Wellbeing 

Helping Kids Navigate Big Feelings 

Supporting children through big emotions, especially anger, can sometimes feel like trying to calm a tiny volcano mid-eruption! The good news is, there’s plenty of research-backed strategies that really do help.

When we say “evidence-based strategies”, we simply mean techniques that have been tested, proven to work, and can be used by anyone, no psychology degree required!

Here are four simple, effective ways to help children learn to manage their emotions and build lifelong coping skills:

Teach Emotional Vocabulary - Encourage your child to name what they’re feeling: “I’m frustrated,” “I’m disappointed,” or “I’m angry.” Naming feelings helps take the intensity out of them. Try using an emotion chart or picture cards to build their emotional vocabulary.

Talk About Body Clues - Help your child notice what anger feels like in their body — a tight chest, fast heartbeat, clenched fists. Recognising these signs early gives them a chance to calm down before things escalate.

Get Curious About Triggers - Ask gentle questions to help them understand what set off their anger. Was it losing a game, feeling left out, or being hungry or tired? Helping children spot patterns gives them insight into their own reactions.

Use a Feelings Scale - Ask, “How big is this feeling right now, a 2 or a 9?” Rating their emotions helps kids express what they feel instead of acting it out, and gives you a shared language to talk about managing big feelings.

With practice, these small steps help children build emotional awareness and resilience, skills that will serve them well for life.

The Angry Thermometer

To support this strategy, we’ve included a copy of the Angry Thermometer, a visual tool that helps children identify how strong their anger feels. They can “check their temperature” by pointing to the level that matches their feeling, then use calming strategies to bring it back down.

This tool helps children recognise that feelings come in different “sizes,” and that with practice, they can choose helpful ways to cool down when emotions start to rise.

Spotlight Strategy: Scaling Emotions

One simple, powerful strategy for helping children manage anger and other strong emotions is called Scaling.

Scaling gives children a way to measure their feelings so they can manage them and it’s a technique that works beautifully both at school and at home.

Here’s how it might sound in action:

“Your block tower just toppled, and I can see you’re really upset.On a scale of 1 to 10, how big does this feel? A 7? Got it.Let’s take a few deep breaths... Now how big does it feel? A 3?That’s amazing.”

 Just like that, you’ve helped your child connect emotion to action and recognise their own progress.

Research shows that when children learn to match their reaction to the size of the problem, they become more confident and resilient when faced with everyday challenges without meltdowns, shutdowns, or spirals.

Big feelings don’t feel so scary when you can scale them.

Prep

Learning this term will focus on screen time and agency. We will focus on comfortable vs uncomfortable feelings and strategies that can help us navigate uncomfortable situations online.

Year 1 & 2

Learning this term will focus on developing critical thinking and digital literacy skills. We will also explore what it means to be kind online.

Year 3 & 4

Learning this term will focus on the importance of not sharing personal information and the difference between scammers and hackers. We will also explore how to identify red flags and navigate unsafe online interactions.

Year 5 & 6

Learning this term will focus on being a critical consumer of media and strategies to evaluate the credibility of online sources. We will also explore ways to protect against scams and hackers.