The Village
What Emotional Regulation Actually Looks Like
(Hint: It Is Not Calm)
I want to start with something honest.
The phrase "emotional regulation" makes me a little uneasy. Even now. There is something about it that takes me right back to being a kid - being told to calm down, chill out, settle - when I did not even feel like I was being particularly anything. I was just being me. Excited. Energetic. Fully in whatever moment I was in.
I grew up with ADHD at a time when that was still considered a "boy thing." So nobody was looking at the little girl bouncing off the walls and thinking, oh, her brain is wired differently and she needs a different kind of support. They were just telling her to calm down. And I took it personally every single time, because it felt like being told I was too much.
It took me a long time - and honestly, having my own kids - to understand what was actually happening in those moments. And what was not.
I sat with that for a minute. Because it is true, right? Kids are not complicated. They are curious, present, and deeply feeling. We are the ones with the agenda, the timeline, the hundred things running in the background. We are the ones who need them to just get their shoes on, please, right now, we are already late.
Their world is full of wonder. There is a rock on the floor that was not there yesterday. Something dropped and made an interesting sound and now we need to figure out what other sounds we can make. The toy they want is somewhere and the thought of it is so real it might as well be on fire.
We call that dysregulated. I think sometimes it is just being alive in a way adults have mostly forgotten how to be.
So What Is Emotional Regulation, Actually?
Here is the thing nobody tells you: regulated does not mean calm. It does not mean quiet. It does not mean compliant.
Emotional regulation is the ability to notice what you are feeling, tolerate it without being completely overwhelmed by it, and respond in a way that fits the situation. That is it. And even adults struggle with this every single day.
Researchers describe emotional regulation as developing across four stages: observation (watching how others handle feelings), emulation (trying to copy those strategies), self-control (applying strategies with reminders), and finally self-regulation (doing it independently). Most toddlers are solidly in stages one and two. That means they are watching you - all the time - to learn how feelings work.
This is why we talk so much about co-regulation. Because children cannot self-regulate yet. Their brains are not built for it. The prefrontal cortex - the part responsible for impulse control and emotional management - is not fully developed until the mid-twenties. Your three year old is not being difficult. They are being three.
What It Actually Looks Like at Each Age
Before we talk about what to do, let us get specific about what you are actually looking at. Because regulated looks different depending on how old your kid is - and knowing that makes a real difference in how you respond.
Crying, turning away from stimulation, searching for the pacifier, opening and closing fingers, arching the back. They are telling you the cup is full.
You are the entire regulation system. Rocking, singing, shushing, offering the breast or bottle or paci. Your calm body is the intervention.
Rocking back and forth, outbursts - crying, yelling, hitting, throwing. The classic tantrum. They feel it but cannot name it or navigate it.
Help them name the emotion. Label the cause. Keep them safe and help them feel safe. "You are so frustrated. That was really hard."
Running from diaper changes. Using pretend play to process - dolls yelling at each other, a baby doll that will not stop crying. Avoiding cues that something hard is coming.
Clear, consistent boundaries. Help finding words for feelings. "It looks like you are feeling mad about the diaper. I hear you. We still have to do it and then we will be all done."
More cognitive now. Starting to recognize feelings in others. Can be less reactive - but still needs significant support, especially with new or big situations.
This is the age for tools. Zones of Regulation, emotion wheels, play-based strategies, role play. "What could we do when we feel that way?" starts to actually land here.
The Window of Tolerance - And Why It Matters Right Now
I love DBT - Dialectical Behavior Therapy - for this concept. It is called distress tolerance and it is one of the most useful frameworks I have come across, for kids and for myself.
Here is the simplest version I know:
Scenario A: I am putting away dishes. My favorite song is on. L and J are playing happily in the other room. Sunshine is coming through the kitchen window. I drop a spoon. I pick it up. Maybe a small sigh. That is it.
Scenario B: It is 6am. I have not slept. I just made my first cup of coffee - the one thing I was looking forward to. The kids are already screaming. I reach for the mug and it slips. It hits the floor. It hits my toe on the way down. I am cussing. It is not pretty. And I am ready to walk out the front door and just keep going.
Same event. Completely different reaction. Not because I am a different person - because everything already in play determined how much room I had left for one more thing. That is the window of tolerance. It is not a personality flaw. It is a full cup.
Now imagine you are three. You do not have the language to understand why you feel this way. You do not have the coping tools to manage it. You do not have the life experience to know it will pass. And your routine just ended because school is out for the summer.
I get a little cranky when my own predictable schedule gets thrown off. A toddler whose entire sensory and emotional world just shifted has no framework for any of it. This is the end-of-school transition difficulty leveled all the way up.
Sleep. A solid breakfast. Knowing what is coming next. When we build predictability into the day - even a loose rhythm, not a rigid schedule - we are essentially topping up the tank before anything hard happens. Think of it like packing motion sickness remedies before a long drive. You are not eliminating the bumpy road. You are giving the body a better chance of handling it.
Co-Regulation: Your Calm Is the Whole Point
Here is what co-regulation actually is: you regulate first, then you make space for them to feel what they feel alongside you.
That first part is harder than it sounds. How many times have you seen someone absolutely lose it at a grocery store clerk over something that seems really small? We call people Karens. But the truth is, we have no idea what their window of tolerance looks like that day. And we have all been there in our own way.
As parents, we are not immune to this. If your kid is melting down in the middle of the kitchen and you are already on empty, your nervous system is going to respond. That is not a character flaw. That is biology. The goal is not to never feel it. The goal is to catch yourself, bring yourself down enough, and then show up for them.
Because yelling at a child to calm down is - genuinely - one of the least effective things you can do. Think about how it feels when you are hurt or angry or overwhelmed and someone tells you to just relax. It does not help. It makes it worse. Kids are no different.
That is co-regulation. Making space for the emotion to exist without trying to rush it out the door. It is not enabling. It is not giving in. It is holding space - and it is one of the most powerful things you can do for a child's long-term emotional development.
And here is the piece that matters most: threats and isolation do not teach kids to regulate. They teach kids to suppress or to escalate. Neither of those is what we are going for.
I want to name one specific thing here because I know we have all done it. The "okay, I am leaving, I guess I will just go to the car without you" move. Or "fine, I will leave you here at the store." It feels effective in the moment because it usually gets a reaction - they move, they stop, they come. But what just happened in their nervous system? We just activated their deepest fear, which is separation from their safe person, in the middle of an already dysregulated moment. We did not teach them to regulate. We taught them that their security is conditional on their behavior. That is a very different lesson.
This does not mean you have to be perfect. It means being aware. And when you do lose the thread - because you will, I do - you come back. You repair. That is the whole model.
One of the most important principles in responsive parenting: connection first, then correction. When a child is dysregulated, their brain is not in a state to learn, problem solve, or receive instruction. They need to feel safe and connected before any lesson can actually land. Get connected first - get on their level, soften your voice, make contact if they want it. Then, once the storm passes, you can talk about what happened and what to do differently next time. Not during. After.
Strategies That Actually Work (My Real Ones)
Not the generic list. The ones I actually use - with L and J, and on myself.
- Make deep breaths something they actually want to do Play is the language of childhood. "Can you roar like a lion?" "Can you blow a bubble?" "Can you blow the biggest raspberry you have ever blown?" Same physiological effect as a deep breath. Way more accessible for a three year old mid-meltdown.
- Something sour This one sounds strange but it works. A sour candy, a lemon wedge, a sour gummy - the sensory jolt can interrupt the spiral. It activates the senses and brings you back into your body. I keep sour things around for a reason.
- The 3-3-3 (or 5 senses) grounding Find 3 things you can see. Find 3 things you can hear. Move 3 things - wiggle your fingers, stomp your feet, shrug your shoulders. Or go through all five senses. Name something you can hear, smell, taste, feel, see. It is a grounding technique that works for kids and adults and it requires nothing except your attention. I use this one myself more than I admit.
- Movement - shake it out Jump, dance, wiggle everything. When emotions are big, they live in the body. Moving the body helps move the feeling through it. We do full-family shake-it-outs in this house and they work embarrassingly well.
- Make it playful when you are about to lose it This one is for us, not just for them. I am about to snap about the shoes? I start singing a made-up put-your-shoes-on song. Half the time they start singing it with me. Am I about to yell about bedtime noise? I switch to an excited whisper instead. Is my three year old running down the street while I am buckling the baby in? We play red light green light. Or I chase him. Or I say "I bet you cannot climb into your seat before I finish buckling brother." Am I perfect at this? Absolutely not. I yell. I get frustrated. But I keep coming back to this because I hate seeing him shrink with shame - or start yelling back. So I try.
A Note on Summer Specifically
School ending is a regulation event. For kids and for parents.
The routine is gone. The predictability is gone. Sleep shifts. Meals are different. Everyone is home more. Maybe there is travel. And then there is the weather - because heat and humidity are real nervous system factors that we do not talk about enough. Summer sunshine is exciting. It is also exhausting in a way that sneaks up on kids before they can even register it. They are tired but do not know why. They are overstimulated by a season that is supposed to be fun. That is a confusing thing to feel when you do not have the language for it yet.
Every one of those things chips away at the window of tolerance - theirs and ours. And none of it means anything is wrong. It means summer is a lot, and their bodies and brains are doing the work of adjusting.
This is not the time to expect more from them. It is the time to expect exactly this, build in more margin, and lead with connection when things get hard. Because they will get hard. And that is allowed.
The Beyond Deep Breaths Regulation Toolkit was made for exactly this - practical, play-based strategies for big feelings that go way beyond "just breathe." Find it in the shop here.
We are going deep on big emotions all summer here on the blog and over on Instagram. Every Monday we will be talking about emotional regulation, behavior, and mental health - for your kids and for you. Because you are part of this equation too and you deserve support just as much as they do.
Save this post. Share it with your co-parent or your caregiver. And if something in here hit home, I would really love to hear it in the comments.