Your four-year-old starts screaming when you try to put on their jacket
Your seven-year-old melts down in the middle of a birthday party
Your toddler seems fine one moment and is completely dysregulated the next
What's going on?
The answer might lie in understanding something most parents overlook: your child's sensory awareness and how it impacts their ability to regulate emotions.
Your Child's Unique Sensory Profile
As humans, we experience life through five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell
While all five senses are important, most children have one or two sensory awareness areas that are more pronounced than others
Some children have strong auditory awareness—they're highly attuned to sounds in their environment
The hum of fluorescent lights, the buzz of conversation, or background music that adults tune out can be overwhelming to them
Other children have strong tactile awareness—they want to touch everything, or conversely, certain textures or touches feel intolerable
Tags in shirts, seams in socks, or even hugs can cause distress
Some children have strong oral awareness—they're very particular about tastes and textures of food, or they need to chew or suck on things to self-regulate.
Still others are highly visual or have a pronounced sense of smell that affects their comfort and regulation.
Understanding your child's dominant sensory awareness is the first step in helping them regulate their emotions
Because here's the key insight: a child's environment can either support emotional regulation or make it nearly impossible
The Three Steps to Holding Space for Regulation
Take a moment right now and think about your child. Which sense or senses seem most pronounced for them?
Do they cover their ears in loud environments?
Do they refuse to wear certain clothes?
Are they constantly touching things?
Do they put objects in their mouth frequently?
Are they bothered by bright lights or prefer darkness?
Are they sensitive to smells that others don't notice?
Once you identify your child's dominant sensory channel, you can start to see patterns in when they become dysregulated
That meltdown in the grocery store? It might have been sensory overload from the bright lights, loud sounds, and crowded aisles—not defiance
When your child becomes dysregulated, their prefrontal cortex—the thinking, reasoning part of their brain—goes offline
They're in fight-or-flight mode, operating from their primitive brain
Your goal isn't to reason with them or demand they "calm down
" It's to offer tools that help bring the front part of their brain back online by working with their sensory system
Different tools work for different sensory profiles:For Visual Sensitivity:
Adjust lighting (bright, soft, or no lights)
Use a flashlight or nightlight
Provide sunglasses or a hat in bright environments
For Auditory Sensitivity:
Play rhythmic melodies or chants
Use soft classical or nature music
Sing or hum softly
Whisper instead of speaking loudly
Provide noise-canceling headphones
For Tactile Sensitivity:
Massage lightly (feet, shoulders, back)
Offer a soft object to hold
Provide deep pressure through hugs (if welcomed)
Use weighted blankets or lap pads
For Movement Needs:
Rock back and forth while holding young children
Offer jumping (trampoline or floor)
Encourage push-ups, sit-ups, or wall pushes
Dance or engage in active play
Throw balls, shoot hoops, kick soccer balls
For Oral Needs:
Offer water
Provide ice to chew
Offer flavorful sweet or sour fruits
Use chewable tools or gum (age-appropriate)
The key is experimentation
Try different tools at different times to discover what works best for your child
What works when they're mildly upset might not work when they're highly dysregulated
This is the most challenging step for most parents: as you guide your child to balance their feelings, you suspend all judgments about your child, yourself, or your child's feelings in the moment.
Holding space means:
Not making your child's feelings mean something about you as a parent
Not making their dysregulation mean they're "bad" or "difficult"
Not rushing them through their feelings
Not taking their behavior personally
Simply being present while they feel what they feel
This requires enormous self-regulation on your part
When your child is melting down, your own nervous system likely gets activated
You might feel embarrassed, frustrated, worried, or overwhelmed
This is why Step 3 depends on your ability to give yourself self-empathy first
You can't hold space for your child's regulation if you're dysregulated yourself
All Feelings Are Important
Our culture teaches us that some feelings are "good" (happy, calm, content) and others are "bad" (angry, sad, scared)
But this is fundamentally wrong
All feelings are important
They're a gateway into our internal worlds, offering us information about our needs, beliefs, and experiences
Feelings also offer us the texture of life, allowing us to have a rich human experience
As Rumi wrote: "God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one
When we try to suppress "negative" feelings in our children, we're actually teaching them:
Some parts of you are acceptable, others are not
Feelings are dangerous and should be hidden
You can't trust your inner guidance system
Instead, we want to teach them:
All feelings are welcome here
Feelings give us information
We can feel our feelings without being overwhelmed by them
We have tools to help us regulate when feelings get intense
Balancing Feelings vs. Suppressing Them
Notice that the goal isn't to eliminate feelings or make them go away
The goal is to help your child balance feelings—to bring feelings more into equilibrium rather than staying at extremes
There's nothing inherently wrong with extreme feelings
Young children naturally experience emotions intensely
But when a child is in an extreme emotional state, their prefrontal cortex is offline, which means they can't access reasoning, problem-solving, or learning
By offering sensory tools that help regulate their nervous system, you're helping bring the thinking brain back online
Then they can access their own internal resources and work through the feeling
This is completely different from suppressing feelings
Suppression says: "Don't feel that
" Regulation says: "I see you're feeling that intensely
Let's help your body find balance so we can work with this feeling together
Preventing Dysregulation Before It Happens
Once you understand your child's sensory profile, you can often prevent dysregulation by being proactive:
If your child has auditory sensitivity, warn them before entering loud environments and bring headphones
If they have tactile sensitivity, let them choose soft, comfortable clothes without tags or seams
If they need movement, build active play into your daily routine before situations that require sitting still
If they're orally sensitive, pack acceptable snacks when leaving home
You'll also start to recognize patterns
Maybe your child always melts down after school—that might be sensory overload from a full day of stimulation
They need quiet time to decompress, not immediately being rushed to activities
Or maybe transitions are especially hard—that might signal a need for more warning and preparation before changes occur.
The Parent's Role: Environmental Architect
When you understand your child's sensory awareness and how it impacts their regulation, you become the architect of an environment that supports their nervous system rather than overwhelms it.
This doesn't mean creating a perfectly controlled environment where nothing ever challenges them
It means being aware, being proactive, and having tools ready when dysregulation occurs
It also means recognizing that what looks like "bad behavior" is often a child's nervous system saying: "This is too much
I need help
Your child isn't giving you a hard time—they're having a hard time
And with sensory awareness and calming tools, you can help them find their way back to regulation
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