Which two strategies are commonly used by children to regulate emotions?

• A. Shouting and running away.
• B. Ignoring emotions and pretending they do not exist.
• C. Self-soothing and cognitive reappraisal.
• D. Externalizing behavior only.

Answer: (C)

Understanding how children regulate emotions often revolves around strategies that reduce arousal and change how they think about a situation. Self-soothing is a practical, internal set of tools kids use to calm themselves down. This can include taking deep breaths, counting to ten, squeezing a stress ball, focusing on comforting sensory cues, or talking themselves through a calming routine. These actions directly lower emotional arousal and help a child regain control in the moment.

Cognitive reappraisal is a bit more advanced and involves changing how they interpret the event to lessen its emotional impact. For example, a child might tell themselves that a disagreement with a friend is just a temporary setback, or that they can learn something from the situation and handle it differently next time. This shifts the meaning of the trigger and reduces distress by altering the emotional significance of what happened.

The other options describe responses that are not really about regulating emotion. Shouting and running away are outward, impulsive reactions that can vent or avoid the feeling temporarily but don’t teach the child how to manage the emotion. Ignoring emotions or pretending they don’t exist is a form of avoidance that doesn’t shorten the emotional experience in a healthy way. Externalizing behavior only refers to acting out, not a specific emotion-regulation strategy.

So, self-soothing and cognitive reappraisal capture the two common, adaptive ways children learn to manage their emotions.