resilience-building opportunities and strategies are discussed below.

Traumatic Stress: Stress can become harmful if stressful events persist, recur, or become more intense. This can lead to physical or emotional consequences. Traumatic stress can occur when a child experiences an event that is intensely threatening.

Preschool children may react with strong emotions, nightmares, excessive crying, or poor appetite. School-age children may exhibit fear, sleep disturbances, poor concentration, feelings of helplessness, or heart pounding. Teens may turn to self-harm, substance abuse, risky behaviors, or other signs of depression.

Traumatic stress is a serious issue that can have long-lasting effects if not addressed. If traumatic stress is suspected, caregivers should contact the child’s provider for help. It is essential to know that, in stressful circumstances, the presence of a supportive, stable adult is crucial to building the resilience needed to overcome them.

Depression: Every child has emotional ups and downs. Sadness or irritability can happen in response to relationship issues with friends, loss of a pet, or difficulties at school. Most of the time, these feelings improve, and the child will feel better again. Symptoms of depression can include sadness, irritability, apathy, hopelessness, appetite loss, or sleep disruption. If these symptoms last longer than a few weeks, depression may be present, and parents should contact the child’s healthcare provider.

Resilience-Building Tools that Support Social-Emotional Health

There are so many benefits of building resilience in children that support mental health and emotional well-being:

• Improved coping skills
• Bolstered confidence
• Support of emotional regulation
• Enhanced social skills, leading to healthier relationships
• Improved creativity and problem-solving
• Increased flexibility and adaptability.
• Support in overcoming the symptoms of traumatic stress.

Let’s talk about some tools that parents can use to build this resilience and support social-emotional health.

Resilience Tool #1. The Value Of Failure

Failure is when we don’t meet our expectations. This might involve difficulties at school, losing a game, not reaching our goals, or challenging relationships. Everyone fails at some point.

Resilience is demonstrated when we approach a challenge with patience and persistence. The only actual failure is giving up and quitting. Parents can coach resilience during these challenging times, helping children manage strong feelings and negative emotions. Overcoming failure is the key to developing competence and confidence, which are crucial for resilience.

Here are some examples of how to handle these typical challenges:

• Falling from a bike: “I’m glad you’re ok. Look how far you went. You are strong! Let’s get back on and try again.”
• Mastering a complex skill: “This one’s tough, but keep trying. You haven’t done it yet, but you have what it takes, and you will be able to do this!”
• Having problems with friends: “He doesn’t want to give up that toy right now, but be patient. He might become interested in what you are doing, and then you can share.”

Resilience Tool #2. Problem-Solving

The ability to solve problems is one feature of resilient people. Parents can be great role models and coaches for this skill. It might be easiest for parents to “help” their child by solving a difficult task or homework problem. But the “resilience-building” tool would be to step back and coach problem-solving skills. Encourage persistence, flexibility, and creativity. If they tried solution #1 and it failed, parents should encourage them to come up with a second or third solution. By supporting their patience and persistence, you are building their resilience into a strong toolset that they can use in the future.

Tool #3. Special Time

One of the features of resilient people is their connection with others. Children need time with their parents that is specific and designated just for connection, with no agenda. Special time is ten minutes, one-on-one with no interruptions or distractions. Phones and devices are turned off to support present-moment connection.

The parents’ job is to listen. Your child is in charge of the activity or subject matter. In toddlers and preschoolers, this has tremendous behavioral rewards: they love bossing us around, and when we give them that control, they often won’t demand it later. For school-age and teens, it’s a great chance to catch up. Just listen. You have no parenting agenda, there is no teaching or coaching, and there are no “lessons” to be learned. This is simply a time to connect with your child.

Tool # 4. Building Resilience with Environmental Strengths

Research has shown that resilient people generally have at least one strong parental figure or supportive adult. Parents can involve other adults in their child’s life to “build a village” creating a supportive environment that helps regulate children’s emotions. This might be a godparent, a family member, a teacher, or a community worker.

In addition, parents should try to find a reliable group of friends or peers for their child, who will be a part of their “team.” We all need a village or team to give us strength, wisdom, and advice. Involving a child in school or community activities, team sports, cultural or church groups can provide a crucial support network that builds resilience.

Tool #5. Coping Techniques

Learning to cope during challenging situations or relationships is a highly valuable skill. These skills can be taught and role modeled, helping children manage intense emotion, strong feelings, and negative emotions. Activities that help us manage and relax might include dancing, listening to music, practicing yoga, or taking a walk in nature. These activities benefit both the parent and the child.

Reference: Cleveland Clinic.org-five-finger-breathing

De-escalation and grounding techniques are invaluable and can help any of us when we are nervous, distraught, or have escalated emotions and emotional distress. These can be demonstrated and taught to young children.

• Mindfulness exercise of engaging the brain and our senses:
  • Name five things that you can see right now.
  • Name four things that you can feel right now.
  • Name three things that you can hear right now.
  • Name two things that you can smell right now.
  • Name one thing that you can taste right now.
• Breathing exercise as a coping strategy
  • Trace the thumb and fingers slowly as you breathe.
  • As you follow each finger, inhale through the nose on the upstroke, exhale through the mouth on the downstroke.
  • Breathe slowly using your diaphragm (belly breaths) and don’t expand your chest.
  • Often, tracing from thumb to pinkie and repeating will help relieve anxiety, anger, or other escalated symptoms.

Distraction is a reasonable coping method for some children (music, reading, etc.), but should be used briefly and followed up with a discussion with parents about the behavior. Parents should talk with the child after the child is calm to resolve what has happened.

Coping techniques have the most significant impact when parents follow up with a discussion about feelings, emotions, or verbal restraint, thereby maximizing the learning opportunity.

Tool #6. Cool-Down Times

There are times when parents need to give their child time and space to calm down. Some call this a time-out, but this is not a punishment. Instead, we are giving the child a space alone, with time set aside to calm down escalated emotions. This should take place in a location separate from the family’s mainstream and should not exceed ten minutes. If possible, it shouldn’t be in a room that has toys that might reinforce the behavior.

Some behaviors that might result in a cool-down time could include hitting others, verbal abuse, or emotions that are out of control.

Children must learn the benefits of calming down and how productive it can be. Like the de-escalation techniques discussed above, for cool-down times to be most effective, parents must follow up to discuss the behavior, what the child was feeling, and possible alternatives the child could try in the future. This discussion must be timely, not delayed, to provide the greatest benefit.

Conclusion

The development of a child’s social and emotional skill set is a fantastic journey. The information and techniques discussed above can be supplemented with information from the references below and advice from medical or behavioral providers, such as a pediatrician or behavioral clinician.

Each child is on their own journey, and we shouldn’t compare our journey to those of our friends or relatives. We can guide and lead our children with patience and persistence, demonstrating the value of being a lifelong learner. Remember that when we teach resilience, we ourselves will learn resilience. Enjoy the journey!

References:

The Incredible Years (R): Trouble-Shooting Guide for Parents of Children Aged 3-8 Years (3rd Edition) Carolyn Webster-Stratton, PhD, July 31, 2019

The Whole-Brain Child, Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., Tina Payne Bryson, PhD, Delacorte Press,

The Seven C’s: The Essential Building Blocks of Resilience | Fostering Resilience. https://fosteringresilience.com/7cs.php