3 Ways to Teach Kids to Calm Down
With Author and Blogger Becky Goddard-Hill
As we all know, life can throw curveballs when you least expect it, and part of successfully navigating through unsettling situations is an ability to stay calm. Knowing how to positively deal with stress and manage emotions is a key life skill that can help your child feel grounded, present and capable. Helping kids understand how to calm down is one of the greatest gifts we can give them as parents. If your child is feeling anxious or overwhelmed, it can be very useful to have strategies at hand to help them find their calm.
We spoke to parenting blogger and author of Create Your Own Calm, Becky Goddard-Hill, who shared three fun activities that can help parents raise calm kids. These are fun techniques you can easily do at home to show your child how to calm down.
3 Ways to teach kids how to calm down
Express Emotions – The Feelings Game
Create Art – Mandalas
Practice Gratitude – Write a Letter
It’s crucial for parents to note that in order for your child to feel calm, it has to start with them. This means that parents need to tell kids that they have the power within themselves to become calm kids, and they get to take charge of that. Also, try to encourage kids to wake up and design the day they’ll love, rather than reflecting on what happened at the end of the day. Kids need to know that they have the authority to make decisions to get into a zone of relaxation and calm. Here are three enjoyable ways parents can help kids learn how to calm down…
Express Emotions - The Feelings Game
Teaching kids to be emotionally literate will help them to share how they feel rather than holding it all in and getting anxious and stressed. Our feelings have a huge impact on how we think, so your child needs to feel comfortable to articulate how they feel. A great way to do this is by teaching kids The Feelings Game, which helps kids learn that when you talk about feelings, you can manage them. Showing your child how to calm down needn’t be complicated. This activity is simple and requires just a few items. Grab an empty jar and some pieces of paper. Write down loads of feelings words on scraps of paper (shy, elated, embarrassed, nervous, irritated, etc). This is a great way to expand your child’s vocabulary, too, so they can better identify their emotions. Fold up the pieces of paper, pop them into the jar, then take turns pulling out one piece. You have to talk about the last time you felt whatever emotion is on the paper. This is a fantastic conversation starter for families, and if your kids are able to express emotions, they’ll be better able to know how to calm down when they need to.
Create Art - Mandalas
It can be extremely tough for kids to meditate, but a detailed art activity can have a similar effect, and can result in centred, calm kids. A mandala is a spiritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, and can often be seen in nature like in a spider’s web or flower. Many studies have shown that colouring in mandalas can help people feel calm. This is an active mindfulness activity for kids, since they must deeply focus and target their attention on the details of the art. If your child is feeling agitated, grab a small handful of colouring pens to choose from (to avoid distraction), print out a mandala, and let them settle in on the art activity. Through this simple method, parents can show kids how to calm down with just a few materials. You can even do this in nature, by gathering sticks and leaves and creating your own organic nature mandala.
Practice Gratitude - Write a Letter PRACTICE
We know that expressing gratitude makes us feel good. Parents need to role model gratitude for their kids by saying it aloud, or writing thank you notes. When we take time to show we’re grateful, it gives us a chance to focus on a good thing, and help our brains build pathways to link to positive thinking. A great activity for gratitude is to have your kids write to someone they care about and tell them three reasons they’re grateful for them. If your child is too little to write, you can have them tell you what to include, and have them draw a picture to go inside the letter. Often kids are used to receiving, but this gives them a chance to give as well. When you feel grateful, you feel peaceful, which leads to feeling calm.
Parents should remember that it’s a good idea to try different techniques more than once, and these approaches shouldn’t be expected to work miracles the very first time. If your child struggles to feel calm with one activity, try a variation, or a different strategy. These are small and achievable steps we can all take to learn how to calm down, and we hope these activities will help parents guide their kids to becoming emotionally healthy, happy, and calm kids.
Becky Goddard-Hill is a former social worker and child development trainer. She also holds a postgraduate diploma in Psychotherapy and is a certified life coach. She now runs 6 blogs, all highly ranked within the UK, predominantly on creative family life, supportive communities and emotional wellbeing. Becky writes activity books for children focussed on helping them grow in emotional resilience. Her books include Create Your Own Calm, Create Your Own Happy, and Be Happy, Be You. Check out Becky’s podcast on raising emotionally healthy kids here.