My Child is Emotionally Dysregulated. What Can I Do? Part 1 of 2

When a child is emotionally dysregulated often, it adds stress in the home. As a parent, you may feel like you are constantly walking on eggshells and putting out fires, never knowing when the next crisis will occur. It very easy to get caught up the moment-by moment problems, leaving you drained and weary, and unable to see a way out. If this is the case in your home, you are probably exhausted and having trouble knowing how to find your way out of the chaos. In a situation like this, professional help is a good idea.

Meanwhile, there are things you can do at home to make things more manageable and put your family on the road to a calmer home situation. In this article, I explain emotional dysregulation. Then I give three principles to keep in mind as you work to change the situation. In Part 2, I describe seven concrete things you may consider implementing with your child.

What is Emotional Dysregulation and Why is it Important?

When a child is emotionally regulated, they are able to bend and flex with changes in their environment, or inside themselves, and remain at least somewhat calm. A child who is regulated is operating from the thinking part of the brain, the frontal lobes that modulate behavior and emotions. This allows them to do things like solve problems, inhibit their impulse to engage in behaviors that may be inappropriate, initiate appropriate behaviors that are needed in the situation, modulate their attention, and communicate their needs in a reasonable way. Regulation allows children to monitor their behavior and make adjustments that match the demands of the situation and meet their own needs.

On the other hand, when a child is emotionally dysregulated, they are operating from more primal areas of the brain that play a central role in survival (the limbic system), which means the person can be emotional and impulsive. A child who is dysregulated has trouble thinking clearly about how to solve problems and difficulty monitoring their behavior and making necessary adjustments. This results in behavior that can be irrational and does not match what is needed. This often worsens the original problem and causes problems for others nearby.

The Guiding Principles to Keep in Mind When Your Child is Chronically Dysregulated

There are several guiding principles that will help as you seek to bring things back into balance in your home. 

Guiding Principle 1- First bring your child back into a regulated state

The first principle is to remember that when your child is regulated, he is operating out of his frontal lobes, and is therefore better able to manage the various aspects of situations and his own behavior, but when he is dysregulated, he is operating out of the more primitive areas of the brain associated with emotions and impulses. This means that if you have a child who is dysregulated, your first goal as a parent is bring the child back into a regulated state and only then, address the behavior. Reversing these two processes will likely result in the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.

Guiding Principle 2- Seek to Change the Environment Instead of the Child

The second principle is that of seeking to change the environment, not the child, at least for now. A child who is chronically dysregulated has a bigger, more overarching problem than simply wanting to make their parents’ lives difficult, even though it may seem as though they only want to give you a hard time. When people put more effort into trying to directly change their child’s behavior, it usually adds more problems and chaos on top of the problems and chaos that are already there.

As you make changes to the environment, you can expect your child to relax and therefore be spending more time in a regulated state. With more time spent calm and regulated, your child will have a better chance to learn the things you teach him, and to practice these new behaviors under more peaceful conditions.

With time, consistency, and practice, these new behaviors become second-nature and are more successful when things are stressful, whereas previously, it would have been impossible for your child to implement them under conditions of stress.

Guiding Principle 3- Learning is Most Effective Under Positive Conditions

The third principle to keep in mind is that children learn better with teaching and guidance under emotionally positive or neutral conditions than under negative or emotionally-charged conditions such as anger or fear. Therefore, the more you can take a teaching approach with your child during times of calm, the more he will be able to absorb the message and practice his new skills under your encouragement and watchful eye.

If your child is emotionally dysregulated often, keeping these three guiding principles in mind will help as you seek to bring calm and order to your home. In Part 2, I give suggestions of things you can do to help your child become better regulated.