A recent car-buying experience left me thinking. When a salesperson pulled a bait-and-switch on pricing, I could feel my body react. My face got hot, my heart raced, and my voice got louder. Before things escalated further, another salesperson stepped in, staying remarkably calm, listening, and steering the conversation to a fix. That salesperson later told me that catching far more heat than I had shown was just part of the job, without a hint of defensiveness. How did that calm look so natural? Was it learned?
We often talk about emotion regulation as if it were temperament. One child is “easygoing” whereas another “has a temper.” But emotion regulation, meaning how we influence what we feel and how we express it, is not just something we are born with. It is a set of skills that includes recognizing a feeling, reflecting on it, and choosing how to respond. Coping is the part of emotion regulation that we use under stress, like taking a breath before answering an angry customer. It can be learned, with repeated opportunities to practice and get feedback, and it is consistently linked to well-being.
And new research shows these skills may matter more than we realized.
A Clue to Why Therapy Works
A team of researchers in Sweden asked a question: When therapy works, is it partly because people get better at handling their emotions? To explore the answer, they looked at 62 carefully designed studies of therapy for problems like anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
Here’s what they learned:
- Often, the answer was yes. About half the time, learning to manage emotions was part of why therapy worked.
- The link was strongest when it was taught on purpose. When interventions taught emotion regulation directly, using an established framework, the connection showed up about 8 out of 10 times.
- It mattered even when it wasn’t the goal. Therapies with a different focus still seemed to work partly by building these skills.
This new research review does have limitations. Most studies can’t tell us whether emotion regulation skills improved first or people started getting better first. And every study involved people who were already struggling, mostly adults: only 10 of the 62 included kids or teens. To me, that’s the most important part of the story. If these skills help people who are already experiencing challenges, imagine what could happen if every child had the chance to learn them early.
Why Wait for Therapy? Teach Coping Early
Research with young people points in the same direction. Psychological treatments for teens and young adults with depression and anxiety reduce emotion dysregulation alongside symptoms. And skills can be taught to children at risk. For example, when children of parents with depression learned coping skills as part of a prevention program, improved coping helped explain later drops in emotional and behavioral problems.
As I wrote about in my post on youth loneliness, just as we teach children to read and write, we can also teach them to cope. But how we teach matters. In “Feel Your Best Self,” for example, we guide facilitators to teach each strategy the same way: introduce it, model the steps, give time for practice, then talk and reflect together.
What Families, Schools, and Communities Can Do
The clearest lesson from the new review is to be intentional: name the skill, teach it, and practice it on purpose. That works best when families, schools, and communities share the same language and strategies, so children can practice wherever they are.
Families
- Name feelings out loud along with what to try. “I’m frustrated. I am going to stop and try some belly breathing before I decide what to do.” Children learn the steps by hearing them.
- Practice when calm. A coping strategy practiced in a calm moment is easier to put in place when emotions run high.
- Treat “I need a minute” as a skill. Pausing before reacting is regulation in action. For ideas on what to do when a meltdown is underway, see my post “The Escalation Cycle.”
Emotion Regulation Essential Reads
Schools & Youth-Serving Organizations
- Teach emotion regulation like any other skill. Choose a program that teaches coping skills, and practice a few minutes every day, as you would for reading or a free throw. Naming feelings is a start, but kids also need to explore what to do with them.
- Use real moments to practice. Lost games, recess conflicts, and tough tests are all chances to coach a strategy in the moment, then talk about how it went afterward.
- Support the adults, too. Teachers, coaches, and staff who can stay calm under pressure model regulation every time they do it.
Bottom Line
When therapy works, emotion regulation is often part of the reason. Children don’t have to wait that long. They can learn to recognize, reflect, and respond long before life hands them their first big test, or, in my case, a bait-and-switch tactic at a car dealership.
Disclosure: I am a co-creator of Feel Your Best Self and co-owner of FYBS & Co.
