How to help your child deal with their emotions

It’s natural to want to support your child through emotional ups and downs. Children experience a wide range of feelings every day, and it can take time for them to understand and manage their emotions. There are ways you can help your child feel safe, heard and supported.

Children need tools to cope with emotions like anger, sadness or anxiety. You can support them by teaching simple strategies.

You could:

• help them find their own solutions using a 5 step problem-solving tool
• calm down together by practising breathing exercises with them
• offer distractions like drawing, music or movement when they feel overwhelmed

These techniques can help your child feel more in control and build emotional resilience.

If your young child feels overwhelmed by their emotions, it can help to know how to support your child through a tantrum or meltdown.

From birth, your child will find ways to communicate their needs with you. They cry to tell you they’re hungry or uncomfortable. As they grow, they begin to feel more emotions like frustration, disappointment or excitement. These can be hard to process at first.

You can help by:

• naming emotions when they happen, you could say, “you look frustrated because your tower fell down”
• showing your child how you manage your own feelings
• setting aside time each day to talk about worries or feelings

This helps your child feel seen and gives them language to describe what they’re going through.

Learning to understand, express and cope with emotions is called emotional literacy. Find out how you can support your child’s emotional literacy.

Let your child know it’s OK to talk about how they feel. When they share their thoughts, listen without judgement.

You can:

• wait until they’re calm before discussing a tantrum or outburst
• reflect on what might have triggered the reaction, by saying something like, “you were upset because your toy broke”
• reassure them that their feelings are valid, talk about their behaviour and say something like, “It’s OK to feel angry, but it’s not OK to hit”
• talk about different ways they can express their feelings

This helps your child learn to express emotions in a safe and respectful way.

Learn how to talk to your child about difficult topics.

Page last reviewed: December 2025
Next review due: December 2028