Emotion regulation in children: Towards a resilience framework

This chapter explores how children aged from birth to six years old develop an ability to regulate their emotions, including issues that limit this, and discusses factors that increase their long term resilience to life’s difficulties. The wellbeing of our children is of paramount importance, and much work is done to try to ensure their health and happiness. However, life can be complicated and difficult, and even parents with the best intentions for their children may struggle to find the right path. Most simply do the best they can, generally using the experience they have of their own upbringing, which reflects varying degrees of capacity and effectiveness. For a variety of reasons, some children develop a range of problems, some of which relate to their ability to regulate their emotions. While all children exhibit some oppositional behaviour, for some others this is extreme, such as destroying property and aggression towards others. Sometimes children display avoidant and withdrawing behaviours, both clinging to caregivers as well as resisting their approach. Caregivers struggle to manage these children, and in some cases children and their families experience difficulties to the extent that they seek the support of specialist services, including mental health services