As children begin to transition to adolescence they can go through big physical and emotional challenges that may be difficult to manage. With developing hormones, school-stress, and peer relationships and stress taking over, emotional regulation can see more difficult. Here are some activities that may help build emotional regulation for middle schoolers.

5 Senses Grounding Practice:

When anxiety or angry feelings being to overwhelm and take your students out of the present moment they can try the 5 4 3 2 1 grounding technique. This self-regulation strategy asks students to look around and name 5 things they see, 4 things they hear, 3 things they touch, 2 things they smell, and 1 they taste.

Putting a Name to Your Emotions:

Emotional regulation is a way to build skills to use when difficult feelings occur. Sometimes the simplest strategy can be helpful. Make sure your students know that any emotion they feel is valid, and talking about it and giving it a name can help you feel less overwhelmed. After naming a feeling they can move on to process why they feel that way and what they can do about it.

Recognizing Body Feelings

Encourage students to recognize how their body feels when experiencing different emotions. Guide students in doing a body scan when they feel emotions by recognizing how their face could feel, their neck, their heart, if they fidget more, or any other body sensations that occur when feeling different emotions.

Deep Breathing Hand Counting

Deep breathing can be very impactful when feeling big emotions, one method you can teach students is counting their inhales and exhales while tracing their fingers. Utilizing touch and sight with breathing can help students focus on the action and calm themselves.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

This is an exercise where students isolate and then tense and relax different muscles in their body. Progressive muscle relaxation tells the body where it is in space, which is good for youth they they are feeling emotionally dysregulation.

Directions for students:

  • Label your feelings and put them on your shoulders. Tense them up. Hold that position for 5 seconds and then relax.

  • Do the same for wrists, fingers, knees, ankles, and toes. The feelings should become more manageable through this activity.

List 10

Writing down positive affirmations about core personal values or positive attributes can help improve self-esteem, executive function, and help with managing control. When students list their strengths, it can help them get through a hard day and give them a boos of confidence.

Directions for students:

  • Think of 10 things that define who you are and make you special. Take time and write down your list.

  • Put the list somewhere you will see it routinely, such as next to your bed, in your locker, or in your student handbook.

Easy everyday activities to help build emotional regulation

Emotional Regulation skills to practice