Self-regulation is the ability to understand and manage your behavior and your reactions to feelings and things happening around you. It includes being able to: regulate reactions to strong emotions like frustration, excitement, anger and embarrassment and to calm down after something exciting or upsetting. They are skills that need to be learnt and some take a lifetime to achieve.
Temper tantrums are exceedingly common in children, especially between ages 1 and 4 — the early part of which is sometimes called the “terrible 2s” — when kids are still learning how to communicate effectively. More than half of young children will have one or more tantrums a week as they vent their frustrations and protest their lack of control.
The first step in defusing a temper tantrum is to keep your own temper in check. You’re not going to get anywhere with your child if both of you are screaming at each other. There are many other strategies that can be found to prevent or decrease these “big” feelings, but they will occur so finding things to do as a family to calm down is important .Taking a deep breath is a good start to calming down but this does not work for all.
Below are calming skills that will help children and adults calm down.
So find a soft toy to hug, write in a journal, or sing out loud then carry on!
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