Supporting

Be Calm

Learning to regulate emotions and emotional responses can be difficult for children. Be Calm is a range of approaches that you can use with your child to support them in learning how to manage strong feelings and emotions.

Be calm and breathe

Smell the soup, cool the soup

This 'Be Calm' experience will encourage your child to focus on their breathing.

What to do

Ask your child to imagine they are holding a bowl of soup in front of them. Invite them to close their eyes and smell the soup as they take a deep breath.

Now, encourage them to cool the soup as they breathe out a deep breath.

You can change this to your child's favourite foods, for example 'Smell the spaghetti' or 'Smell the custard'

Be calm and active

Get moving

This 'Be Calm' experience helps your child to focus on movement.

What to do

Do some exercises with your child, for example 5 FAST bunny hops- 5 SLOW stomps of an elephant, 5 FAST star jumps –5 SLOW big strides and 5 seconds running on the spot –5 SLOW baby steps.

Providing fast and slow exercises supports the self-regulation of emotions, the fast and slow representing the up and down feelings and responses to emotions.

Be calm and positive

5,4,3,2,1

This 'Be Calm' experience will support your child's self esteem.

What to do

Explain to your child that we are going to use our senses to help us calm down, starting by using our eyes. Ask them to tell you 5 things that they can see.

Next, ask them to tell you 4 things that they can feel. Next, ask them to tell you 3 things that they can hear. Then, ask them to tell you 2 things they can smell. If they can’t smell anything, ask them what their favourite thing is to smell.

Finally, ask them to tell you one thing they can taste. This can be something they can already taste in their mouth such as toothpaste from brushing their teeth or toast from breakfast or they could tell you their favourite thing to eat.

Be Calm and breathe

Sleepy animal

This Be Calm experience helps your child to relax

What to do

Ask your child to lay down on their back and close their eyes. Place a small stuffed toy on their tummy. Explain that we have to try and rock our animal to sleep with our tummy breathing in and out.

Invite your child to breathe in deeply though their nose and feel the stuffed animal rise and then feel it lower as they slowly exhale through their mouth. Ask them to raise their hand when they think their animal is ‘asleep’.