Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
For a child who is boiling over: eyes closed, fingers gently over the ears, and a long humming breath out. They can feel the buzzing inside their own head.
Blocking their ears is something an upset child often does already, so you are borrowing a movement their hands know rather than teaching a new one. Closing off sound and sight takes away most of what is winding them up, and the hum stretches the breath without anyone having to explain breathing to a six year old. Do it alongside them rather than instructing from across the room.
Qur’an and Sunnah
The night as a cover (Quran 78:10). Darkness is described as something wrapped round you for shelter, which is close to what closed eyes and covered ears give a child who has had too much.
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a small randomised feasibility trial, a gentle yoga programme was acceptable to women with major depression and reduced rumination and depressive symptoms. This practice comes from the same tradition, though the trial was with adults, was small, and was mostly asking whether people would do it at all. For children, treat it as a reasonable thing to offer rather than as something demonstrated.
Kinser PA, Bourguignon C, Whaley D, Hauenstein E, Taylor AG. (2013). Feasibility, acceptability, and effects of gentle Hatha yoga for women with major depression: findings from a randomized controlled mixed-methods study.. Archives of psychiatric nursing doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Less coming in through the eyes and ears, plus a long humming breath out, gives an overloaded child two kinds of relief at once.
When not to
This needs a private spot, so it will not suit a classroom or a shop; and if a child does not want to be shut off from the room, do not press it.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
In a hostile exchange, try a slow hmm instead of a reply. It sounds like someone thinking, and it puts a long out breath in the way of whatever you were about to say.
If the irritability came in alongside a low patch, or a spell of racing thoughts and hardly any sleep, have the mood looked at rather than treating the temper on its own.
If you feel yourself rising, sit down. It is the smallest instruction in the whole toolkit and often the one that works.