The educator:

• acknowledges children’s emotions and experiences and responds sensitively
• creates a supportive environment with predictable routines and clear expectations
• teaches children strategies for managing their emotions.

Evidence indicates that educators can help children manage their emotions. Based on the evidence we found, educators should:

• explicitly teach children techniques for coping with strong feelings
• relate with children in ways that are warm, calm and predictable, while encouraging increasing independence.

Evidence indicates that this approach is especially positive for children from lower-income families.

A small amount of evidence indicates that educators might also:

• Support children to develop their overall resilience. For example, the educator might offer explicit sessions that teach children to develop ​‘habits of mind’. These sessions might focus on trying hard, taking appropriate risks and thinking before acting.

Educators can help children to manage their emotions through co-regulation. This is when educators sensitively support children to regulate their emotions and actions. Co-regulation helps children learn, over time, to regulate their emotions and actions independently.

For example, the educator notices the child’s emotional cues when a tower they are building falls over. The educator responds calmly and sensitively. They might say, ​‘I can see you’re getting angry about the tower falling. When I feel angry, I have to stop for a moment. Okay, let’s see if we can find a way to build it higher.’ Through experiences like this, educators help children to recognise their emotions and develop strategies for coping with them.

In effective programmes, educators modelled positive ways of relating to others. They did this through high-quality interactions with children. Educators also explicitly taught strategies to help children manage their emotions and make sense of their feelings.

Practices they used to do this include:

• Teaching children techniques for coping with strong feelings: the educator teaches children to recognise and name their feelings and develop their emotional awareness. They also teach children to use strategies to calm themselves down. To do this, they might use role play, puppets, routines and stories.
• Using mistakes as learning opportunities: responding calmly when children experience frustration or difficulty and helping them reflect on what to try next. For example, when a child becomes frustrated, the educator models calmness and uses encouraging language to support persistence and problem-solving. As a result, children learn that strong feelings like frustration are manageable and can learn from their mistakes.
• Promoting discussion and conversation about strategies: discussing a strategy after teaching it, so children can use them successfully when needed. For example, the educator might say: ​‘do you remember when we learnt about ​“doing turtle”? We stopped, tucked in like a turtle pulling into its shell and then took a deep breath? When do you think that might help you?’
• Naming and labelling: helping children recognise emotions, sensations and strategies by naming them explicitly. For example, the educator might say, ​‘You might feel hot, or notice your heart beating quickly, when you are angry.’
  

Other practices educators use to deliver this approach include:

• Recalling: using language to describe a previous event or experience. For example, a child comes indoors after playing outside and looks very hot and agitated. The educator anticipates they might find it difficult to manage their feelings. The educator reminds them of the time they got their special box of trains and played alone for a time to calm down.