The events of the past few years—the pandemic, shootings, riots, political and ideological battles—have left many of us traumatized. The result is widespread emotional dysregulation, an inability to manage emotional states and responses. And it’s not only children and teens who are experiencing emotional regulation difficulties. It’s the adults, too.
Schools across the country are dealing with the effects of trauma and emotional dysregulation in both students and staff. In this article, we’ll discuss the signs to look for and 5 interventions that can help you create a calmer, more supportive school climate that’s conducive to learning.
Signs of Emotional Dysregulation in Children and Adults
When people lack emotional regulation skills, they show one or more of these signs:
- Overly intense emotions, including anger, irritability, fear, anxiety, and depression
- Mood swings
- Impulsive behavior when their emotions are out of control
- Inability to make decisions or resolve conflicts
- Self-harming behaviors, eating disorders, or substance abuse
How Emotional Dysregulation Impacts Schools
The stress of emotional dysregulation interferes with executive functioning in the brain. In both children and adults, the following skills are compromised:
- Working memory: the ability to retain and manipulate information
- Mental flexibility: the ability to pay attention, respond to demands, and adapt to different situations
- Self-control: the ability to prioritize and resist impulsive actions
- Organization: the ability to chunk information and plan ahead
The bottom line? Students with emotional dysregulation struggle to learn and also struggle socially. And staff members (especially teachers) with impaired emotional regulation skills become ineffective, unhappy in their jobs, and more likely to leave the profession.
IMPORTANT: When staff members are dysregulated, they can’t help students learn to manage emotions. That’s why a strategy to build emotional regulation has to include both students and staff.
5 Ways to Teach Emotional Regulation Skills
While trauma can cause people to lose emotional regulation skills, the good news is that they can be taught. Schools need to provide training and support resources to both students and staff to help them overcome emotional dysregulation.
Here are some ideas to get you started teaching emotional regulation skills to students and staff.
1. Recognize intense emotions.
People experiencing emotional dysregulation often don’t recognize what emotion they are feeling or why. They simply feel overwhelmed and out of control. This is especially true of young children who don’t yet have the vocabulary to tell you what’s going on. But it’s also true of adults who react to triggers and don’t realize what’s happening.
Teach young kids to recognize signs in the body. Try the “How’s your motor running?” exercise to help students learn to recognize physical signs and why they feel that way.
Teach adolescents to get to the why. She’s probably not having a temper tantrum because of a bad hair day. Once the crisis has passed, talking with a trusted teacher or counselor can help her recognize that she’s feeling sadness over losing a friend or fear of failure.
Teach adults to identify triggers and emotional reactions. After a challenging classroom incident or interaction with a student or parent, give staff members a sounding board. A counselor or teacher coach is ideal. That person can help them analyze what happened, identify what may have triggered an emotional reaction, and why they reacted the way they did. This is a critical first step toward managing emotions and behavior in the future.
2. Tactics to interrupt reactions at the moment.
When emotions escalate quickly, people tend to react first and think later. That’s why emotional dysregulation is such a tough problem to overcome.
Most of us have moments like this: Someone cuts you off on the highway, and you react automatically with a rude retort. Moments later, you realize you overreacted. You might feel ashamed of your behavior.
The trick is to learn to interrupt those automatic responses. When the rational brain has time to weigh in, you can prevent escalating emotions and use intentional self-regulation skills instead.
Use distraction with kids. Interrupt obsessive thoughts and escalating emotions with distraction techniques that force kids to think about something else. “Tell me 5 things you can see, 5 things you can touch…” is one example.
Give teachers breathing exercises. Train staff members to use breathing techniques, such as box breathing, to de-escalate their own intense emotions in the moment. In fact, when things heat up in the classroom, teachers can lead the whole class in a breathing time-out, to give everyone a chance to calm down and get back in control.
3. Proactive practices that build emotional control.
Once people become better at recognizing their escalating emotions and interrupting reactions in the moment, they can start to build intentional practices that build control and reduce the frequency of emotional outbursts.
There are many ways to do this, including aromatherapy, physical activity, and listening to music. Each person needs to find what works best for them. Here are a few more proactive practices you can teach both students and staff.
Mindfulness. This practice literally teaches people to control their thinking. It’s great for people of any age so students and staff both benefit. It’s about being fully aware of your body, your emotions, and your surroundings, and letting go of intrusive thoughts and feelings.
Reframe thinking. After an outburst, it can help to look at the situation objectively afterward, and recognize unrealistic thinking patterns. Is it really true that you won’t be able to go to college if you fail this test? It can be helpful to focus on the most likely outcome or even the best possible outcome.
Learning better ways to respond to triggers. Here’s another skill that both students and teachers can build by working with a counselor or a coach. It can be a big help to brainstorm with someone and come up with tactics to use in common stressful situations instead of letting emotions escalate.
For example, a student may be overwhelmed by a particular subject and responds with angry outbursts. Teach him ways to get his emotions under control before class. He could take a few moments to use a stress ball and then check his homework to build his confidence and resilience before heading off to that class.
4. Use motivation.
For school staff, it can be very helpful to identify what drives them and use that to help them manage emotions.
What do they care about and what are their goals? Do they want to be Teacher of the Year? Would they love to be a department head, or to present at a conference? Help them realize that building emotional regulation skills will help them achieve their ambitions. Then help them develop a proactive plan to get there.
Sometimes you can identify what may be triggering a staff member and make changes to better suit their skills and talents. When I was a district administrator, I had an elementary teacher who was very frustrated working with younger children. I moved her to the high school and she became teacher of the year within 2 years!
5. Create a multiplier effect.
In schools, people talk. When they are talking about all the problems and negative things, that creates a toxic culture. What you need is cheerleaders: people talking about the positive things to create a supportive and healthy culture. I like to call this the multiplier effect.
Start by hiring some like-minded cheerleaders, and looking for the ones you already have on your staff. And encourage them to start making ripples. Compliment people and share positive stories and ideas in the staff room. Before you know it, that positive outlook will grow.
Learn More about Mental Health Interventions for Schools
Nurturing mental health in schools helps everyone succeed: students achieve more, staff members are happier and more successful in their careers, and districts enhance their reputations and even save money.
That’s why Thrive Alliance Group has developed a continuum of services to support schools, students, and staff throughout the journey toward mental wellness and school success.