40 Coping Skills to Help Kids Perform at Their Best

Coping skills. It’s a term often thrown around, but what does it mean? How can coping skills help children? What are some ideas to try?

Coping skills go by various names: coping, coping mechanisms, coping strategies, etc. In sum, they are the methods used to cope with, adjust to, or tolerate difficult circumstances (Cleveland Clinic, 2020). Coping skills allow individuals to take some control over their situation by responding to circumstances in ways that improve functioning and promote resilience (Johns Hopkins Medicine, n.d.). Coping skills help to manage emotions and stressors that emerge with challenging circumstances (Strong 4 Life, n.d.). Coping skills can be positive, negative, or neutral (Bailey, 2022). There is no age limit for coping skills. Everyone needs them!

What are some examples of coping skills? Positive coping skills can include asking for help, journaling, and deep breathing (Bailey, 2022). Problem solving, seeking supportive relationships, and asking for spiritual guidance are others (Cleveland Clinic, 2020). Negative (unhelpful or harmful) coping skills could include avoiding the positive, catastrophizing, isolating, comparison, overreaction, and worry (Wiest, 2018). Everyone practices both kinds of skills. The goal is to progressively use more healthy skills, more often, in order to promote better life.

But what about children? Children primarily learn coping skills from adults. They watch their parents and caregivers cope with difficult circumstances and they follow suit (The Pediatric Mental Health Institute, n.d.). They model the behaviors of their caregivers (Klein-Baer, 2022). As they grow older, children may also learn coping skills in social settings (Better Kid Care, 2021). Hopefully, the children acquire a wide variety of skills from their caregiving and social settings in order to have many resources from which to draw when life gets difficult.

Positive coping skills benefit children in the same ways they benefit adults. They are helpful tools that can be used when children are working through hard situations. Coping skills aid in processing thoughts and feelings. They facilitate regulation (Compas et al., 2014). They can help children perform at their best, thinking through behaviors rather than acting impulsively (Klein-Baer, 2022). They can promote healthy family and social relationships (Halloran, 2016). Growth in coping skills is part of the normal developmental process towards healthy adult life.