Welcome back to my series on how to teach your kid what school doesn’t. A few weeks ago I shared the five ways traditional school is failing your kid, and I’m walking you through how to flip each failure into a win at home:
- Part 1 was how to personalize your kid’s learning.
- Part 2 was how to teach memorization and life application.
- Part 3 was all about life skills.
And today, we’re talking about emotional health: what it is, how traditional schools ignore it, and how you can help your kid regulate their emotions at home.
As always, thank you for being here. Happy reading.
Every single day, in classrooms all around the world, kids are waging war against their own bodies.
If this sounds dramatic, let’s look at a few examples.
Kids are forced to sit still for 6+ hours on end. Youthful bodies crave movement (duh), but kids are expected to act like soldiers. Even the simplest tapping of a pencil is considered rebellious. And if fidgeting in their chairs persists, kids are then prescribed drugs to “calm down.”
Kids have no say in what they learn and when. Say English Lit runs from 8 am to 9 am, and at 8:55 am, your kid is locked in and listening. They’ve just learned about The Odyssey, and they’re dying to hear more. Whoops — too bad. The bell has rung and now it’s time for fractions. (No wonder your kid hates math.)
Kids are stuck under the iron fist of authority, always. Authority is totally necessary for kids, but so is autonomy. In traditional classrooms, your daughter can’t even go to the bathroom without asking for permission. And sometimes even that isn’t allowed. (There’s always that one teacher: “Is it an EmErGenCy?”)
And when big feelings do break through, the school’s only job is to make it stop. Kids are punished for any sort of emotional “outburst.”
When you take a step back, it’s shocking how the most basic needs of kids are being neglected. And we wonder why schools are filled with kids who can’t regulate their emotions, who can’t make decisions for themselves, who have meltdowns at the smallest of inconveniences.
It’s because their physiological needs are not being met, and their mental and emotional health are suffering because of it. Their nervous systems are fried. They have no tools in their toolkit to regulate their emotions or persist through something hard.
If you can’t pull your kid from their school right now, don’t stress.
Here’s how to prioritize emotional health at home.
Emotional health is not the absence of big emotions
First of all, don’t be discouraged if your kid has meltdowns. They’re absolutely going to. (Welcome to parenthood.) But emotional health is not the absence of big emotions. It’s giving your kid tools to help navigate and regulate their emotions. It’s self-control on every level: physical, mental, emotional.
Here are some tools every parent can use with their kid at home.
1. Teach them that movement is life.
When your kid is dysregulated (frustrated, angry, restless, bored, or struggling to focus), you almost always want to look to movement first. A Taylor Swift dance break, a sprint to the mailbox, a jumping jack party, a family walk through the neighborhood, a stretch outside in the grass. This is the ultimate nervous system reset. Exercise floods the brain with the same chemicals that govern mood and focus. So if your kid is feeling emotions they’re not quite sure what to do with, remember that movement is life. It grounds them in their body, lifts their energy, shifts their mood, and dials in focus. You’re also teaching them an incredibly important life skill: when I’m feeling stuck or stagnant, I move. I control the situation, not the other way around.
2. Teach them to “feel their feelings,” then solve the problem.
Personally, I’m not into gentle parenting. (Zero hate to the parents who are.) But I do know how important it is to validate your kid’s feelings, and help them put into words what’s happening inside their brains and bodies. For instance, let’s say your daughter is upset she has to leave the park. Here come the snot-nosed tears and wailing stomps. The unhealthy thing to do is tell her to snap out of it and stop crying. Why? Because she’s a child, not a forty-year-old woman. She has no clue how to regulate her emotions. And telling her to suppress these emotions and put on a happy face for other people will lead to plenty of therapy down the road.
So skip the lecture and help her put words to what she’s feeling: “You’re furious we have to leave. I get it. I would rather stay, too. But we can absolutely come back this weekend. Would you rather come back on Friday or Saturday?” A lot of times, kids just need to feel validated, seen, and heard. This is co-regulation in action. Your job is to help them understand what they’re feeling is totally valid, but it doesn’t need to consume or control them.
3. Help them build their own “reset” toolbox.
When your kid is calm, ask them: “What actually helps you calm down when you’re upset?” I think this is what a lot of us overlook as parents: that we can just ask. (This is also helping your kid develop good communication skills.) Some kids want to be cuddled by their mom while others need alone time. Maybe they need to shoot hoops, chug a cold glass of water, or take ten minutes alone with a book.
So the next time your kid is restless or frustrated, remind them of the plan that works for them. (“Let’s go play some ball.” “Go take ten minutes and read your book.” “Dance party!”) Help them build their toolkit one reset at a time.
4. Regulate yourself out loud.
The research is clear: kids borrow a parent’s steady nervous system long before they can control their own. Your calm becomes their calm. So when you say: “I’m getting frustrated, so I’m going to take three breaths before I say anything else,” your kid internalizes this. They study you most in the difficult moments. Show them that emotional health isn’t not feeling your emotions, but having mastery over them.
Home is exactly where this happens
Your kid has big feelings, and that’s a good thing. Don’t squash them. Teach them how to regulate, instead. In life, your kid will experience plenty of rejection, heartache, failure, grief, and the frustration of not getting what they want when they want it. Home is exactly the place where you can build them up and equip them with all the tools they need to become a thriving, emotionally healthy adult.
