Promoting Coping Skills

For example, a preschooler likely can practice taking deep breaths when they are relaxed and happy, but they may have trouble remembering to do this when another preschooler takes a toy from them. Of course, this would be a time when the preschooler needs these coping skills the most. Coping skills and resilience are important all throughout our lives. Also, what we learn in one developmental period helps set the stage for the next. As such, it is critical that we encourage and model appropriate coping skills in early childhood.

Why do coping skills in early childhood matter?

While sadly some children are faced with adversity to a much higher degree than their peers due to environmental, contextual, and systemic factors, coping skills are a positive for all young children. Research shows that being able to emotionally self-regulate is associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression later in life and children who demonstrate appropriate coping skills in preschool are more often viewed as kindergarten-ready and are more likely to succeed academically. Finally, demonstrating appropriate coping skills can also help young children exhibit appropriate pro-social behaviors and form friendships with their peers.

What can you do to support the coping skills of the children in your care?

There are a number of things that you can do to support the social-emotional development and coping skills of children in your care. It is important to recognize that young children have different language skills and capacities to express themselves. When a child is upset or reacts to a situation with frustration or anger, try to respond with empathy, as opposed to your own frustration. Similarly, try to avoid overly punitive interactions. This can actually reinforce that behavior and create a cycle where the child acts out to elicit a negative response from you and then acts out again after your negative response. Here are some other tips for effectively encouraging coping skills in your classroom:

Start with you.

• Children learn from those around them. If they see you modeling appropriate reactions to stressful situations by taking deep breaths and explaining how you are feeling they will be more likely to adopt similar responses. Similarly, if they see you as an empathetic, caring, flexible person, they will be more likely to act in a similar manner.
• When a child is upset try to get on their level, both literally and figuratively. It may be helpful to crouch down so that you can see eye-to-eye with the child and also recognize that they may not view the situation in the same way as you or have the ability to express what they are feeling. If this is the case, you can provide the child with guidance on how to express themselves. For example, "It seems like you are frustrated. Is that how you are feeling?"

Encourage pro-social behaviors.

• Provide children with an opportunity to interact with one another. While it is still important that you monitor these interactions, play can be a natural situation where children begin to figure out the behaviors that children around them like and don't like.
• Devote time to teaching children in your care about emotions and coping skills. For example, when reading books, prompt the children to identify how characters might be feeling based on what has happened or the character's facial expression.
• Emphasize that all emotions are okay and that everyone experiences a wide range of emotions. However, it is also important to communicate that not all responses to an emotion are okay. For example, it is okay to be mad, but it is not okay to hit. In these situations try to provide the child with some alternative responses that would be appropriate ("I can tell you are upset; would you like to go draw a picture about how you're feeling?").
• Teach coping skills and put reminders around the classroom. One excellent coping skill for preschoolers is called "doing turtle." Children are first asked to stop what they are doing; second, to take deep breaths; and third, to say the problem and how they feel. You could introduce "doing turtle" as a classroom rule for how we respond to upsetting or frustrating events and display turtle posters around the classroom as a reminder. To encourage children to take deep breaths you might ask them to picture smelling a flower (breathing in) and blowing out the candles on their birthday cake (breathing out).

When you see it, praise it!

• For some children, saying "I'm sorry," taking deep breaths, or describing how they are feeling is extremely difficult. When you see children respond to frustration or stress appropriately it is very important that you acknowledge it and provide them with some verbal reinforcement. For example, "I can tell you are frustrated, but I really like how you used your words to tell me why you were upset." Reinforcing these appropriate responses will not only make it more likely that the child will respond in a similar way in the future but will also encourage other children to adopt similar responses.

Times of stress do not only impact adults, they can be extremely challenging for young children, too. Now is an excellent time to do what you can to support children's coping skills and set them up to be empathetic and resilient moving forward.

For more information on supporting coping skills and resilience in your classroom check out the following Better Kid Care online courses:

• "Adverse Childhood Experiences: Building Resilience"
• "Death, Loss, and Grief: Understanding how to Support Children"
• "Infant-Toddler Care: Sensitive, Nurturing Professionals Needed"
• "Positive Youth Development: Building a Culture of Belonging"
• "Preschoolers' Emotional Development: Feelings and Managing Emotions"
• "Resilient Caregivers: 'Bouncing Back' from Stress"