Why Emotional Regulation Isn’t Realistic for Kids and How Art Therapy Can Help

One of the most common reasons caregivers reach out is for support with children’s “emotional regulation.” But it’s worth pausing to ask where this expectation comes from — and whether it’s realistic, or even fair, to place it on children.

The idea of emotional regulation often implies that children should be able to manage, contain, or control their big feelings. From a developmental perspective, this expectation asks children to do something their nervous systems are still learning how to support.

Why Emotional Regulation Is Often Misunderstood

Children’s brains are shaped first and foremost for connection and learning through relationship. The parts of the brain involved in emotional experience are active early in life, while the areas responsible for impulse control, planning, and emotional moderation continue developing well into adulthood.

This means children are not yet equipped to consistently “regulate” emotions in the way adults often expect.

What Children Learn Instead of Regulation

When children are pushed to manage feelings beyond their capacity, they don’t learn regulation. More often, they learn to hide, suppress, distract, or perform in ways that protect attachment. These strategies may look like cooperation or calm on the outside, but they don’t necessarily support emotional understanding or connection on the inside.

Who Emotional Regulation Often Serves

So why does emotional regulation remain such a strong goal? Often, it’s less about children’s wellbeing and more about adult comfort, convenience, or social expectations around quietness, productivity, and control.

Calm can become a stand-in for safety, even when it comes at the cost of expression.

Expression Over Control

Rather than aiming for calm, what if we supported children to express feelings safely and relationally?

Expression allows emotions to move, be witnessed, and make sense within connection — instead of being contained or pushed away.

How Art Therapy Supports Expression and Connection

Art therapy offers children a space where feelings don’t need to be explained, justified, or managed in particular ways. Through drawing, painting, sculpting, movement, and sensory exploration, children are invited to express what they’re experiencing in forms that feel natural and accessible.

Creative expression allows emotions to be seen and explored without pressure to settle or resolve immediately. In this way, children are supported to build awareness, self-trust, and connection — with themselves and with the adults around them.

A Different Way Forward

Every child deserves spaces where emotions are welcomed rather than controlled, and where expression is guided by care rather than compliance.

Art therapy offers one such space — a place where big, messy, human feelings are met with curiosity, respect, and relationship.