I was recently asked by a parent of a “fiery” 5-year-old whose emotional intensity levels frequently overshadow her burgeoning self-regulatory skills, for some effective self-soothing techniques to teach her. Here’s my response:

Emotional regulation is a learned skill and there are many things you can do to teach your child effective self-soothing techniques.  Emotional responses can occur on three different levels- neurophysiological, behavioral, and cognitive. Here are some tools to help with each: