Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation is usually shortened to 'managing feelings', which makes it sound like a single skill children either have or lack. It is really a bundle of things developing at once: noticing a feeling, having words for it, understanding what set it off, being able to wait, being able to ask for help, and finding something that makes the feeling more bearable.

It is also not the same as being calm. A child who never shows distress is not necessarily regulating well — some children hold everything together at school and let it out at home, which is exhausting for them and hard for you.

Regulation grows slowly, over the whole of childhood and well into adolescence. Very young children rely almost entirely on an adult to steady them. Through the primary years children gradually take on more of that job themselves — but unevenly, and they lose ground when tired, unwell, hungry, worried or somewhere unfamiliar.

The way children learn it is mostly through being helped: thousands of ordinary moments of an adult staying steady, naming what happened and helping put things right afterwards. This is what professionals mean by co-regulation.

• Feelings arrive fast and at full volume, with little warning.
• Small changes of plan feel enormous.
• It takes a long time to come back down after being upset.
• They hold it together all day at school and fall apart at the door.
• They find it hard to say what is wrong, even when they want to.
• They avoid situations that have gone badly before.
• Afterwards they are ashamed, and say things like "I'm the worst".

Noticing these things is useful information, not a diagnosis. Writing down what happened, when, and what was going on beforehand is far more helpful to a teacher or a professional than trying to name a condition.

There is rarely one reason. Children differ from birth in how strongly they react and how quickly they settle. Some are managing demands adults cannot see: understanding language, keeping up with work, noise, hunger, worry about a friendship, or a long day of holding themselves together.

Difficulty finding words matters more than people expect. A child who cannot yet explain a feeling has fewer options than shouting or leaving. Tiredness, illness, hunger and change all reduce anyone's capacity — adults included.

Breathing exercises, sensory items, feelings charts and calm corners suit some children in some situations. They are not reliable solutions and there is no strong UK evidence that any of them works for children in general.

If something helps your child, use it. If it does not, that is not a failure on their part. It is usually more useful to understand when things go wrong, and why, than to keep adding tools.

• Reasoning at length while your child is still overwhelmed — very little of it is taken in.
• Consequences decided in the heat of the moment.
• Discussing what happened in front of other people.
• Treating every difficult moment as a sign of something serious.
• Expecting a strategy that worked once to work every time.
• Assuming that because school reports no problems, nothing is happening.

It is reasonable to ask for advice at any point. It is particularly worth doing when difficulties are frequent and persistent, when they happen in more than one setting, when your child is very distressed, avoiding school or withdrawing from things they used to enjoy, or when family life is dominated by managing feelings.

• Start with your child's teacher or the school's SENDCO — describe examples and ask what they see.
• Your GP can advise and, where appropriate, refer to local children and young people's mental health services.
• Many areas have school-based mental health support teams, school counselling or early-help services; school can tell you what exists locally.
• NHS advice for parents covers common worries, including anxiety in children, and what to do next.

• NHS — children and young people's mental health: advice for parents.
• Anna Freud — free resources for families and schools, including Mentally Healthy Schools.
• The SEND Code of Practice, if you want to understand how school support is meant to work.

1. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools — guidance report (2019, updated 2021)

   The main UK education reference for this area. Recommends teaching social and emotional skills explicitly, embedding them in everyday teaching, and planning implementation carefully — rather than buying a programme and hoping.

2. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Social and emotional learning (Teaching and Learning Toolkit)

   Summarised by the EEF as moderate impact for very low cost, based on moderate evidence. Worth reading before describing any approach here as proven.

3. Wigelsworth, Verity, Mason, Humphrey, Qualter & Troncoso (University of Manchester), for the EEFResearch evidence
   Programmes to Practices: identifying effective, evidence-based social and emotional learning strategies — evidence review (2020)

   The review underpinning the guidance report. Notes that effects vary widely between studies and that how an approach is implemented matters as much as which approach is chosen.

4. Department for EducationProfessional guidance
   Mental health and behaviour in schools (2018)

   Non-statutory advice on how schools can support pupils whose mental health affects their behaviour and learning, and on the line between school support and clinical services.

5. Department for EducationProfessional guidance
   Behaviour in schools: advice for headteachers and school staff (2022, updated 2024)

   Sets the expectation that behaviour policies are applied consistently and that reasonable adjustments are considered for pupils with SEND — the two things schools most often have to hold together.

6. Department for EducationStatutory guidance
   SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (2015)

   Defines social, emotional and mental health as one of the four broad areas of need, and sets out the graduated approach — assess, plan, do, review — that schools must follow.

7. Department for Education (research by University College London)Research evidence
   Identifying and supporting children and young people with social, emotional and mental health needs: a rapid evidence review (2025)

   Part of the DfE's SEND evidence programme. Published as research, not policy — the DfE states it does not endorse the approaches described.

8. Department for Education (research by University College London)Research evidence
   Behavioural and social communication interventions for children and young people with SEMH and autism: a rapid evidence review (2026)

   Reviews what is known about behavioural and social communication approaches for these groups. Again published as evidence rather than endorsement, and the reviewers are careful about the limits of the studies available.

9. Department for EducationResearch evidence
   Identifying and supporting the needs of children with SEND in mainstream settings (2025)

   The collection page for the rapid evidence reviews above, including cross-cutting themes on identification and collaboration.

10. National Institute for Health and Care ExcellenceProfessional guidance
    Social, emotional and mental wellbeing in primary and secondary education (NG223) (2022)

    Recommends a whole-school approach with a supportive climate and trusted relationships, universal curriculum content on social and emotional skills, and targeted support for children who need more — with staff training to deliver it.

11. Public Health England / Department for EducationProfessional guidance
    Promoting children and young people's mental health and wellbeing: a whole-school and whole-college approach (2021)

    The eight-principle framework most UK schools use to audit their wellbeing provision — leadership, ethos, curriculum, pupil voice, staff development, identifying need, working with parents, targeted support.

12. NHSProfessional guidance
    Children and young people's mental health — advice for parents

    Plain-English NHS advice for families, including anxiety in children and how to seek help through a GP or local children and young people's mental health services.

13. Anna FreudProfessional guidance
    Resources for schools and colleges

    Free UK resources from a children's mental health charity, including practical materials for whole-school approaches and for staff wellbeing.

14. Anna FreudProfessional guidance
    Mentally Healthy Schools

    Quality-assured resource bank for UK primary schools, useful when choosing classroom materials that are not simply commercial products.