The ABCs of Coping

Emotional experiences can sometimes feel overwhelming, especially for children. Just like adults, children experience a range of emotions like fear, anxiety, happiness, sadness, anger, and more. The ABCs of coping are a method for teaching coping skills to children, but also can be useful for adults.

A parent’s role is to help teach kids how to understand, verbalize, and manage their emotions in healthy ways. Research suggests repeatedly that the most effective way to teach kids coping skills is to teach them to adapt to the experience rather than trying to change the stressors. That is, it is generally more useful to teach children how to work with difficult emotions than avoid them altogether.

By teaching a child healthy coping mechanisms they are able to face their emotions with less stress, more composure, and better outcomes. For example, a 2021 review found that mindfulness-based interventions helped reduce intrusive thoughts and rumination in fourth and fifth grade students. Further research has found that learning emotional self-regulation is associated with less anxiety and depression later in life, as well as increasing pro social behavior.

The ABCs of coping skills is a structured way to think about dealing with unpleasant emotions. Below I’ll list a traditional alphabet of coping skills, as well as a downloadable PDF with more ideas at the bottom!

Ask for Help

Asking for help is one of the best things we can do when we’re struggling. Find a trusted person like a parent, sibling, teacher, or anyone you trust to talk about your feelings and ask for guidance.

Breathe

Taking deep breaths can help calm the nervous system and give us the opportunity to return to the present moment. This can be especially helpful during moments of anger and anxiety or panic attacks.

Count to Ten

Counting is a way to give ourselves something to focus on. You might try counting up to ten, then back down to 1. It’s a bit of a meditation, giving your mind something other than your emotion to pay attention to.

Draw

Drawing is a great way to take a break from a strong emotional experience. You can set out to draw your emotions or feelings, or you can just free draw something that comes to your mind.

Exercise

Research suggests exercise can be incredibly effective for emotional experiences like anxiety. You don’t have to do anything too intense. Go for a swim, a walk, or do some jump rope.

Find a Safe Place

For many of us, we feel safer or more at ease in some places than others. If you’re able, find a safe place like your bedroom, your favorite outdoor bench, or wherever feels comforting to you. This can help calm the mind and body and gives us the opportunity to take a break.

Go Outside

Getting outside can be a great way to reset. As UC Davis covers, research suggests being outside is linked with lower rates of depression, higher rates of concentration, and promotes better sleep. If you can get into green spaces with nature, even better!

Hug

Hugs are the best! They release oxytocin, which can help increase happiness and reduce stress. If you do have someone to hug, make it a long hug. Longer hugs release more oxytocin!

Identify Triggers

When you’re struggling with a strong emotion, you might take a moment to identify the triggers. What happened that you felt this emotion come on? Was it something that happened, or perhaps a thought you had?

Journal

Journaling is one of my favorite ways to show up for yourself in general. You can write about what’s going on, gain some clarity, and investigate the experience with the written word.

Kindness

Acts of kindness toward others have the powerful effect of getting us outside of our minds. If you’re struggling with emotions, take a moment to do an act of kindness and focus on the wellbeing of others to give yourself time to settle.

Listen to Music

Listening to music is a way many of us reset and process emotions. Maybe it’s blasting some jams on a speaker, or maybe it’s sitting in bed with headphones in. Allow yourself to feel the emotions while listening to the music.

Make a Plan

Especially if we’re anxious, this can be a useful coping skill. Rather than ruminating and going over something repeatedly in your head, make a plan. What can you do to move forward? Once you have a plan, you can free up your mind to let go of the experience a bit.

Nap

This is a more aversive coping skill, but can be useful when strong emotions are present. Take a nap! Often, when we take a nap, we wake up with our nervous system reset a bit and are able to better process what happened.

Organize

Another one that can be a bit aversive or become problematic, organizing is one way to get outside yourself. Maybe you have something you’ve been meaning to organize, or can find some way to organize your physical space or time.

Play

We all fall into the trap of overthinking sometimes. In some moments, we may need to just let go and play. This can give us a reset, change the mood, and allow us some space from the difficult feelings.

Quiet Time

Taking some space and quiet time helps us to calm ourselves a bit. I like to do this in my bedroom or by sitting outside. You don’t need to do anything specific; just chill.

Read

Reading gives us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in something other than our feelings. Whether it’s a page-turner novel or a self-help book, you can dive into the book instead of behaving poorly or overthinking.

Sing

Much like listening to music, singing gives us a way to let go and be free. Go to the shower if you need to!

Talk

Sometimes what we need is to actually talk about what’s going on with someone. Sometimes what we need is just to talk to someone else about anything. If you’re feeling like being quiet isn’t working, give a friend a call or talk to a parent.

Unplug

With how connected we are these days, unplugging can give us a chance to unwind. You might shut off your phone, put it on silent, or just leave it at home as you take a walk.

Verbalize

Verbalize your feelings. See if you can put words to them and discuss them with a trusted person in your life. Rather than going over them in your head, putting words to the emotions and verbalizing them can help you process them in a new way. You also might receive some useful feedback!

Walk

Go for a walk! It doesn’t have to be a long one. Just take a break from what you’re doing and where you are and walk. You might combine this with quiet time, unplugging, or listening to music as well.

X-Ray Your Feelings

X is a hard one. I’m going with x-ray your feelings here. Take a look at them. One of the questions you might ask yourself is “What’s underneath this feeling?” For example, you might just be angry. Ask yourself what is under that anger. Is it sadness or fear? Really look at what’s going on more deeply.

Yoga

Yoga is a great way to relieve stress. It’s an activity that works both the mind and the body, and can be a powerful way to reset and care for yourself.

Zero In

Finally, zero in on something. Preferably not the emotion if it’s overwhelming. Maybe you can wash dishes and be fully present, work on an art project, or do a crossword puzzle.

Below is a downloadable PDF with more ideas for the ABCs of coping skills. You can click the button to view or download the document!