Colman Noctor: Raise resilient children by teaching them to regulate their emotions  

"It is widely accepted that emotional regulation is not an inborn trait but a learned skill that parents and caregivers can actively teach children. It’s a worthwhile investment."

"While some parents might feel uncomfortable apologising to a child because they interpret this as compromising their control, it is crucial to role-model that even adults struggle to contain emotions, that big feelings are inevitable, and that experiencing big feelings is not the problem. What we do to manage and respond to them is crucial."

Good mental health is not about always being happy but about our capacity to manage and process uncomfortable emotions and experiences as they inevitably arise. Likewise, good emotional regulation is not about a lack of emotional variation — it is about our ability to manage these inevitably intense emotions in a healthy way.

Reacting emotionally to events in our lives is a perfectly healthy response, and this is especially true during childhood when emotions are usually felt far more deeply and demonstrated more explicitly. In the way a young child becomes super excited about something simple like popping a sheet of bubble wrap, the opposite overreaction can occur when something happens they perceive as negative, such as when a sibling takes their favourite seat in the car. These expressions of intense emotions during childhood are utterly normal, and once the child can recover or ‘come down’ from these experiences, all is well.