11 Easy Ways to Help Children Dealing with Sadness
Inside: Important messages and practical strategies for parents and educators helping children dealing with sadness learn to cope and share their feelings.
As a child, a significant part of my life revolved around dealing with sadness. My childhood was complicated, and it left me with heavy unresolved emotions that I carried well into my adult years.
Back then, therapy was rare for children, and resources were scarce. Thankfully, times have changed. Today, there is a wealth of tools and approaches to support children who are dealing with sadness, stress, or anxiety.
Looking back, I realize that understanding what I was experiencing and having access to coping strategies could have saved me a lot of pain. It highlights just how important it is for children to learn to identify their emotions and have simple strategies to help them manage strong feelings.
More…
DISCLAIMER: This post includes affiliate links. A small percentage of each sale from these links helps me provide tips and freebies for parents and teachers.
In collaboration with pediatrician Kristin Ray, the author of “Sam’s Sadness Slips Out,” I’m excited to share important messages and practical strategies to help kids process their emotions before they become burdens.
Sam’s Sadness Slips Out is a book that helps children talk about and process intense emotions, such as grief, loss, and sadness with trusted adults in their lives.
1. Sadness is a Normal Human Emotion
It’s normal to feel sad sometimes but learning how to respond to sadness and gaining skills to regulate emotions is an important developmental task. Helping a child understand their sadness and developing positive coping strategies supports their emotional growth.
-
-
- Mindfulness activities: Practice deep breathing exercises or guided meditation.
- Journaling: Encourage children to write about their feelings.
- Physical activities: Suggest activities like running, dancing, or yoga to release tension.
- Brain breaks: Take a break from a task that might be causing distress. Coloring, singing, or talking is a great way to calm down.
-
- Role-playing: Act out different scenarios to practice responding to emotions.
- Discussion groups: Create a safe space for children to share their feelings and experiences.
Helpful resources:
This fun paper fortune teller helps students learn coping strategies to deal with sadness.
2. Sadness Can Appear in Our Bodies
Sadness, worry, and stress can show up as physical symptoms like headaches, stomach aches, or fatigue. The pain and discomfort are real but may have an underlying mind-body connection. Helping children understand how their feelings show up in their bodies can help them navigate their physical and psychological symptoms when dealing with sadness.
-
-
-
- Progressive muscle relaxation: Guide children to tense and relax different muscle groups as they scan each part of their body. Here’s an example.
- Visualization: Encourage children to imagine a calming place or scenario.
Helpful resources:
Learn how a single piece of chocolate can help your students find a quiet place or teach them to see and hear more while learning important skills to self-regulate when strong emotions become too hard to handle.
3. Find Ways to Express Feelings
Teach children to notice and name their feelings. Explain that emotions often mean they have a need that hasn’t been met, like wanting attention, comfort, or time alone. By understanding these needs, kids can handle their feelings better and express themselves more appropriately.
-
-
-
- Anger: Suggest physical activities like deep breathing, stomping, or using words to express why they feel upset.
- Sadness: Provide comfort and support through hugs, talking about their feelings, or engaging in activities they enjoy. Encourage them to express their sadness through drawing or writing.
- Loneliness: Provide opportunities for social engagement or offer comforting words to meet their emotional needs.
- Art and music therapy: Encourage children to draw, paint, or listen to music to express their emotions.
- Storytelling and role-playing: Use these techniques to help children articulate their feelings and understand different perspectives.
Helpful resources:
Worksheets, game, and a book companion to make learning coping strategies fun and help students build self-control, manage anxiety and anger, and develop calming strategies for lifelong mental wellness.
4. Talking Helps
Talking about feelings can be incredibly therapeutic, whether it’s with a family member, therapist, or even a pet. Sharing feelings through storytelling helps children make sense of their emotions and their world. These conversations also provide opportunities to coach children on coping strategies.
Helpful resources:
Sam’s Sadness Slips Out is a book that helps children talk about and process intense emotions, such as grief, loss, and sadness with trusted adults in their lives.
5. Focus Energy Elsewhere
Sometimes, redirecting energy can help manage emotions. This might involve deep breaths to calm the body and mind, distraction by focusing on another activity, or physical activity to release pent-up energy.
Helpful apps:
6. Look at Things Differently
Sometimes we find our brains stuck in certain thoughts and convince ourselves that one way of looking at the world is the only truth. Activities that promote new perspectives, flexible thinking, and reframing can be very helpful.
-
- Activities: Perspective-taking exercises, discussion prompts, or storytelling from multiple viewpoints.
-
-
- Examples: Cognitive restructuring exercises, gratitude journals, or positive affirmations.
Helpful Resources:
7. Solving a Problem and Processing Emotions
Sometimes there’s a problem to solve and sometimes there are feelings to process. When there’s an external cause of sorrow, help children unpack it with problem-solving skills. If you can’t change the cause, focus on tools for regulating emotions.
-
- Methods: Brainstorming solutions, role-playing scenarios, or using problem-solving worksheets.
-
- Techniques: Mindfulness practices, relaxation exercises, or guided meditations.
Helpful resources:
These coping strategies task cards are a simple, visual way for children in PreK to 2nd grade to learn how to manage big emotions. With easy-to-understand wording and pictures, kids can create their own personalized deck or use a class set when they need a break.
8. Be Aware of Less Helpful Coping Mechanisms
Children might hear messages to suppress, deny, or avoid their sadness. Distraction techniques can help children re-evaluate their feelings, but suppression or denial does not allow that re-evaluation. Building emotional vocabulary and talking about positive coping can develop a varied emotional regulation toolbox.
-
-
- Activities: Emotion charades, feeling word wheels, or using emotion cards.
-
- Examples: Relaxation techniques, self-soothing activities, or talking about feelings.
Helpful Resources:
Pin the image to save these resources for later
9. Understanding the Ups and Downs
Recovering from sadness isn’t always predictable. There can be ups and downs, especially true for grief. Understanding that it’s okay to feel better and then worse again can be helpful.
-
-
- Resources: Memory books, grief journals, or support groups.
Helpful resources:
10. Differentiate Sadness from Depression
Sadness and grief improve over time, while depression can be persistent and associated with changes in behavior, sleep, or school performance. If you notice these signs, connect with additional resources like the child’s doctor.
-
- Signs: Persistent low mood, irritability, changes in sleep or appetite, or loss of interest in activities.
-
Helpful resources:
- Depression in children and teens
- The difference between sadness and depression
- Children’s Mental Health Advice USA
- Children’s Mental Health Advice Canada
- Children’s Mental Health Advice UK
- Children’s Mental Health Advice Australia
- Children’s Mental Health Advice Japan
- Children’s Mental Health Advice India
11. Get Curious About Sadness
Sadness can be an opportunity for growth by testing out new emotional regulation and coping skills. Coaching children through big feelings by encouraging curiosity, naming the emotion, observing it, and finding ways to tame it can be very helpful.
-
- Activities: Emotion exploration charts, guided reflections, or emotions scavenger.
-
-
Activity: During daily routines or storytime, talk about how characters might be feeling and why. This helps children connect emotions with experiences.
-
-
-
Activity: Have a “Feelings Storytime” where children create and share stories about characters experiencing different emotions.
-
-
-
Activity: Create a DIY calm-down jar with glitter and water. When children feel upset, they can shake the jar and watch the glitter settle as they take deep breaths.
-
-
-
Activity: Make a calm down card deck where children select the coping strategies they feel work best for them.
-
Helpful resources:
Remember, it’s healthy for children to feel sad and talk about their emotions. It’s a natural part of life and a way to process challenges to release emotions that can hold them back.
As a parent or educator, you can equip kids with powerful tools that give them a huge advantage in life. Using books and activities about sadness can be helpful in navigating their sorrow and help develop emotional resilience to thrive and succeed.
Sam’s Sadness Slips Out
An Important Resource for Parents & Teachers to Help Children Dealing with Sadness
Sam’s Sadness Slips Out is a story about sadness and coping. The reader is not told why Sam is sad, which felt important so that the book could be useful for children experiencing sadness for a range of reasons, whether it be loss of a pet, death of a family member, friendship woes, family sorrow, or anything else.
The opening talks about how Sam’s sadness colors his world (everything looks gray) and how his sadness shows up in his body (stomach aches and tiredness). As he moves through his day, he gradually finds that bits of his sadness slip away, first through deep breathing and focused observation of the natural world, then with self-expression through art, writing, and singing, and then through being in company with his cat, his friends, and his mom.
The book closes with Sam’s sadness not fully resolved, which normalizes the fact that sadness doesn’t always resolve quickly or predictably. However, Sam falls asleep recounting to himself the many strategies he can employ to cope with sadness, and he finds himself able to imagine a future with less sorrow.
Sam’s Sadness Slips Out discussion prompts for teachers or parents:
How did sadness show up in Sam’s body?
- How does sadness show up in your body?
- How does your body feel when you are sad?
- How does the world look for you when you are sad?
What helped Sam’s sadness to slip out?
- Where any of these strategies you have used?
- Were any of them surprising to you?
- What helps your sadness slip out?
Who helped Sam with his sadness?
- Who helps you when you are sad?
- How can we help our friends and classmates when they are sad?
How did Sam feel at the end of the book?
- Why wasn’t he all better?
Book Author & Guest Contributor
Kristin N. Ray, MD, MS, FAAP
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
I was a kid who had big feelings but wasn’t always sure what to do with them. Sometimes it felt wrong to feel so much. But I found ways to make sense of my feelings – I journaled a lot, I talked with my gerbils a lot, and I found amazing friends who listened beautifully.
I hope that this book helps children with big feelings and the adults in their lives to talk about sadness and coping in new ways.
You may also like…
AUTHOR: Lisa Currie – Ripple Kindness Project
Lisa is passionate about contributing to a happier world by building emotional intelligence in kids through fun and engaging social-emotional learning resources. Her core value is kindness as she believes it to be the “mother” of all character traits. She started Ripple Kindness Project to spread kindness in schools and communities. She also founded an outreach program to support disadvantaged families.