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Emotional 5 year old

1 reply

crazyone1974 · 20/08/2025 21:20

My 5 year old son, nearly 6 is just so emotional all the time.
He's a happy, healthy, sporty boy but he can break down in tears at the drop of a hat.
I'm struggling how to deal with now as I've tried comforting him but he just forces more cries and it feels like I'm enabling it. I've tried being stern saying to stop crying etc but I feel like a terrible mum. We say to take himself to a quiet space and breathe to calm himself down, is this the right thing to do? I have no idea.
He argues with siblings over the tiniest things and will cry if he doesn't get his own way. It's not happening with friends too and I worry his friends will have enough of it.
Tiredness, illness, etc all makes it worse which of course is normal. But even on a good day he'll have a good cry at anything that inconveniences him even the slightest.

Any advice on this, how to deal with it in the moment to help him regulate his emotions a bit better without breaking down?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
BunnyRuddington · 22/08/2025 06:47

He’s just within the age range for the https://www.socfc.org/SOHS/Disabilities%20Mental%20Health/ASQ/ASQ%20SE%2060%20Months.pdf 5 year Social & Emotional Ages & Stages. As you’ve noticed that he’s showing differences in how his peers behave it’s worth filling it in and seeing how he scores.

It’s also worth doing this simple progress checker as it can be easy to miss difficulties with communication and that could be fueling his frustration.

If he’s having difficulty with regulation, can you introduce more sport into his life? The Hockey season is about to start of you have a local club and Athletics is also good.

Have you tried him with some meditation too? There will be meditations aimed at DC his age on YouTube.

Getting outside and in nature should help too Flowers

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