Step 3 of 12 · Raise Emotionally Healthy Children
When They Are Upset
When They Are Upset
Step 3 · 13 min
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Your child is upset. Really upset. Crying, shouting, refusing, melting down.
What do you do?
The answer to this question — repeated across thousands of daily moments — shapes how your child understands emotions, whether they feel understood, and whether they develop the capacity to regulate emotional experience as they grow.
Gottman's emotion coaching: the most effective approach to children's emotional distress
Emotion dismissing vs. emotion coaching — and their very different outcomes
The brain science of children's emotions (Siegel's hand model)
How to respond to tantrums, meltdowns, and big feelings
John Gottman's emotion coaching research (in Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child) identifies five types of parenting response to children's negative emotions:
1. Dismissing ("you're fine," "don't cry," "it's not a big deal"): invalidates the emotion, teaches children that feelings are problematic and should be suppressed. 2. Disapproving ("stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about"): same effect with added threat. 3. Laissez-faire (accepting the emotion but without guidance on navigation): validating but not teaching. 4. Emotion coaching (the most effective): acknowledging the emotion, helping the child name it, empathising, setting limits on behaviour while accepting the feeling, problem-solving together once calm.
The outcomes of emotion coaching: children who are emotion-coached have better emotional regulation, better academic performance, healthier peer relationships, fewer behavioural problems, and better physical health into adulthood.
Siegel's hand model of the brain: Daniel Siegel's accessible model for explaining the brain to children and parents: the palm of the hand represents the brainstem (survival functions), the thumb folded in represents the limbic system (emotional processing), and the fingers folded over represent the prefrontal cortex (reasoning, regulation, planning). When the child is in emotional overload — "flipping their lid" — the prefrontal cortex goes offline. Reasoning and instruction don't work in this state. Connection, presence, and co-regulation come first.
The emotion coaching sequence: 1. Notice and acknowledge the emotion ("I can see you're really angry/sad/scared right now") 2. Name and empathise ("It makes sense you feel that way — you really wanted...") 3. Set limits on behaviour if needed ("But throwing things is not okay") 4. Problem-solve together once calm
Find a comfortable position · Read slowly
In the next emotion-big moment with your child:
Before responding, take one breath. Then: what is the emotion they are experiencing? Can you name it out loud to them?
Then: empathise first, problem-solve second.
The child who is heard in their distress learns that feelings are manageable. The child who is told their feelings are wrong learns to suppress them — which produces adults who don't know what they feel.