How to Help Kids Handle Big Feelings: The Steady Steps™ Approach
- Michael R Kiel
- Apr 6
- 8 min read
This article is part of the Steady Steps™ series, a collection of resources designed to help parents support children’s emotional resilience through small everyday actions.
Over the past several articles, we’ve explored some common moments parents experience with children:
Refusing to start tasks
Avoiding difficult feelings
Feeling stuck or overwhelmed
Needing help taking the first step forward
These moments are incredibly common.
But many parents are never shown how emotional skills actually develop.
Instead, they are often given advice that focuses on quickly fixing behavior.
Yet emotional growth rarely happens that way.
It happens slowly.
How Emotional Skills Actually Develop
Children do not build emotional resilience by eliminating difficult feelings.
They build it by learning how to move forward while those feelings are present. This ability to act in the presence of uncomfortable thoughts or emotions is often described as psychological flexibility, a core predictor of long-term mental health and adaptive functioning (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010).
That process often includes small experiences like:
Noticing what they feel
Slowing down when emotions rise
Taking one manageable step
Discovering that they can handle more than they expected
Over time, these small experiences begin to change how children respond to challenges.
Instead of avoiding difficult moments entirely, they begin to develop confidence in their ability to face them. Research on growth mindset and effort-based learning suggests that confidence tends to develop after repeated experiences of effort and progress, rather than before action begins (Dweck, 2016).
The Idea Behind Steady Steps™ and How to Help Kids Handle Big Feelings
The Steady Steps™ framework is an attempt to organize these everyday moments into a clearer path for families.
Rather than focusing on quick fixes or perfect behavior, the approach helps kids handle big feelings by developing emotional flexibility through small, repeatable experiences.
In simple terms, Steady Steps encourages children to practice:
Noticing what they feel
Pausing before reacting
Taking one small step forward
Over time, these skills build the foundation for resilience.
Approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy also emphasize helping individuals learn how to move forward with meaningful action even when difficult thoughts or emotions are present (Hayes & Smith, 2005).
The Five Steps of the Steady Steps™ Approach
Steady Steps™ offers a simple structure that helps children move through difficult moments in manageable ways.
Instead of trying to eliminate emotions or fix behavior immediately, the goal is to slow the moment down and help children respond with greater awareness and flexibility.
The framework includes five steps that children can gradually learn and practice over time:
Notice
The first step is helping children notice what is happening.
This might include noticing what they are feeling in their body, what thoughts are showing up, or what situation they are facing. Developing the ability to notice internal experiences is an important part of emotional awareness and self-regulation (Siegel & Bryson, 2011).
Name
Once a child begins to notice what is happening, the next step is putting words to the experience.
Naming emotions or thoughts can help children organize their experiences and reduce the intensity of difficult feelings. Research suggests that labeling emotions can help calm the brain’s threat response and support emotional regulation (Lieberman et al., 2007).
Make Room
Instead of trying to push away uncomfortable feelings, children learn that emotions can exist without controlling what they do next.
This step encourages children to allow their feelings to be present while staying grounded. Learning to make space for emotions is closely related to the concept of psychological flexibility, which is associated with healthier emotional functioning over time (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010).
Shrink
When a situation feels overwhelming, it often helps to make the challenge smaller.
This step focuses on breaking a difficult task into manageable pieces to prevent the child’s nervous system from becoming overloaded. Behavioral research consistently shows that reducing the size of a task increases the likelihood that children will begin and follow through (Kazdin, 2017).
Try
The final step is taking one small action.
Children do not need to feel completely confident before moving forward. Instead, they learn that progress can come from small efforts, even when emotions are still present. Over time, these small attempts build confidence and resilience as children experience that they can handle more than they expected (Dweck, 2016).
Together, these five steps create a gentle structure that helps children move through challenging moments with greater awareness, flexibility, and confidence.
Why Small Steps Work
Small steps help children approach challenges without overwhelming their nervous systems.
When children experience success in manageable situations, their brain begins to associate effort with progress rather than fear.
Breaking tasks into smaller, achievable actions is a well-established behavioral strategy that increases the likelihood that children will initiate tasks and experience early success (Kazdin, 2017).
This process helps children develop:
Confidence
Persistence
Emotional awarenesss
Self-trust
These skills are not built in one moment.
They are built through repetition.
A Resource for Practicing These Ideas
Many parents have asked how they can practice these ideas more intentionally at home.
Over the past several months, I’ve been developing a guided set of activities designed to help families explore these ideas together. Through my work with children and families, I’ve seen how powerful it can be when kids are given simple, structured opportunities to notice their emotions, slow down, and take small steps forward.
The Steady Steps™ workbook was created as a practical extension of the ideas explored throughout this series.
The workbook is designed to help children practice skills like:
Noticing emotions
Slowing down during difficult moments
Taking manageable steps forward
Learning that difficult feelings can be handled, not avoided
Rather than focusing on quickly fixing behavior, the workbook helps children build emotional skills gradually through guided activities and conversations.
The Steady Steps™ workbook (released in April) offers families a guided way to practice these ideas together.
A Continuing Conversation
The Steady Steps™ series will continue exploring how emotional skills develop over time.
But the most important thing to remember is this:
Children do not need to eliminate difficult feelings in order to move forward. They only need the opportunity to take the next small step.
And when parents support those moments with patience and curiosity, children gradually build the emotional skills that will support them for years to come.
Continue Exploring the Steady Steps™ Series
If you're new to the Steady Steps™ approach, you may want to begin here:
Or explore the full series:
Explore the Steady Steps™ Series → here.
FAQ: Using the Steady Steps™ Approach with Kids
1. What age is the Steady Steps™ approach designed for?
The Steady Steps™ approach works best with children in the elementary years, roughly ages 6 to 10, though many of the ideas can be adapted for younger or older children.
At this stage of development, children are beginning to understand emotions, thoughts, and problem-solving in more complex ways. A simple step-by-step structure can help them slow down difficult moments and respond more thoughtfully rather than reacting impulsively.
Many parents find that practicing these steps together during everyday situations helps children gradually build emotional awareness and confidence.
2. Do children need to calm down before using the steps?
Not necessarily.
While it is strongly recommended to initially practice the steps several times during ordinary calm moments (e.g., between play activities, slow weekends, evenings with no homework, etc.), once the steps are learned, children do not need to feel completely calm before beginning the process.
In fact, the steps are designed to help children move through difficult moments while emotions are still present.
Sometimes the first step is simply noticing what is happening or naming the feeling. As children move through the steps, the intensity of the emotion often decreases naturally.
The goal is not to eliminate emotions, but to help children learn that they can handle them.
3. What if my child refuses to use the steps?
This is very common for most new skills children learn.
Children rarely adopt new emotional skills instantly. Like any other skill, these ideas usually become easier with repeated exposure and gentle practice.
Parents often begin by modeling the language themselves:
“Let’s notice what’s happening right now.”
“Maybe we can name what the feeling is.”
“What’s one small step we could try?”
Over time, many children begin to use parts of the process independently. Sometimes, they use the steps without realizing it, as it becomes part of their everyday skills.
4. How long does it take for emotional skills to improve?
While we want our children to improve quickly and on a clear timeline, emotional skills tend to develop gradually rather than suddenly.
Children build emotional resilience through many small experiences over time — moments where they pause, try again, or discover that they can handle something difficult.
Because of this, the goal is not perfection. The goal is practice. If we set the goal to a fixed timeline for big, clear improvement, we will likely rush their growth and impede the process.
Small moments of progress add up to meaningful change over time.
5. How can parents practice and use the Steady Steps™ approach at home?
As mentioned earlier, it can be helpful to introduce and practice the steps during ordinary, calmer moments first, when children are more relaxed and able to learn something new. Practicing the steps ahead of time helps children become familiar with the language and structure.
Once the steps feel more familiar, they can also be used during everyday challenges.
Many families begin using the steps during situations such as:
Starting homework
Dealing with frustration
Navigating social challenges
Trying something new
After supporting a large, powerful friction point to settle with your presence and patience
Instead of trying to solve the entire problem immediately, parents can guide their child through one step at a time, helping them slow the moment down and focus on the next manageable action.
For families who want a more structured way to practice these ideas together, the Steady Steps™ workbook includes guided activities designed to help children explore the steps in a supportive and practical way.
📌 Follow Along for More Therapist-Led Support
If you found this helpful, you can follow Mindful Living Resources™ on Instagram for daily, ACT-informed guidance for parents of kids who get stuck in worry, perfectionism, big feelings, or “I can’t” loops.
We share:
therapist reflections from real sessions
nervous-system explanations in parent language
small-step scripts for hard moments
research-informed parenting insights
gentle emotional-skills stories for kids
You can find us on Instagram at @MindfulLivingResources.
References
Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House. Abstract link.
Hayes, S. C., & Smith, S. (2005). Get out of your mind and into your life: The new acceptance and commitment therapy. New Harbinger Publications. Book link.
Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010).Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 865–878. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.001
Kazdin, A. E. (2017). Parent management training: Treatment for oppositional, aggressive, and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Oxford University Press. Link for Book Review here.
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x
Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2011).The whole-brain child. Delacorte Press. Link for Book Review here.
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