09/07/2026
Feel It, Name It, Tame It
At Social Bridges, our facilitators coach children and teens to regulate their emotions using calming tools. These tools can help when children are angry or upset, but they can also be useful when children (and adults!) feel overly excited, scared, or anxious. Calming tools help us return to a more balanced emotional state before we decide on our next steps or take further action.
However, before we can regulate our emotions, we need to understand them.
One helpful strategy is cognitive reappraisal, which involves identifying and labeling an emotion while describing the facts of the situation. For example, instead of saying, “I’m so stressed, and I’m going to fail my test tomorrow,” you could say, “I feel anxious because I have a test tomorrow.” This allows you to recognize what you're feeling and why, without making assumptions about what might happen.
Once you have identified your emotion and its cause, you can use a calming tool and decide what steps to take next. When you can name your emotion, you are better equipped to tame it!
Gross, J. J. (1998). The Emerging Field of Emotion Regulation: An Integrative Review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
