If you have, or work with children 2 or older, you are well acquainted with the seemingly impossible task of attempting to calm down an emotionally overwhelmed and upset child. While using distractions to de-escalate children can work wonders, it doesn’t empower children to manage their own emotions, rather it can potentially cause the child to suppress their emotions, or believe that you are afraid of their feelings. So in order to teach little kids how to navigate strong and overwhelming feelings, begin by modeling and teaching these two tools to bring their bodies back into a state of calm.

Deep Breathing and Grounding

There are two really great tools to help a child learn to self-regulate themselves when they are hyperaroused, by encouraging them to attune to their body and re-establish felt safety. In order to escalate your child, I strongly encourage you to practice these techniques with your child while they are calm, before attempting to teach them to do these things mid-meltdown.

First let’s talk about Grounding, one of the simplest ways to have your child ground themself is to have them push their feet against the ground and practice feeling their feet on the ground. Or even better, have them step outside barefoot and do it. Basically, you are encouraging the child to reconnect to their body, there are many ways to do this, such as handing the child an object and have them focus on describing its details, such as color, shape, weight, texture and so on. Another way is to have the child practice tensing and then relaxing their muscles.

You can do this by having them follow along to this video and practice freezing and melting their muscles. You can do this with kids as young as 2 and most kids find it very relaxing.

Another great grounding activity to help kids of all ages is to teach them to engage their five senses. To do this have your child watch this video and follow along. If the child is really young, just have them list one thing for each of the five senses.

Another calming and grounding activity little kids and toddlers can use when they are worried or very emotional are butterfly hugs.

If you want to learn more about grounding, this brief video explains what grounding is, and gives a simple activity a young child can do when there overwhelmed with emotions.

Deep Breathing

Make sure you teach your kids how to take proper deep breaths during grounding activities. Try this video to help your child breathe and self-regulate. Remember to practice while they are calm so they can get the hang of it.

Or you can have them try Rainbow Breathing as well. 

Photo Credit: Pexels.com

When you have little kids it can feel like pulling teeth to get them to settle down, so here are some links to videos that I use to calm my clients who are under 6, and I recommend them to their families to use at home as well!

Calming Techniques:

These two videos are really great and have some great tips for using deep pressure to calm the physical body, to use throughout the day or before bedtime and/or naptime. These techniques can also work well for children who have sensory processing issues or are autistic.

However, if a child is hyper or excited it is important that they have a good outlet for their energy and that they do something physical before you ask them to calm down or pay attention.

To do this I recommend these two videos:

This video is a fun one for kids who need to get their wiggles out, and you can put it on the TV or your phone when you’re on the go and the child can dance to it.

The second one is a great video for toddlers and up, they can practice getting their wiggles out and then can transition to calm.

Or if you would prefer not to use a screen, you can just have your child do jumping jacks, jog in place, or jump rope. Or better yet, pick the child up and spin around several times, this will satisfy both the need for physical touch and for exciting movement. Any sort of physical activity that has the child use most of their muscles, will also satisfy their need for stimulation. Then once you have done that, that’s when you can focus on the next step, calming the child.

CALMING MUSIC:

Calming Music can work wonder, especially if they are having a tantrum or are hyper, both of these videos can help regulate the nervous system and will help them feel calm and centered once again. Try playing the songs from this album and have them dance or drum along. 

This is a youtube channel for calming sensory music that the child can both watch and listen to, and are great for helping their little bodied relax. It’s also great for older kids as well!

You can also just play relaxing piano music, or Enya, George Winston, Yanni, Paul Speer, and Ray Lynch as long as the tempo is not too fast. Or just look up ocean waves on youtube and play that while having the child take deep cleansing breaths.

There is also a free app that you can have the child use to create their own mix of relaxing sounds, its called 

Relax Melodies app

Also, another way to engage little kids in a calming and not overstimulating screen activity is to use the calming glitter video. Kids can watch this video while in the car or while in waiting rooms etc. 

Some kids like this video, and some don’t, so if your child is not interested, and you think they’d prefer something more tactile, you can make your own glitter jar as a fun activity. The child can then take it with them when they go places and it can be very soothing for them to shake it and watch the glitter move. You don’t have to, but it is best to use the glitter jar for travel, or car rides only, so that the novel doesn’t wear off. Or some people give this to their child when the child needs a time out or a break, as a way to help them quietly self-soothe and regulate themselves.

Photo Credit to Mariam Antadze from Pexels