Coping Skills

Children can exhibit a range of emotions from boredom and happiness to anger and sadness. Just like adults, children feel all types of ways given the situation they are in. Though sometimes, understanding these emotions and how to manage them is a tricky topic for children, and one frequently overlooked. At first look, these emotions are categorized as tantrums or being dramatic, with the child so often being told to cut it out or it being brushed off as something they will just get over.

However, these kids are facing emotions they don’t know what to do with. With all of these feelings bubbling up to the surface in their developing brains, their bodies are just waiting to explode into whatever reaction feels right. This can cause children to become fearful or resentful of their emotions, embarrassed by their reactions or by being condemned by parents or teachers, as well as confused and unsure as to what to do if the emotion happens again. With these moments, children need a way to cope and manage their emotions to fully understand what they are feeling before blindly reacting. 

An effective way to help children with their emotions is by implementing coping skills into their lives. Coping skills are tools to help manage and respond to emotions and stressors that affect one’s ability to function or perform daily tasks. Developing coping strategies can be an effective way to balance one's emotions and regulate them throughout the day. 

Everyone needs coping strategies, not just children. We are all inundated with worries, stressors, and unbalanced emotions that can be overwhelming and affect the way we function. It’s easy to just push past the feelings or ignore them completely to get whatever is pressing us done, but sometimes, these emotions turn into a downward spiral of negative feelings sabotaging our mental health and everyday life. However, having a resourceful list of coping skills can help mediate these feelings for us to move forward and feel more content and confident in moments of high stress and emotion. 

Children need to have coping skills and strategies to rely on when their emotions feel too big for them to handle. These mood swings, emotional bursts, or behaviors can be tricky to understand and pinpoint, and may even be a combination of problems! Yet, all of these behaviors and emotions can benefit from implementing coping strategies to soothe them. 

With a list of coping skills, children can build their toolkit of strategies to cope with their emotions and figure out what works best for them. Not only can they embrace their emotions, but can refrain from being scared and unsure of what they are feeling. Yet, building a toolbox differs for every person. Each coping skill does not benefit or work for everyone. Not all children are going to effectively cope with the same skills. They all have different problems and struggles that need different answers and strategies to cope with. Trying out different coping skills and being mindful of what works best for you is important when building your toolbox.

Even with our toolbox in hand, situations may arise where we need to adapt and alter our coping strategies to handle them. This is where coping flexibility proves to be an effective skill to adjust and revise our coping skills to fit the situation. With access to different coping skills, one can be confident and flexible in responding to stressors and overwhelming feelings. These strategies can help calm the child down in the moment, but also make them feel confident and empowered to manage their feelings in the future. 

Emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping are two strategies of skills that help kids to handle stress and overwhelming feelings, as well as address the situations and circumstances that may be the cause of the emotional response. These skills are both important for kids to learn and understand to carry out throughout their lives.

Emotion-focused coping strategies revolve around the child working to manage and understand their feelings to be less stressed. These skills involve kids learning to tolerate their stress and gain the persistence to continue to address these feelings without letting them spiral. These coping skills are especially necessary for situations that cannot be changed, encouraging them to remain calm and present during difficult times. 

For example, our child might have a surprise pop quiz, a situation they cannot change and are surprised by. This situation is a stress bomb in the making, especially as our child begins to question if they know the material or not and dwell on the fear of getting a bad grade. In this moment, having the coping skills at the ready will help your child feel calm and in control of the situation, making their time with the quiz more productive and beneficial. 

These emotion-focused coping skills revolve around making the child feel better and provide a temporary distraction so they can return to the feeling when they feel calmer and collected.

Emotion-focused coping skills:

• Identify your feelings - With this skill, your child can work on identifying what they are feeling, describing and labeling it to better understand what is being felt. This helps make the feeling appear less foreign and alien to your child as they can recognize these feelings as nothing more than just feelings. Not only can it take the sting out of the emotions, but it can also help the child to become more aware of these emotions and what they mean for future situations. Outside of coping, this is an excellent skill for kids to possess when it comes to recognizing others' emotions in the moment, showing an understanding and relatability to help the person move through their emotions as well. 
• Practice Breathing Exercises - Connecting with your breath is an important skill to connect you back to your body and become more mindful in the situation. It can shift your focus from the situation at hand and allow you to take a moment for yourself to just be present. Slow deep breaths can help relax the mind and body when your emotions start to take over. There are visual examples of breathing techniques for kids to grasp, such as the bubble breath and cooling down the pizza. With the bubble breath, you can help your child imagine blowing on a bubble wand by first breathing through their nose and out through their mouth slowly as if to form the bubble. Cooling down the pizza involves imagining you have a hot slice of pizza. You breathe in through your nose, taking a sniff of the delicious pizza, and then out through your mouth to cool the slice down. 
• Get Your Body Moving - Physical movement can help get excess energy and nerves out while being a healthy and fun distraction. Exercise has many benefits, from physical movement to having fun with friends or family, all the while being a chance to go outside and be more mindful of your surroundings. It’s a good resource for kids when they start to feel big emotions to just run around for a little bit or play with their friends or siblings. 
• Be Creative - Drawing, crafting, writing, painting, acting, etc. are all good methods of calming down the mind and focusing your attention on something fun, creative, and engaging. It can allow them to express their emotions in a creative medium or just get their mind off the emotions that feel overwhelming at the moment. Creating reinforces that the mind is filled with beautiful intricacies that can be expressed in many ways.
• Reading - Reading is a way to immerse yourself in another world and take a moment for your emotions to calm down. Plus, you might find comfort in reading about a character’s bravery and strength through hard times, making their problem and worries feel achievable. It can also help you read other characters’ emotions to further understand and relate to their feelings. Reading is a distraction that will prove beneficial in many facets of your life. 
• Playing Games - Pulling out a board game or cards, or even going outside to play kickball, is a fun distraction for the brain to take a minute to calm down and focus on something else. It also creates a great moment for friends and family to come together to have a moment to be together laughing and enjoying each other's company. It can benefit in channeling the brain in a more effective way at the moment to help open the mind up to different thoughts and logical rationale.
• Yoga - Practicing yoga is a way for you to calm down your brain and focus on your breath and movement mindfully. It can slow the brain down to focus on the practice and another form of exercising and breathing practice. With yoga, your child can take a moment to themselves to relax and try out new poses and movements, or they can do it with a friend or family member to enjoy the moment together. 
• Crank up the music - Music can be a great pause for you to focus on the music rather than the overwhelming thoughts at the moment. Listening to music can have a beneficial effect on the mind and body, especially if listening turns into swaying, or even dancing, to the beat. You can listen through headphones or amongst a group to enjoy together. With this, you can have your playlist of songs to pump you up during emotional times to enjoy and help in the moment, as well as one to enjoy as a group.
• Watch something - Like music, sometimes it's nice to focus attention on something that you can engage your mind with and get transported to a different world or mood. From watching your favorite show or a funny video, you can take a moment to enjoy what you are watching as a quick reprieve from your overwhelming emotions. After a quick laugh and a smile, you can address your feelings with a level head and a better mindset.
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All and all, these coping skills prove to be effective mind breaks for children to take a moment to themselves and return to their emotions a bit clearer. A good thing to keep in mind is to have your child make a list of what coping skill works best for them to rely on when they are having a rough time. 

Making a list is a way to have the coping skills that you like and work best for you ready and available for when you start to have a rough time. If you enjoy reading to calm down, keep a book ready for when a situation arises, or if you like to listen to music, have a playlist ready. This is taking the time to take care of yourself and give yourself a chance to relax for a minute before returning to your heavy emotions. After a moment of expressing yourself or getting your energy out, you can better focus on how you are feeling or what caused these overwhelming emotions. If anything, these skills are your little superpowers to take those stressful situations and make them nothing more than topics to address. 

Problem-Focused coping strategies are related to situations that can be changed. You might have your parent ask you if these emotions could be helped by changing the situation or changing how you feel about it. Sometimes, you are put in environments and situations that repeatedly prove to be stressful or emotional for you. Such as school, you might get nervous in class because you are behind in the lesson or there is a bully you are scared of. These situations can be adjusted by asking for help or addressing a person of authority in the school. Although emotion-focused skills could help with these feelings, the continuous cycle of feeling this way in a certain environment is a thing that needs to be addressed to ensure that you can stop feeling this way. With these coping skills, you can see how there are options to reduce the source of stress and hopefully make you feel better about it all.

Problem-focused coping skills:

• Asking For Help - As daunting as it seems, asking for help is a great way to reduce your overwhelming feelings. At first, these feelings of stress may seem impossible to avoid, especially if you are facing these situations repeatedly in a common environment. You might not know where to go or how to fix the problem, however, recognizing who might help is an important skill to help minimize the feelings of stress and anxiety. Knowing who to go to that might be able to help can calm the mind with reassurance that there is help out there and that these feelings are not forever. It also provides a sense of control over the feeling in a situation. You can feel secure having a place to go and the resources to handle the problem hands-on. However, an important thing to remember is that asking for help is okay. We all need help in this world in one way or another. Some things are beyond our ability in certain situations. Asking for help can provide us guidance and aid in stressful situations to control our emotions and conditions better with a more mindful attitude.
• Practice problem-solving - For an overwhelming situation, it can be helpful to look at the problem from different perspectives not rooted in stress or anxiety. Problem-solving can benefit kids in breaking down the situation into a more digestible and achievable plan. It’s as simple as sitting down and listing different solutions and plans to help mediate the problem at hand. This is a beneficial skill to carry throughout a child’s life to better assess problems and their solutions to face situations with more confidence and control. 
• Step away - Sometimes, the best solution to tiring and overwhelming situations is to step back and take a break from them. Consider your mental health in these situations and whether taking a break might make the situation and feelings easier to manage. Some projects we force so much attention on that we wear ourselves out to the point that our worries and anxiety get out in the way, affecting our mood and state of health. Stepping back from the situation gives your mind a chance to breathe and come back with a clearer outlook. Taking this step can help make you more aware of your feelings and their process. You can recognize when these feelings are starting to weigh on you more and take the proper actions to step back and give your feelings a moment before they get worse. Taking a moment for yourself can help align what you are feeling so you can return feeling fresh and ready to take on any problem.
• Recognize the pros and cons - Some decisions can leave us unsure and nervous, especially when we don’t know what the outcome will be. Creating a pros and cons list can help you make your decision wisely and mindfully. Similar to problem-solving, making a list allows you to consider every aspect of the problem to make an informed decision that's best for you. When overwhelmed by our emotions, decisions can be harder to handle or might be answered with hasty choices. Taking the time to mindfully consider what to do can help us make better decisions that lead us to less stressful times. With this mindful a pros and cons list, you can relax knowing that you have a mindful answer to the problem.

Coping strategies are an important asset for everyone to have, especially when we are constantly faced with stressful situations and uncomfortable feelings. By trying out different methods and skills, you can effectively build your coping toolbox to easily access when the time comes. Keep in mind, that not every child is the same. Each coping skill works differently for each child and some coping skills might not last forever. Yet, this just reassures the importance of mindfully building your coping toolbox throughout every part of your life. 

Emotions can be hard for children to understand and manage, and it’s especially difficult for both the child and adult to figure out exactly what’s going on. Coping skills, especially for children, can create positive skills throughout their lives. They can effectively and confidently navigate challenges and obstacles throughout each stage of development. In the end, kids should have fun figuring out the right coping skills for them to help make their emotions and feelings more digestible. However, if situations get worse, the coping skills don't feel effective, or you or your child need some guidance, reaching out to a therapist or health professional might be beneficial if you feel that this is right for you. 

For more information on coping strategies and different types of coping types, check the links below! 

Sources and Links:

The OT Toolbox - Sensory Coping Strategies for Kids

Good Therapy - Coping Mechanisms

National Library of Medicine - Coping Mechanisms

Positive Psychology - Healthy Coping 

Very Well Family - Coping Skills for Kids