Welcome aboard the roller coaster of parenthood, where emotions run wild, tantrums reign supreme and love flows deep.

As children reach toddlerhood and beyond, parents adapt to manage their child’s big emotions and meltdowns. Parenting terminology has adapted too, with more parents describing their child as “dysregulated”.

But what does this actually mean?

More than an emotion

Emotional dysregulation refers to challenges a child faces in recognising and expressing emotions, and managing emotional reactions in social settings.

This may involve either suppressing emotions or displaying exaggerated and intense emotional responses that get in the way of the child doing what they want or need to do.

“Dysregulation” is more than just feeling an emotion. An emotion is a signal, or cue, that can give us important insights to ourselves and our preferences, desires and goals.

An emotionally dysregulated brain is overwhelmed and overloaded (often, with distressing emotions like frustration, disappointment and fear) and is ready to fight, flight or freeze.

Developing emotional regulation

Emotion regulation is a skill that develops across childhood and is influenced by factors such as the child’s temperament and the emotional environment in which they are raised.

In the stage of emotional development where emotion regulation is a primary goal (around 3–5 years old), children begin exploring their surroundings and asserting their desires more actively.

It’s typical for them to experience emotional dysregulation when their initiatives are thwarted or criticised, leading to occasional tantrums or outbursts.

A typically developing child will see these types of outbursts reduce as their cognitive abilities become more sophisticated, usually around the age they start school.

Express, don’t suppress

Expressing emotions in childhood is crucial for social and emotional development. It involves the ability to convey feelings verbally and through facial expressions and body language.

When children struggle with emotional expression, it can manifest in various ways, such as difficulty in being understood, flat facial expressions even in emotionally charged situations, challenges in forming close relationships, and indecisiveness.

Several factors, including anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, giftedness, rigidity and both mild and significant trauma experiences, can contribute to these issues.

Common mistakes parents can make is dismissing emotions, or distracting children away from how they feel.

These strategies don’t work and increase feelings of overwhelm. In the long term, they fail to equip children with the skills to identify, express and communicate their emotions, making them vulnerable to future emotional difficulties.

We need to help children move compassionately towards their difficulties, rather than away from them. Parents need to do this for themselves too.

Caregiving and skill modelling

Parents are responsible for creating an emotional climate that facilitates the development of emotion regulation skills.

Parents’ own modelling of emotion regulation when they feel distressed. The way they respond to the expression of emotions in their children, contributes to how children understand and regulate their own emotions.

Children are hardwired to be attuned to their caregivers’ emotions, moods, and coping as this is integral to their survival. In fact, their biggest threat to a child is their caregiver not being OK.

Unsafe, unpredictable, or chaotic home environments rarely give children exposure to healthy emotion expression and regulation. Children who go through maltreatment have a harder time controlling their emotions, needing more brainpower for tasks that involve managing feelings. This struggle could lead to more problems with emotions later on, like feeling anxious and hypervigilant to potential threats.

Recognising and addressing these challenges early on is essential for supporting children’s emotional wellbeing and development.

A dysregulated brain and body

When kids enter “fight or flight” mode, they often struggle to cope or listen to reason. When children experience acute stress, they may respond instinctively without pausing to consider strategies or logic.

If your child is in fight mode, you might observe behaviours such as crying , clenching fists or jaw, kicking, punching, biting, swearing, spitting or screaming.

In flight mode, they may appear restless, have darting eyes, exhibit excessive fidgeting, breathe rapidly, or try to run away.

A shut-down response may look like fainting or a panic attack.

When a child feels threatened, their brain’s frontal lobe, responsible for rational thinking and problem-solving, essentially goes offline.

This happens when the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system, sends out a false alarm, triggering the survival instinct.

In this state, a child may not be able to access higher functions like reasoning or decision-making.

While our instinct might be to immediately fix the problem, staying present with our child during these moments is more effective. It’s about providing support and understanding until they feel safe enough to engage their higher brain functions again.

Reframe your thinking so you see your child as having a problem – not being the problem.

Tips for parents

Take turns discussing the highs and lows of the day at meal times. This is a chance for you to be curious, acknowledge and label feelings, and model that you, too, experience a range of emotions that require you to put into practice skills to cope and has shown evidence in numerous physical, social-emotional, academic and behavioural benefits.

Spending even small amounts (five minutes a day!) of quality one-on-one time with your child is an investment in your child’s emotional wellbeing. Let them pick the activity, do your best to follow their lead, and try to notice and comment on the things they do well, like creative ideas, persevering when things are difficult, and being gentle or kind.

Take a tip from parents of children with neurodiversity: learn about your unique child. Approaching your child’s emotions, temperament, and behaviours with curiosity can help you to help them develop emotion regulation skills.

When to get help

If emotion dysregulation is a persistent issue that is getting in the way of your child feeling happy, calm, or confident – or interfering with learning or important relationships with family members or peers – talk to their GP about engaging with a mental health professional.

Many families have found parenting programs helpful in creating a climate where emotions can be safely expressed and shared.

Remember, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Parenting requires you to be your best self and tend to your needs first to see your child flourish.

Cher McGillivray, Assistant Professor Psychology Department, Bond University and Shawna Mastro Campbell, Assistant Professor Psychology, Bond University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“Fart walks” have become a cultural phenomenon, after a woman named Mairlyn Smith posted online a now-viral video about how she and her husband go on walks about 60 minutes after dinner and release their gas.

Smith, known on TikTok as @mairlynthequeenoffibre and @mairlynsmith on Instagram, has since appeared on myriad TV and press interviews extolling the benefits of a fart walk. Countless TikTok and Instagram users and have now shared their own experiences of feeling better after taking up the #fartwalk habit.

So what’s the evidence behind the fart walk? And what’s the best way to do it?

Exercise can help get the gas out

We know exercise can help relieve bloating by getting gas moving and out of our bodies.

Researchers from Barcelona, Spain in 2006 asked eight patients complaining of bloating, seven of whom had irritable bowel syndrome, to avoid “gassy” foods such as beans for two days and to fast for eight hours before their study.

Each patient was asked to sit in an armchair, in order to avoid any effects of body position on the movement of gas. Gas was pumped directly into their small bowel via a thin plastic tube that went down their mouth, and the gas expelled from the body was collected into a bag via a tube placed in the rectum. This way, the researchers could determine how much gas was retained in the gut.

The patients were then asked to pedal on a modified exercise bike while remaining seated in their armchairs.

The researchers found that much less gas was retained in the patients’ gut when they exercised. They determined exercise probably helped the movement and release of intestinal gas.

Walking may have another bonus; it may trigger a nerve reflex that helps propel foods and gas contents through the gut.

Walking can also increase internal abdominal pressure as you use your abdominal muscles to stay upright and balance as you walk. This pressure on the colon helps to push intestinal gas out.

Proper fart walk technique

One study from Iran studied the effects of walking in 94 individuals with bloating.

They asked participants to carry out ten to 15 minutes of slow walking (about 1,000 steps) after eating lunch and dinner. They filled out gut symptom questionnaires before starting the program and again at the end of the four week program.

The researchers found walking after meals resulted in improvements to gut symptoms such as belching, farting, bloating and abdominal discomfort.

Now for the crucial part: in the Iranian study, there was a particular way in which participants were advised to walk. They were asked to clasp hands together behind their back and to flex their neck forward.

The clasped hands posture leads to more internal abdominal pressure and therefore more gentle squeezing out of gas from the colon. The flexed neck posture decreases the swallowing of air during walking.

This therefore is the proper fart walk technique, based on science.

What about constipation?

A fart walk can help with constipation.

One study involved middle aged inactive patients with chronic constipation, who did a 12 week program of brisk walking at least 30 minutes a day – combined with 11 minutes of strength and flexibility exercises.

This program, the researchers found, improved constipation symptoms through reduced straining, less hard stools and more complete evacuation.

It also appears that the more you walk the better the benefits for gut symptoms.

In patients with irritable bowel syndrome, one study increasing the daily step count to 9,500 steps from 4,000 steps led to a 50% reduction in the severity of their symptoms.

And just 30 minutes of a fart walk has been shown to improve blood sugar levels after eating.

What if I can’t get outside the house?

If getting outside the house after dinner is impossible, could you try walking slowly on a treadmill or around the house for 1,000 steps?

If not, perhaps you could borrow an idea from the Barcelona research: sit back in an armchair and pedal using a modified exercise bike. Any type of exercise is better than none.

Whatever you do, don’t be a couch potato! Research has found more leisure screen time is linked to a greater risk of developing gut diseases.

We also know physical inactivity during leisure time and eating irregular meals are linked to a higher risk of abdominal pain, bloating and altered bowel motions.

Try the fart walk today

It may not be for everyone but this simple physical activity does have good evidence behind it. A fart walk can improve common symptoms such as bloating, abdominal discomfort and constipation.

It can even help lower blood sugar levels after eating.

Will you be trying a fart walk today?

Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.