Why Emotional Regulation Should Be Taught in Every Classroom
Jenna McDonough is a trauma-sensitive emotional regulation specialist who supports adults and children through meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, somatic resets, and sound healing. She is the creator of the PEACEFUL: Mindful Moments for Every Age app and author of Kind Kids. Her mission is to make emotional well-being accessible to all.
We spend years teaching children how to read, write, and solve complex math problems. We prioritize academic performance, standardized testing, and college preparation. Yet there is one essential life skill children use every single day that is rarely taught in a structured way, emotional regulation.
Children experience constant emotions, excitement, frustration, disappointment, anxiety, joy, and overwhelm, often before they even learn to speak. But many are never taught how to recognize these feelings or what to do when emotions take over their bodies.
Emotional regulation is not an “extra” skill. It is foundational to learning, relationships, and overall well-being. Without it, academic success becomes harder, not easier.
What I learned working with children
I have been fortunate to work with children in many roles, as a babysitter, educator, and parent. Across all environments, one consistent theme emerged, children needed tools to understand and regulate their emotions.
Regardless of age, background, or home environment, children often struggled not because they didn’t understand expectations, but because they didn’t know how to manage what they were feeling internally.
When I became an elementary teacher, this became even more apparent. Children spend six or more hours a day in school, navigating academic expectations, social dynamics, transitions, and sensory input. This constant stimulation can overwhelm their nervous systems, making regulation difficult without support.
In structured classroom environments, emotions surfaced quickly, disappointment, anxiety, frustration, and excitement. Yet many children lacked the tools to manage them.
Dysregulation is often misunderstood
When children become dysregulated, it is often interpreted as misbehavior. But dysregulation is typically a nervous system response. When overwhelmed, children shift into fight, flight, or shutdown mode. In this state, logical thinking and problem-solving are much more difficult. This is why telling a child to “calm down” rarely works. They haven’t yet been taught how.
When we teach emotional regulation, we give children practical tools to pause before reacting, identify emotions, use breathing to calm the body, and reflect and problem-solve. These are skills they carry into friendships, classrooms, and eventually adulthood.
This connection between emotional awareness and compassionate action is something I explored further in my Brainz article, Why Teaching Children to Pause, Breathe, and Reflect Changes Lives, where I discuss how creating space between emotion and response can transform communication, relationships, and overall emotional resilience.
The academic gap
It is striking that we emphasize academic intelligence so heavily, yet emotional intelligence, something children experience all day, is rarely part of the core curriculum. We prepare children for college before we prepare them for conflict resolution. We push advanced coursework earlier and earlier, yet many children enter adolescence without understanding their own emotional responses. This gap contributes to increased anxiety, stress, and emotional overwhelm, where simple daily habits can help individuals return to calm and build emotional awareness.
Seeing it as a parent
When my own children began school, I observed emotional challenges from a new perspective. Classrooms often included “safe spaces” or feeling charts, helpful starting points, but what came next was often missing. Children could identify how they felt, but they didn’t always have the tools to regulate. Teachers, often without specific training, did their best, but many classrooms lacked structured strategies for emotional regulation. This gap leaves children feeling overwhelmed without resolution, and repeated dysregulation can shape long-term patterns.
Emotional regulation supports learning
Regulated children are better able to focus on instruction, solve problems, communicate effectively, build friendships, and navigate conflict. When a child is dysregulated, learning becomes secondary to survival. Supporting regulation actually enhances academic outcomes. This connection between emotional awareness and overall well-being mirrors the mind-body relationship, where emotional states directly influence behavior, focus, and decision-making.
Why schools matter
While many parents teach emotional skills at home, not all children have access to these tools. Making emotional regulation a part of the school curriculum ensures equity. Some children may never encounter structured instruction in emotional intelligence unless it is embedded in education. These are often the children who benefit most.
Teaching emotional regulation in schools levels the playing field, supports mental health, reduces behavioral challenges, improves classroom climate, and strengthens social-emotional learning.
Practical tools for classrooms
Emotional regulation does not require complicated programs. Simple practices can be integrated into daily routines.
Pause practices teach children to pause before responding, which builds awareness and reduces impulsivity. Breathing exercises help calm the nervous system and return children to a regulated state. Emotion identification helps children name feelings and builds emotional literacy. Reflection questions support problem-solving and empathy. Co-regulation, through a calm adult presence, helps children borrow regulation until they internalize it.
These tools can be incorporated into transitions, morning routines, and moments of conflict resolution.
The ripple effect
When emotional regulation is taught consistently, the impact extends beyond individual students. Classrooms become calmer. Peer relationships improve. Teachers experience less stress. School communities become more connected.
Small changes create meaningful ripple effects, a concept I explore further in my writing about how small acts of kindness and emotional awareness can influence entire environments, Ripple Effect of One Small Act of Kindness and How Simple Moments Can Change Everything.
A shift in priorities
Imagine a generation of children who grow up understanding their emotions, responding instead of reacting, communicating with empathy, and resolving conflict peacefully. This is not unrealistic. It begins with prioritizing emotional regulation alongside academics.
Because education should prepare children not just for tests, but for life and life requires more than knowledge, it requires the ability to navigate emotions, relationships, and challenges with resilience and kindness.
Emotional regulation is not the missing piece because it is unimportant. It is the missing piece because we have not yet fully recognized its power. But when we do, everything changes.
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Read more from Jenna McDonough
Jenna McDonough, Emotional Regulation Specialist
Jenna McDonough is a meditation and mindfulness teacher, children’s book author, and emotional regulation specialist dedicated to helping people of all ages live more peaceful and present lives. She supports adults and children in recognizing, understanding, and moving through their emotions with meditation, mindfulness, somatic resets, breathwork, and sound and energy healing, all offered through a trauma-sensitive approach that ensures safe and empowering experiences. She is the founder of the PEACEFUL: Mindful Moments for Every Age App and the author of Kind Kids: The Adventures of Hurley, Pearl, and the Pink Soldiers of Kindness, and the creator of meditation and healing arts courses designed to foster emotional intelligence, resilience, and compassion.
