Emotional regulation

Learn more about emotional regulation for your adolescent and managing your own reactions during the emotion coaching process.

Helping your adolescent with emotion regulation

Your adolescent may need help with ways to manage their emotions in difficult situations.

Emotion regulation is learned throughout life. It includes skills that help to manage and express emotions in healthy ways. Emotion regulation skills can be about how we think or what we do to calm ourselves when emotions are there.

The skills are best worked out and practiced ahead of time when the adolescent is not really stressed or upset. Planning ahead of time what they can do to cope in challenging situations has greater chance of success than trying to work out what to do on the spot.

For example, during the summer holidays, you could talk about what they might do when they are walking up to the new school gates. You might also talk about what to do when they are introduced to new people in the days and weeks before that situation.

Emotion regulation skills

Build in a pause – this is not just for parents, but can help adolescents manage their intense emotions. It is particularly useful for managing anger.
Use tense and release – tense up parts of the body (fists, feet, shoulders, or hands), hold the tension for 5 seconds and then release.
Stretch the body (hands, arms, back).
Use finger acupressure points – with the thumb, press beside where the fingernail grows free from the finger; this pressure can feel like a pin prick as you touch the pressure point, and can relieve tension and lessen emotions.
Take ten slow deep breaths.
Sigh with a long slow breath out.
Hold something that feels good – a necklace, wrist band or something special. When feeling angry, stressed or anxious, hold the item and notice its texture. This can help focus on the senses rather than what has led to the mad or worried feelings.
Listen to music.
Have a good cry, followed by some rest.
Do some exercises that you enjoy – running, sports.
Do a relaxation exercise or calming activity (use an app – e.g., ClearFear, Headspace or Smiling Minds).

Emotion regulation skills help adolescents manage their emotions in different situations.

Fear: taking small steps towards overcoming a fear (such as working out the school map to know where to go on orientation day) can be important. It is helpful to use emotion regulation skills (e.g., relaxation, or tensing and releasing muscles in your body) at the same time.
Anger: using emotion regulation to build in a pause may help an adolescent manage disagreements with their friends.
Sadness: slow breathing might help to manage sadness saying goodbye on the last day of primary school.

Emotion regulation skills have life-long benefits, and a lot of learning occurs during adolescence.

Responding to anger

Anger lets us know when something is important.

For adolescents, it is often about wanting independence and having their own voice. Adolescents will sometimes do this clumsily or hurtfully.

Helpful pointers

Don’t ignore, avoid or dismiss your adolescent’s anger – respect all of their feelings.
Make sure you separate the angry behaviour from the angry feelings. For example: ‘It’s not okay to hit your little sister, but I can see you are angry. What happened?’
Emotion acceptance is key. Acknowledge the feelings underlying the anger, which might include disappointment, hurt, jealousy, sadness or fear. These emotions can be emotion coached.
Try not to react with anger. Be aware that anger spreads and try to remain calm.
Young people need limits around what they do. But these lessen as the adolescent gets older and can make their own decisions.
Set household rules that may include: no hitting, hurting, name calling, letting parents know where they are.
Some family rules or boundaries are negotiable, and some are not. These gradually change as your adolescent gets older.
When adolescents break these, clarify the limits with empathy. For example: ‘It’s really hard to come home when everyone else stays out later. And our family rule is to be home by 10pm. Not easy!’
Provide guidance about how you want them to behave rather than using punishment. Punishment often leads to anger or resentment and breaks down connections.
When they break the rules, ensure you and your adolescent are calm before you try to look at how they can address what they have done. You can then talk about how to repair the situation. This may mean coming back to the issue later.
Use problem solving to help address and repair the situation. If they can identify what is getting in the way, then you can explore what might work instead. For example: ‘What do you think you could do to sort this out with your teacher?’ or ‘What might work next time?’
Sometimes emotion coaching comes after the most intense anger, once your adolescent has calmed. Even if you have become angry yourself, emotion coaching can allow you to talk about it and repair the situation. If you lose control and react badly, saying sorry is important. Saying sorry models for your adolescent an important part of repairing relationships.
Do not try to emotion coach:

when you are angry
when you are in a rush
if your adolescent’s emotions are big
if there is danger or a safety concern.

When conflict occurs between siblings, it is best to use emotion coaching with each person separately. It is difficult to emotion coach both at the same time.
Problem solving is not always required but may be the last step after anger.
For information on what to do and where to seek help if your adolescent becomes violent, visit family violence support and extra help for children and families.

Managing your reactions

Adolescents can set us off! They can be harsh, critical and their emotions can be intense. When faced with this, your reactions may be automatic and difficult to control.

For your adolescent, feelings of anger, fear, powerlessness and helplessness may be common. They can lead to them being challenging, hurtful and loud. You, in turn, might end up yelling or using guilt or sarcasm in reaction. Or you might just walk off. Big emotions can happen for everyone!

At these times of strong emotions, you may need ways to build in a pause before you react. This can make it possible to calm down a little and notice your own emotion, before trying to emotion coach your adolescent.

Ways to build in a pause

Tell yourself, ‘Stop!’
Notice your own emotions.
Count slowly to ten (or count backwards).
Hold a necklace, bracelet or keys as a way of bringing your attention to here and now. How does the object feel/look?
Focus on your senses – colours you can see, noises you can hear, tastes or smells, sensation of touch, the feel of your feet on the floor.
Breathe slowly.
Run your hands under cold water. Have a cold drink. Suck on ice.
Step outside or somewhere you can have 5 seconds space (the toilet can work!). When you’ve had 20–30 seconds pause, you are more likely to be able to use emotion coaching.

How to look after yourself as a parent

Research shows that parenting adolescents is one of the most stressful periods in life. This often means parents are more reactive and emotionally dismissive. Parents can struggle to be patient with their moody adolescents.

This is also a time when parents’ intimate relationships are at their lowest. Parents need to look after themselves. If they are in a better space, they can be emotionally supportive of their adolescents.

There are lots of things you can do to care for yourself. These may help you be calmer, more patient and manage the challenges of parenting a growing adolescent.

Sometimes we need to calm and other times we need to be able to let off steam to release emotions:

calming activities – relaxation exercises, yoga, prayer, meditation, having a hot bath/shower, breathing slowly, listening to calming music
exercise to release emotion – going for a walk or run or playing sport.

We also may need time with others or time alone:

social activities – spending time with a friend or partner
activities you do on your own – walking, reading, gardening or doing a creative, non-screen task like a puzzle or cooking a favourite meal.

These activities are important for adolescents to do as well, and role modelling them can help build healthy stress management skills.

Managing rejection

Your adolescent is going through the many changes of early adolescence and the transition to secondary school. It is very healthy and normal for them to push you away and want less of your input. This is part of them learning to have their own voice and becoming an adult. At times they can reject you roughly and it can hurt terribly.

Managing your emotions when you are rejected is important. This will mean that you don’t react badly, give up or punish your adolescent.

The following tips can help you manage rejection:

Adolescents often say things in the ‘heat of the moment’ which they do not mean. You don’t need to take their words personally or assume this is what they actually think.
Notice your reactions and how you feel. Would you call it anger, hurt, sadness, worry, disgust or humiliation?
Build in a pause – hold back from your automatic reaction which might be to run away or attack. Take a big deep breath, drink some water or use other ways to build in a pause.
Remind yourself that this is a normal part of adolescence.

By not reacting with anger and attack, you let them know you accept their feelings and opinions. This keeps communication open. It means your adolescent is more likely to talk to you about the issue later.

Useful ways of responding include:

‘Okay, you might not want to talk now, but I will be here if you want to talk about it later.’
‘I can see you are pretty annoyed right now. I’m happy to listen if you want to talk some other time.’
‘Wow, sounds like you are having a tough time.’
‘You might need a little time to think things through. We can chat about it later if you want.’

Education & training

Updated 27 March 2026

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Emotional regulation

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Helping your adolescent with emotion regulation

Responding to anger

Managing your reactions

How to look after yourself as a parent

Managing rejection

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Helping your adolescent with emotion regulation

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