Assistant Principal
Katrina Spicer - Wellbeing and Inclusion
9th May 2025
SWPBS
Our School Captains, Vice Captains and House Captains met with me in the first week of school to select this term's SWPBS end of term reward options. Students who demonstrate our school's expected behaviours may be rewarded with a coloured token which they can then use to vote for one of the following options:
Katrina Spicer
Assistant Principal for Wellbeing and Inclusion
katrina.spicer@education.vic.gov.au
SEVEN HEALTHY WAYS TO MANAGE EMOTIONS
By Michael Grose
What training did you get from your parents in managing emotions? If you are like me, you didn’t get much really constructive help in recognising or regulating feelings. “Don’t worry. It will all turn out right!” was about the extent of the emotional management in my house. I guess that’s why many people automatically default to ineffective ways to manage difficult emotions as adults.
Ineffective ways such as:
1. Avoidance: “I’m okay, really!”
2. Denial: “Nothing wrong with me!”
3. Wishful thinking: “She’ll be right!”
4. Worry: “What if…..”
5. Self-denigration: “What do you expect? I’m a loser!”
6. Blaming others: “She makes me feel so mad!”
7. Acting out (also abusing alcohol and other drugs): “Come here you! I’ll show you ….”
And they pass those same ineffective methods on to their children. Anxiety (a legitimate feeling), anger (also legitimate) and apathy (not a recommended state) are now at epidemic proportions among children and young people, even though we live in affluent times.
Here are seven healthy ways to manage your emotions that you can pass on to your children:
1. Breathe deeply
The trick here is to take deep breaths, rather than shallow breaths. The easiest way to breathe deeply is to sit or stand up straight, count to 3 quietly while breathing through your nose, and count to 5 while breathing out. Breathe slowly and deeply. You may even feel a little ‘heady’, which indicates deep (and low) breathing.
2. Use a positive reappraisal
Sometimes known as positive reframing, positive reappraisal is a simple technique you can use to help you look at a situation or event in a different light. Emotions are caused not by an event, but by the way we look at an event. A wedding speech to one person is a chance to strut your stuff (so they feel excited), while someone else may see it at as a nightmare (so they feel anxious). Change the way you view something and you’ll be able to manage your emotional response. “This is a challenge, not a problem” is a catch-all reappraisal. The more specific the reappraisal the more effective it will be.
3. Exercise
Exercise releases endorphins, nature’s feel-good chemical, which will move your mood to a better state. The paradox is that we often don’t feel like exercising when we really need it. Let’s face it, when you come home from work tired and stressed, exercise is the last thing on your mind. BUT going for a run, walking the dog or even a playing a game outside with the kids is the very thing you need to feel better.
4. Meditate to stop those thoughts
If you struggle to close down the thoughts that race through your brain, then meditation will offer you the relief you need. Living with a brain that never seems to close down, or at least never stops ruminating and examining all sorts of scenarios can be exhausting robbing you of huge amounts of emotional energy. Alcohol is one solution, but not necessarily healthy. Meditation is recommended as a life skill that will help you balance to your emotional state.
5. Find spirituality or something bigger than you
It’s no coincidence that most sustainable cultures have an aspect of spirituality present- that is, there is something or someone bigger than us present. As Western cultures have become more prosperous the place of religion specifically, and spirituality in general, has diminished. We are the poorer for it as we’ve become insular as individuals. If religion, whether organised or un-organised, is not your bag, then find a cause that inspires you and makes you feel significant through your contribution. Adding meaning to your life will help you make sense of difficult feelings, and importantly, keep the blue moments in perspective.
6. Change your goal
Sometimes our emotional state is giving us a message - that is, we are not on the right path. There are times when we set ourselves targets or aspire to goals that are unrealistic and unattainable. The result of our honest efforts is that we continuously feel overwhelmed, swamped and stressed.
7. Get support from others
Asking for help takes many forms. It may be simply having someone at work you can offload your worries to when needed through to joining a specific support group (such as a parent group of children on the spectrum) so that you can share your experiences and get validation for the frustration, stress or anxiousness you may be experiencing.
Check out how many of these healthy emotional management techniques you currently practice. My guess is that you do many of these intuitively, but you weren’t aware that they are emotional management techniques.
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