Kids experience life with their amygdalas on their sleeve. Kids don’t have a full formed prefrontal cortex (that’s the thinking part of the brain) until 25. Twenty-five! Until 25, they’re just walking around this world with their emotions jumping to take the wheel over anything and everything.
This doesn’t mean that emotional regulation is unachievable. Quite the opposite. It means it’s imperative.
On of the best tools for emotional regulation is deep breathing exercises. This is because when the amygdala is running the show, the body tries to pump up on oxygen with shallow breaths to help those muscles with their fight, flight, or freeze. Deep breathing is a way of taking the reins back and returning the body to normal oxygenation levels.
Ok great but have you ever tried to get a child to deep breathe? Cue headache.
Teach deep breathing exercises when they’re calm
The best time to teach deep breathing exercises is right now. Right now. Well, right after you finish reading this blog. What are your kids doing right now? If you’re reading this blog then they’re probably not in the middle of a crisis. So it’s the perfect time. If they are in the middle of a crisis and you’re reading this in a desperate search for what to do, bless you; let’s get to it.
1. My kids are currently panicking
If you haven’t laid the groundwork for deep breathing exercises, this probably isn’t the time. The best thing you can do right now is model breathing for them. Take audible breaths. Our bodies already love to match the breathing rhythms of the people around us, so when they hear you, they’ll eventually fall into beat.
- Don’t breathe too deeply. You’re at risk of a couple things if you make the mistake of breathing deeply when you try to model deep breathing for children.
- You’ll breathe too slowly for them to reasonably match. The normal respiratory rate of children is double that of adults. For every normal breath you take, your small child is inflating their lungs at least twice – when they’re not distressed. So your normal breathing rate IS their deep breathing.
- You’ll get light-headed. First, preformative deep breathing is different from normal deep breathing. When you need to focus on volume and rhythm to help another regulate, you’re not focused on cues from your own body. This can get you feeling light-headed after a few minutes. And if you’re child is flipping out, they’ll probably just be catching onto to the grounding rhythm of your breathing when you’re ready to quit. Slow and steady isn’t the name of the game when you’re modeling deep breathing for kids. Normal breathing loudly is key.
- Beware the snot. Some kids have extremely active nasal cavities that fill with snot the moment they become upset. Breathing in through the nose isn’t going to be easy for them. Listening to your rhythmic breathing will still be soothing but don’t try to get them to do deep breathing. Even if you’ve laid the groundwork for deep breathing exercises, abort. When a child is already emotionally dysregulated, telling them to snort their own snot is only going to infuriate them. Try some other grounding exercises instead.
2. My kids are bouncing off the walls
This is a better time for fun breathing exercises and they are usually pretty effective at calming kids down. The trick is to make it a game so they engage rather than hyperventilating. Have you ever asked a wired kid to breathe? They’ll breathe as fast and as shallow as they can which is about the opposite of helpful. Here’s my favorite breathing exercise for hyper kids.
Bee Breathing – Pretend you’re a bee and you see a flower, take a deep breath through your nose to smell the flower and buzz out as long as you can.
This is probably my hands down favorite breathing exercise. Because you can make it a competition! Who can buzz the longest?! But with concrete objectives like smelling a flower and buzzing as long as you can, bee breathing was the first time my kids actually properly executed deep breathing.
3. My kids are calm
May this be the case right now in this moment! And in the next moment! And for the rest of your day!
But since it probably won’t be, now’s a good time to practice these other breathing exercises. The reasons that these are good exercises is because through imaginative play, they help kids conceptualize the expected muscle engagement of deep breathing. They also use really soothing imagery which seems like an additional comfort when the kids are trying to calm themselves. I’ll list my top three here and explain why I don’t like to do them when the kids are wound up.
Dandelion Breathing – Smell the dandelion by inhaling in (imagine all the little fluffs lean in toward your nose!), and blow all the dandelion seeds away (imagine them drift away)
Usually when kids are too wound up, I find spitting happen rather than deep breathing. It’s much less serene….
Hot Cocoa Breathing – Imagine you’re holding a warm cup of rich cocoa. Take a big whiff of that chocolatey aroma and blow on the cocoa to cool it down.
If the kids are jumping off the walls, then they’ll be giving harsh short blows and imaginary hot cocoa will get everywhere. If I don’t have time for real messes, I certainly don’t have time imaginary messes.
Stuffie Breathing – Lay on your back and place a stuffie or other soft toy on your belly. Breathe with your diaphragm and the stuffie will slowly rise and fall.
Having done this when the kids were too excitable, they spent more time distorting and wobbling their bellies to make the stuffies move and less time actually breathing. Kinda counterproductive.
While they’re calm
It’s a great idea to explain to your kids what it is that causes them to be overwhelmed by emotions. I really like this video from Kids Want to Know.
Also, this book by Karen Young from Hey, Sigmund is an amazing resource. It’s jam packed with information that’s beautifully illustrated and keeps kids engaged with the content.
I think that knowing how and why our bodies work gives us greater control over our brains.
4. My kids are panicking again
First take a deep breath for yourself. Remember that their little prefrontal cortex is still developing. Remember that emotional regulation is hard even for adults. Remember that you have tools. Use those tools to regulate yourself first. And then remind them.
- They may need to calm down a bit before they can think enough to care to self-regulate.
- They may not want to do any of the breathing exercises. Have you ever known what’s good for you and stubbornly decided you didn’t want to do that? Kid’s do that too, except moreso. Have an arsenal of options for them. Here are more breathing exercises!
- They don’t need to master it today. It’s extremely hard to self-regulate. And most experts say that kids don’t need to self-regulate. They need to co-regulate, where you help them. It’s hard work, no doubt. But having realistic expectations helps. They’ll get it eventually. In the meantime, gives lots of grace and love!
