Big Emotions in Small Bodies: Helping Students Regulate Anger, Frustration, and Emotional Outbursts
When One Student's Meltdown Feels Like Everyone’s
We’ve all had those days. The ones where everything seems steady until it isn’t. A pencil snaps, a child screams, and suddenly your classroom—the one you’ve spent weeks shaping into a calm, structured space—tilts sideways.
The moment doesn’t just affect the student in distress. It touches everyone. The kids grow quiet, confused, sometimes scared. You feel your own shoulders tense, your voice go sharp, your chest tighten. Maybe you’re trying to keep the class moving forward, but inside, you're bracing. Again.
What no one tells you is that these moments—when a student loses control—can quietly become the most emotionally taxing part of teaching. Not because of the noise or the disruption. But because so often, you’re left to figure it out alone.
What did I miss?
Did I say the wrong thing?
Am I too soft? Too strict?
Why does this keep happening?
And the biggest question of all: What do I do when this happens again tomorrow?
They’re Not Misbehaving. They’re Overflowing.
We tend to view emotional outbursts as misbehavior—something to correct, discipline, or contain. But the truth is, many students aren’t misbehaving. They’re overflowing. Their bodies are overwhelmed. Their nervous systems are flooded. And they don’t yet have the tools to slow down, name what they’re feeling, or ask for help.
What looks like defiance might actually be dysregulation.
What feels like manipulation could be fear in disguise.
What disrupts your classroom might be a student’s attempt to survive it.
Understanding this doesn’t mean excusing chaos. It means you stop fighting the wrong battle.
What Teachers Are Really Managing
When a child screams at you, walks out of the room, or throws a book across the table, it doesn’t just test your classroom management—it tests your nervous system.
And if you’re like most teachers, you weren’t trained for this part.
You were taught how to redirect. How to write a behavior plan. Maybe how to document incidents. But were you ever taught how to hold your own emotional center when a student is unraveling in front of twenty peers? Were you ever given language to use in that exact moment—language that doesn’t escalate, shame, or collapse into permissiveness?
Were you ever shown how to repair the emotional tone of the room—not just the schedule—once the moment has passed?
That’s the gap. And that’s exactly why Big Emotions in Small Bodies was created.
A New Kind of Resource for a New Kind of Challenge
This isn’t another behavior chart.
It’s not a punishment flowchart.
And it’s not a theoretical textbook written for therapists or researchers.
It’s a grounded, classroom-ready, psychology-informed guide for the teacher who is in it.
Big Emotions in Small Bodies: Helping Students Regulate Anger, Frustration, and Emotional Outbursts is a 25-page downloadable tool written by a psychologist and educator who understands what it means to lead with both structure and compassion.
Inside, you’ll find:
– A deep dive into the psychology of emotional dysregulation
– The difference between “won’t” and “can’t” when students refuse or explode
– How to spot early cues before behavior escalates
– What to say in the moment, with exact scripts for high-emotion scenarios
– Strategies to rebuild safety after a meltdown
– Tools for teachers to manage their own emotional aftermath
You’ll walk away with not just knowledge, but language. Not just strategies, but insight. And most of all, a sense that you’re not crazy or incapable—you’ve just been expected to manage emotional chaos without emotional tools.
This Is About More Than Behavior
At its core, this work is about building a culture of emotional intelligence in the classroom.
It’s about helping students learn that feelings aren’t bad, they’re just loud—and they don’t have to control us.
It’s about teaching through our tone of voice, our ability to stay regulated, and our willingness to come back to connection after disruption.
And yes—it’s also about protecting the mental health of the adults in the room. Because a dysregulated teacher cannot model regulation. And a burned-out teacher cannot be expected to carry a school’s emotional labor without support.
If You’ve Ever Thought: “There Has to Be a Better Way...”
There is. It starts with language. With boundaries that don’t punish. With scripts that de-escalate. With recovery plans for you and your students that actually heal, not just suppress.
It starts with understanding behavior as communication, not just disruption. And it continues with giving yourself permission to be a regulated, human adult—even when the classroom feels anything but calm.
Big Emotions in Small Bodies is your invitation to do this work with clarity, confidence, and care. You don’t need to absorb your students’ chaos. You just need to anchor the room.
Ready to Shift the Energy in Your Classroom?
You’ll get instant access to a beautifully written, classroom-centered, psychology-informed resource that you can start using tomorrow. No prep required. Just insight, scripts, and the kind of emotional steadiness we all wish someone had taught us on day one.
Because the child who loses control isn’t the only one who needs support.
And the teacher who chooses to stay calm, grounded, and clear—that’s the teacher who changes everything.