Children (like all humans) have emotions, big and small, all the time. When kids are small they have no breaks on their emotions, no perspective about the size of the problem, and no concept of the rights of other people in the scenario. One of the primary tasks of growing up is to learn to "regulate" our emotions, which means to manage and respond to our emotional experience. Self-regulation is a foundational life skill, and leads to better physical, emotional, social and economic health.
Because children have limited ability to self-regulate, they depend on caring adults to help them "co-regulate," especially when they're very agitated or upset. The more you're able to help your child navigate their feelings throughout childhood, the better they'll be able to self-regulate as they grow.
Self-regulation is the ability to manage your thoughts and feelings to enable you to move toward your goals. Research has shown that self-regulation is one of the foundations of wellbeing across the lifespan, supporting educational achievement, as well as physical, emotional, social, and economic health.
Self-regulation is not the same as self-control or suppressing emotions, which have been linked with less positive outcomes. Rather, healthy self-regulation starts with becoming aware of one's feelings and thoughts, and is a personal balance of feeling, expressing, and managing one's emotions.
The ability to self-regulate develops in childhood through a warm, responsive connection with caregivers, and help from them to co-regulate when emotions have become overwhelming. Self-regulation is also supported by predictable, responsive, and supportive environments.
The more that you maintain warm emotional connection, regular play and roughhousing, and a secure environment that your child can master, the more generally regulated they'll be. However, all kids get to the boiling point sometimes, when anxiety, stress, or anger overwhelms their resources to cope. The rational, flexible, and empathic part of their brain goes offline, and they snap into flight / fight / freeze mode. Psychologists call this "dysregulation." You likely know it as "acting out", "melting down," having a tantrum, or being defiant, "naughty," or simply shut down.
When our kids do this, most of us have been trained to react with scolding, punishment, banishment (time out), or other harsh treatments. But these are actually the opposite of what a child needs, and push them further down into fight / flight / freeze mode, where they can't make a better choice or learn a lesson.
When your child is upset or agitated, co-regulation must be the priority. They need you to:
Stay calm yourself. Slow down and tune in with them
Tolerate, accept, and listen with kindness as they let out their big emotions
Not be vulnerable or reactive to their harsh words or actions
Carry a sense of confidence that things will work out
