A recent Parade article on Yahoo asked psychologists to identify the most important emotional skill to teach children before they reach age seven. They said emotional regulation, and I also agree. Co-regulation is the idea that children (or anyone) can learn to regulate alongside a more regulated individual (whether through words or silence), and it explains why coping skills should be taught during calm moments rather than when a meltdown is underway. If you want to see a beautiful display of co-regulation in television; watch this scene of Ted Lasso. Which, by the way, is an incredible show. 

This has also made me consider two things. 

The first of these is the age seven. Seven can be seen as a general benchmark for when certain developments tend to occur. As the psychologists mentioned in the article, the brain continues to develop well after that birthday, and children keep building these abilities for years (although adults do too, for the record).

The second is the bigger category that emotional regulation falls under: emotional intelligence.

But before we get into that, let's define a few terms because they often get lumped together:

Emotional awareness: Noticing what you’re feeling and being able to understand why. “I’m angry because I wanted to win the game.” 

Emotional literacy: Having the ability to identity and talk about a feeling: “I’m disappointed versus I’m mad.” 

Emotional regulation: Managing your response to an emotion in a healthy way. The goal isn’t to STOP the feeling but to be able to channel that feeling in an appropriate way. “I can be angry, but I don’t have to throw something.” 

Emotional intelligence: The bigger toolbox that all of these skills fit into. It helps children understand their own feelings and those of others, and then figure out what to do with them.

That toolbox includes recognizing and understanding your own emotions, noticing emotions in other people, perspective-taking and empathy, communicating feelings and needs, managing emotions and behavior, and handling conflict and repairing relationships.

It's a lengthy list, and no child can master it all at once. Nor can any adult, if we're honest. I've definitely sent a DM I later regretted.

And these skills don't necessarily develop at the same rate. A child might be incredibly tuned in to their baby sister's feelings and still lose a board game and throw the pieces across the room.

I see this in my own kids. One of the biggest compliments we get about both of them isn't that they never melt down, argue, or disagree. Trust me, they do. They're children. And frankly, I want them to disagree sometimes. I don't want them to think being "good" means always agreeing or keeping everyone else happy.

What people notice is how comfortable they are talking about what they're feeling. They'll say, "I'm frustrated," "I don't like when you yell," "I didn't like when that happened," or "That made me upset."

My son, in particular, has always seemed very tuned in to emotions. He notices when someone's mood changes, thinks about how other people might be feeling, and cares when he realizes he's hurt someone. For his age, I would consider him a kid with pretty high emotional intelligence.

But he is still a kid.

He can be incredibly perceptive about someone else's feelings and still struggle with his own disappointment. He can know exactly why he's upset and still need help calming down. He can know what he should do and still have trouble doing it in the moment.

That's why I don't measure emotional intelligence by whether a child melts down.

And I don't think my kids learned this language by chance. We've spent years naming feelings, putting words and facial expressions to emotions, talking about how other people might feel, setting limits on behaviors without treating feelings as the problem, and making it safe for them to tell us how they feel, even when we don't particularly like what they're saying.

Some of this is also temperament. Some children naturally seem more emotionally attuned than others, and children can have very different strengths within emotional intelligence itself. Parenting doesn't give every child the same starting point, but we can keep giving them language, boundaries, support, and practice to help these skills grow.

And these skills matter beyond childhood. In a study that followed more than 750 children from kindergarten into young adulthood, teachers' ratings of children's social and emotional skills, including cooperation and understanding how others feel, were associated with outcomes twenty years later in education, employment, mental health, and substance use. The study can't tell us that those early skills caused those outcomes, but the association is worth paying attention to.

The good news is that these skills can also be taught. A major review of 213 school programs involving more than 270,000 students found that children who participated in social and emotional learning programs improved in social-emotional skills and behavior and had an average 11-percentile-point gain in academic performance.

Here's where I think parents sometimes get tripped up: understanding an emotion and being able to regulate yourself while experiencing that emotion are different skills.

When a five-year-old yells, "I'M SO ANGRY!" they're actually doing something important. They recognized the emotion and put words to it. That doesn't mean their brain can immediately stop the yelling.

Part of the reason is brain development. The prefrontal cortex, the area involved in planning, impulse control, and restraining strong reactions, is one of the last parts of the brain to mature. The brain continues developing into the mid-to-late twenties. Meanwhile, the systems that sound the alarm are online much earlier.

So kids can have a pretty impressive alarm system while they're still working with a basic set of brakes.

I think of it like riding a bike. Knowing what a bicycle is and understanding how the pedals work is different from being able to ride it. Actually riding takes wobbly practice, repetition, and usually an adult walking alongside for longer than anyone expected.

The same is true for emotions.

It's also why skills can seem to disappear under stress. When children are frightened, anxious, embarrassed, exhausted, or overwhelmed, they may have a much harder time accessing skills they can use when they're calm. That doesn't mean the skill disappeared or that you failed to teach it.

A meltdown isn't equivalent to a report card; if a child breaks down and later says, "I was angry because I really wanted to win", then they are learning, and that afterward reflection is very important.

Expectations should correspond to both the child's rate of development and their temperament. These are only approximate limits, and each child develops at their own speed.

Children between 1 and 3 years of age are only beginning to identify simple emotions such as happy, sad, mad, and scared. They rely on us almost entirely to get them calmed down, and for a toddler, regulation usually means having your lap and hearing your steady voice. In the case of a toddler biting or hitting, this is generally a sign that they are missing brakes and missing words, not a lack of care.

Children in preschool (around 3 to 5 years of age) are rapidly expanding their vocabulary when it comes to expressing their feelings, and you'll begin to notice early signs of being able to see things from another person's point of view, for example, saying “Baby is sad because she dropped her toy”. They still tend to be very impulsive, though. A preschool child may explain the 'no grabbing' rule very clearly and then grab a toy thirty seconds later. It is quite typical that preschool children should be walking contradictions.

Children of school age (approximately 6 to 12 years old): You'll notice a greater level of nuance. They begin to realize that someone can feel both excited and nervous about the same situation. Their ability to take another person's point of view improves, and they can start to solve problems and make things right after a disagreement, although they still need a great deal of guidance, particularly when they are tired or embarrassed.

Temperament is also a factor; a child who experiences things strongly may need more support for a longer period than their more easygoing sibling, and this reflects their natural disposition more than your parenting. And yes, some kids seem naturally more emotionally attuned than others. Just like children differ in language, coordination, attention, or sociability, they can start with different strengths in emotional awareness, empathy, impulse control, and regulation. Parenting matters, but we aren't starting with identical raw material.

Neurodiversity matters here too. A neurodivergent child may experience emotions, sensory input, social cues, or regulation differently and may need different kinds of support or more time to build these skills. For example, a child may understand someone else's feelings but have difficulty reading facial expressions, finding words for their own emotions, or regulating when they're overloaded. Emotional intelligence should never become another standard we use to decide whether a child is "good" at emotions. The goal is to understand how your child's brain works and help them build these skills in ways that work for them.

The optimal time to teach about emotions is when no one is experiencing one. Yes, that is a little an exaggeration, but it is true that the calm moments carry most of the weight. And you can start this as young as 1 year of age. 

You can discuss emotions in the context of daily life, and books and television programs are ideal for this because the feelings belong to other people and are therefore easier to talk about. For example, you could ask yourself, "What do you think the bear felt like when his friend left?" Alternatively, you might mention your own experience: "I felt nervous before my meeting today, so I took a few deep breaths."

As children grow older, they should get more help moving beyond the basic stages. By using words such as frustrated, disappointed, embarrassed, jealous, left out, and relieved, children are given more accurate tools for expressing themselves. Accuracy is important. In a famous brain imaging study, labeling their feelings with words reduced activity in the brain's alarm system. Although that study was carried out on adults, it is consistent with what many of us observe in our own homes. Being able to name their feelings can help to control them.

And feelings aren't only words. They show up in our bodies too. A child may notice their heart beating faster, their tummy feeling funny, their face getting hot, or their hands starting to clench before they can tell you, "I'm anxious" or "I'm angry."

You can help them make those connections without telling them what they're feeling: "I noticed your hands got really tight when that happened. What did you notice in your body?" Over time, recognizing those early signals can give kids another clue about what they're feeling and what they might need.

You may have heard the phrase "name it to tame it," popularized by psychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel. Naming a feeling can help, but I don't want parents to hear that and think, "Great, she named it. Why is she still screaming?"

Naming is one step. It isn't a magic off switch.

"I'M ANGRY!" is awareness and emotional literacy. Your child may still need help figuring out what to do with that anger. That's where our role comes in.

At the same time, don't feel you have to make them talk. It's all right if some children don't want to discuss how they're feeling. If a child is overwhelmed, it's usually better to use fewer words. Say something like "You're really mad" and then just stay by them. A flooded brain can't do a feelings interview, so leave the conversation for later, when everyone's alarm system has calmed down.

Anger usually acts as the bouncer at the door; it arrives loudly and first, with more delicate emotions such as disappointment, embarrassment, jealousy, fear, or the feeling of being left out coming after it.

A child saying "I hate soccer!" after a game might in fact be expressing, "I felt embarrassed because I missed that goal and everybody saw it."

You might assist in linking feelings to situations, but make it your aim to provide guesses rather than conclusions. For example, consider the following:

“Maybe you were embarrassed when all the others laughed?”

"You're just embarrassed."

The first one encourages them to consider the matter and will correct you if you are wrong, while the second one tells them exactly how they feel, which may cause children to shut down or argue on principle.

It is also useful to distinguish between feelings and facts. "I feel left out" is a feeling, while "Nobody likes me" is a story. Although the feeling is genuine and should be respected, the story may not be true; you can respect the feeling and at the same time gently challenge the story by saying, "You felt really left out at recess today. That must have hurt. Was there anyone that you did play with this week?"

Naming the feeling is the beginning. Then comes the practice.

We hold the boundary: "You're angry. I'm not going to let you hit."

We show them what they can do with that feeling.

We co-regulate when their brain can't get there alone.

We use fewer words when they're overwhelmed and give them time to come down.

And later, when they're calm, we can reflect, problem-solve, repair, and practice what they might do differently next time.

This is where tools like my S.E.R.E.N.E method can help. Emotional intelligence isn't something we teach in one conversation about feelings. We teach it over and over through how we respond to our children's emotions, behavior, mistakes, and relationships.

The phrase I keep returning to is that all feelings are allowed, but not all behaviors are.

Just because you're angry doesn't mean hitting is acceptable, nor does feeling disappointed mean the boundary has changed. You can completely accept that your child is furious about having to leave the park and still fasten them into the car seat.

It seems as though we say things like "Stop crying", "You're fine", "Big kids don't cry", or "There's nothing to be upset about". We usually use these remarks because we are tired or running late (I have used all of them). The issue is that over time, these statements can teach children to keep their feelings to themselves rather than teaching them what to do about those feelings, and suppressed feelings tend to come out in indirect ways.

The best time to teach children regulation strategies is when they are calm, just as we carry out fire drills when there is no fire. Here are some ideas for doing this together:

When things become difficult, remind them of a tool they already know rather than trying to teach them a completely new one during the crisis.

Please also remember that no script is perfectly suited; regulation is the result of years of practice and support. In a randomized trial involving a parenting program known as Tuning in to Kids, the parents of preschool children learned how to notice their children's emotions and give them guidance while at the same time setting limits, and a later trial to assess effectiveness found that the parents reported a greater reduction in their children's behavior problems than those on the waitlist.

If screens have become a habit for calming everyone down in your home, I have written more about that in the newsletter I discussed on screen time and emotional regulation.

We want children who consider other people's feelings without thinking they are in charge of those feelings.

Empathy begins with noticing how our actions affect other people. For example, "Look at Sam's face; what do you think he's feeling at the moment?" It develops through trying to see things from another person's point of view, such as "Why do you think your sister became so upset when you sat in her spot?"

A few important nuances that I think get missed:

Understanding and agreeing are separate matters. A child doesn't need to agree with their brother in order to understand why he is upset. Many adults are still working on that ability.

It doesn't mean that if someone is upset, your child must have done something wrong; it's possible a friend was sad because your child wanted to play a different game, and that's perfectly all right. For children who tend to please other people, it can be a great relief to hear this.

Boundaries and empathy can coexist, and you can teach your child to say, "I can see that you're sad and I still don't want to play right now." This kind of statement is both kind and clear, and they will use it for the rest of their lives.

Teach conflict and repair

Conflict is normal in all relationships; children will disagree and sometimes knock each other's block towers over. We want to help them learn how to get through it.

That includes learning how to:

And then there is the classic: "Say sorry!"

The research on this topic is quite interesting. In a study by Craig Smith and his colleagues at the University of Michigan, children ages 4 to 9 were told stories involving different types of apologies. They viewed willing apologies as helpful, regardless of whether an adult prompted them. However, they did not see coerced apologies as effective, particularly the older children, aged 7 to 9, who believed the person forced to apologize was mainly concerned about getting in trouble.

It is all right to ask for an apology. Trying to make the child apologize before they understand what happened generally achieves little, so it is better to help them calm down first and then help them understand how the other person felt; this way, repair tends to be much easier.

A worthwhile apology usually involves saying what you did, recognizing the effect it had on the other person, considering how you could have acted differently, and then actually carrying out that change. Moreover, repair doesn't have to include the word 'sorry'; it might consist of helping to rebuild the tower, bringing a friend an ice pack, making them a card, or simply asking, "What can I do to help?"

Children usually learn more about emotions by watching us than from any explanations we give them.

You don't need to be calm all the time. What helps is letting children see that we, too, have emotions without making them feel responsible for our emotions. Look at these two examples:

"I'm frustrated, so I'm going to take a minute."

"You are making me so mad."

The first shows a feeling and a plan. The second hands the child the job of fixing your mood.

That is also about acknowledging when we overreact. "I yelled earlier, and that wasn't right; I was frustrated, but it is my responsibility to deal with that situation, and I'm sorry." Repair has to be the most important emotional skill that we demonstrate, since our children will need it in all the relationships they ever have.

Be careful how you talk about other people's emotions, since children are always listening. Saying "Grandma is being so dramatic" conveys a different message than saying "Grandma got really worried when she couldn't reach us." Although both statements refer to the same situation, only one of them fosters empathy.

With so much pressure around this topic, I want to be clear. Emotional intelligence is not:

The second-to-last point should have its own moment. I know so many thoughtful parents who think they have to acknowledge, reflect on, and work through every feeling before they can set a limit. You don't need to. A statement of validation can be as short as one sentence. No one needs a TED Talk before getting into the car. "You're disappointed; we're still leaving." That's all that's necessary. (For more on this, please see my newsletter on why we can stop calling every tear trauma.)

As for the final point, children learn to calm down by having us calm them first. We provide them with our stability long before they can generate their own. During this period of borrowing, they develop the skill.

Emotional intelligence can't be developed in a lesson about feelings; it is developed in the messy, ordinary moments. Here are some examples of what support can sound like:

Losing a game: "You really wanted to win. Losing is hard. Do you want a rematch or a break?"

Being excluded by friends: "You felt so left out. That really hurts." Later, when they are calm, you can gently separate the feeling from the story.

Sibling conflict: Instead of deciding who is right, help each child say what they want. "You want the truck because you had it first. You want it because you never get a turn. What can we figure out?"

Getting corrected by a teacher: In this moment, anger often has embarrassment underneath. "It can feel really embarrassing to get corrected in front of the class."

Hearing no: "You're disappointed. The answer is still no." Then you let the feeling happen without changing the answer.

Feeling jealous: "It makes sense to feel jealous when your friend gets something you wanted. Feeling jealous doesn't make you a bad friend."

Making a mistake: "You're frustrated that it didn't come out the way you wanted. What do you want to try next time?"

Seeing another child treated poorly: "How do you think she felt? What could you do?" Options might include sitting with that child or telling a grown-up.

Realizing they hurt someone: "That yucky feeling in your tummy means you care. What could help make it better?" Guilt in small doses is a useful signal. It tells kids a repair is needed, without telling them they are a bad person.

This week, I want you to try one small thing: once a day, name one of your own feelings out loud, along with what you are doing about it.

You won't need a feelings chart or a lengthy conversation; merely give a brief account of your inner world as you carry on with your daily activities.

It can sound like:

"I'm feeling frustrated that the traffic is so slow, so I'm going to put on some music."

"I'm disappointed it's raining because I wanted to go to the park. Let's think of an indoor plan."

"I'm a little nervous about my doctor's appointment, so I'm taking some deep breaths."

"I felt really happy when Grandpa called today."

It teaches children how to identify emotions, shows them how to regulate themselves, and does all this in real time without asking your child to do anything at all. Since children learn by observing, let them observe.

You'll get some extra points if this week your child names a feeling that they themselves have, in which case simply say, "Thank you for telling me," and then pause before you jump in to try to fix it.

We are not raising children who never have big emotions. Big emotions are part of being a person, and kids feel them in bodies and brains that are still under construction.

What we are building is slower and much more meaningful. We want kids who gradually understand themselves and other people better. Kids who can feel something strongly while learning what to do with it. Over time, we hope they learn to communicate, cope, set boundaries, handle conflict, take responsibility, and repair relationships.

I love to zoom out on this one, because the growth can be hard to see up close. The three-year-old who bites when she is angry becomes the seven-year-old who yells, "I'm SO mad I want to hit something!" and stomps to her room. That might not look like progress in the moment, but it is. She used words instead of teeth. And that seven-year-old can become the sixteen-year-old who texts, "I'm upset, and I need some time. Can we talk later?"

That is the long game. Every meltdown you help your child through is another rep. You do not need to get it perfect. You just need to keep showing up and keep repairing, and trust that the skills are growing even on the days it feels like nothing is sticking.

Which feeling does your child struggle with most right now? Anger, disappointment, jealousy, something else entirely? Hit reply and tell me what it looks like in your house. Your answers may shape a future newsletter.

Dr. Mona will answer these questions in a future Sunday Morning Q&A email. Chances are if you have a parenting concern or question, another parent can relate. So let's figure this out together!