A go-to list of calming strategies that your child can independently use to get back on track when they feel out of control, anxious, upset, frustrated or dysregulated. An important and preventative technique to head off a meltdown (vs. recover from one).
Learn
A child’s growing mind and body can get easily overwhelmed. When a child is dysregulated, anxious, or upset – when their internal engines feel like they’re in the yellow-almost-red zones of the Body Engine Checker System – it can be hard to come up with a ‘feel better’ plan in the moment. The ability to independently know how to calm your mind and body before things escalate is a developed executive functioning skill, and one that is evolving for young children. But, we believe young children are highly capable if we give them the emotional literacy tools to be independent and to self-advocate.
We assembled a printable list of calming strategies – strategies that your child can do by themselves – from which your child can independently draw upon when tensions rise. When things start to escalate, you can point to your child’s go-to strategies and let them help themselves to get back on track. The principle of using this simple go-to list is to motivate your child to independently recognize when they feel out of control and for them to feel empowered to take the steps they need to feel in control again.
Do
Core Marbles
- Personalize the plan – Print our Calming Strategies and ask your child to select their preferred strategies
- Keep it simple – Focus on 3-5 techniques
- Make it visible
- Celebrate with praise!
Just remember: Using our go-to list can be a preventative technique to head off a tantrum. These are calming strategies that your child can do by themselves.
4 Steps to Help Your Child Independently Use Calming Strategies
- Personalize the plan
- Print our calming strategies and ask your child to select those that feel good to their body and mind and mark those boxes in their favorite color. Strategies that work are often individualized to different ways of learning.
- This is a great opportunity to help your child understand perspective; we all learn differently and have different needs, and that is completely normal.
- Keep it simple
- Ask your child to focus on 3 – 5 techniques. This will help with their recall in the heat of the moment. If your child struggles with too many options, have them choose 3 techniques only.
- Make it visible
- Hang our printable in a high-traffic zone used by your child. Easier to see = higher success of implementation.
- Celebrate!
- Praise your child for recognizing that they needed to use a strategy to get back in control (regardless of whether your child self-identified that they were out of control or needed a signal; see below). Make the independence of selecting a calming strategy a consistent topic for which your child receives praise: “I noticed that you took 5 huge breaths when your sister grabbed the scissors out of your hands. I’m so proud of you for calming yourself down before you used your words to tell her how you felt.”
Helpful Tips
- Many children are working on recognizing when they are becoming dysregulated. One technique to consider is creating a silent signal with your child that you can use to cue them to the fact that they are shifting self-regulation zones and should choose a calming strategy (i.e., go to their list).
- You could mimic the ‘flipping your lid’ gesture with a fist, or put a hand on your chest to signal taking a breath. Until children are able to recognize their feelings and to self-regulate them, it is helpful to guide them through these moments.
- It takes practice to make independently using a calming strategy a habit and regulating emotions is an evolving work-in-progress. With consistency, the payoff in developing your child’s emotional literacy is well worth the effort.