Lesson 4- Self-Control and Active Coping

Welcome back to another Coping Power Caregiver video!

This week, your child learned about active coping. Active coping works by directing our attention toward activities we enjoy and taking our attention away from a strong emotion or difficult situation until we are calm enough to process our emotions and make decisions.

Examples of active coping strategies include things like playing a game, exercising, spending time outside, playing a sport, singing, dancing, drawing, or spending time with friends or family.

These activities aren’t intended to let your child avoid or deny their strong emotions or avoid a conflict altogether. Instead, they’re pushing pause when they get to a point that their emotion is getting in the way of their ability to manage the problem. Active coping will help them calm down and regulate their emotions so they can then work on fixing the problem in a healthier way.

We want them to recognize that changing their actions, or thoughts or feelings, can impact their overall emotional intensity, or emotional temperature. Active coping works by changing the action, or behavior, component of our emotions. This lets us get back to a lower intensity emotional state, which is so important for making good, healthy decisions.

This week’s power practice provides more opportunities for you to discuss active coping with your child. You might share an example of an emotion you felt recently, and describe the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that you experienced as a result. Then, explain to your child what you did to actively cope with the difficult emotion. Reflecting on your own active coping strategies independently beforehand might help you to better explain your actions to your child, and to make sure you are modeling those behaviors throughout the week for them to copy.

You can also ask your child what active coping strategies they are already using to deal with their challenging and intense emotions. Encourage them to keep practicing and trying those strategies they already know and like, but also to try out something new. Ask your child how you can help support and encourage them as they try out these new active coping strategies, which might feel a bit uncomfortable or weird at first.

Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next week!