100 Calming Strategies for Kids (Free PDF Checklist + Poster)

Looking for effective calming strategies to help kids relax?

Calming strategies for kids are tactics, activities, worksheets, or exercises used to help reduce feelings of:

• anxiety
• anger
• overexcitement
• tension

There are many simple activities that can help kids when they are feeling upset, anxious, or overwhelmed.

Most of these strategies can also be used by adults.

Calm-down strategies usually fall into one or more of these categories:

• Relaxation methods
• Learning problem-solving abilities
• Attention diversion from anger triggers or situations
• Self-regulation strategies
• Emotion recognition
• Learning to channel feelings appropriately
• Coping strategies adapted to specific situations

At the end of the post, you can download a free “100 Calming Strategies for Kids” PDF checklist, along with a printable calming strategies poster you can use in a calm-down corner for quick and easy reference.

You’ll find a wide range of calming strategies below.

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100 Effective Calming Strategies for Kids

Below, you’ll find a list of calming strategies for kids that can help children calm down when they feel worried, frustrated, or angry.

Breathing Exercises for Kids

Breathing exercises are one of the simplest and most effective calming strategies for kids, helping them slow down and feel more in control.

To begin with, it’s often helpful to practice the mechanics of breathing in a fun and engaging way. We also used some of these activities when working with our speech therapist to help strengthen breathing muscles:

1. Ask your child to pretend to smell a flower / pretend to blow out a candle
2. Blow soap bubbles
3. Blow a pinwheel
4. Place pieces of cotton on a flat surface and blow on them to move them along. 
5. Blow a candle
6. Deep breathing while Mum/Dad counts to 10

Once children are comfortable with these basic exercises, you can introduce more structured breathing techniques:

7. Belly Breathing (Diaphragmatic breathing)
8. Lazy 8 Breathing Exercise
9. Five Finger Breathing
10. Square Breathing
11. Alternate nostril breathing
    Place your thumb on your right nostril and your middle and index on your left nostril. Hold your right nostril closed with your thumb and breathe in slowly through the left one. Breathe out through the right nostril while closing the left one. Hold your breath a couple of seconds and breathe in through your right nostril, keeping the left one closed. Continue alternating sides.
12. Lion’s Breath (Take a deep breath through your nose / Open your mouth as big as you can / Stick your tongue out / Eyes wide open / ROAR!)
13. Bumble Bee Breath ( Breathe in / Breathe out with your mouth closed, while you hum like a bee)

For more guided techniques like Lion’s Breath and Bumble Bee Breath, explore these yoga breathing exercises for kids.

Mindfulness

Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the leading figures in mindfulness, describes it as “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.”

Mindfulness helps children slow down, focus on the present moment, and become more aware of their thoughts, feelings, and surroundings.

 Examples of mindfulness techniques:

14. Body Scan Meditation – this meditation technique involves systematically and intentionally moving our attention through our body, attending to the various sensations in the different regions.
15. Eating a raisin (or chocolate) mindfully
16. Go for a mindfulness walk
17. Use grounding rocks or gratitude rocks
18. Meditation
19. Using a Happy Place Visualization Worksheet
20. Tracing a shape with a finger on a card
21. 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise 
    This is a very simple and extremely effective grounding exercise. It will distract your child from the anxiety trigger, help focus on the present moment, and relax.
    Ask your child:
    Name 5 things you can SEE in the room
    Name 4 things you can FEEL
    Name 3 things you can HEAR 
    Name 2 things you can SMELL right now
    Name 1 thing you can TASTE.

Muscle Relaxation Techniques & Proprioceptive Input 

Muscle relaxation techniques and proprioceptive activities help children release tension in their bodies and feel more grounded. These calming strategies for kids use pressure and muscle engagement to support relaxation and self-regulation.

22. Progressive muscle relaxation exercises.
    The premise of this relaxation method is that physical relaxation will lead to a feeling of calmness.
    In progressive muscle relaxation, you systematically proceed to tense and then relax muscle groups, following a certain order.  
23. Squeeze a stress relief ball with your hand / release it
    This follows the same principle as the previous technique. But it may be easier to teach a kid to start with just squeezing a ball.
    And, if you are into DYI you can learn how to make homemade stress balls in just 3 minutes!
24. Hug a soft toy tight
    One more tensing-relaxing exercise. You can also teach your kids how to “breathe in /hug tight / breathe out / relax”, repeating this cycle several times till they start feeling calmer
25. Give yourself a big hug
26. Hug your knees
    Sit on the floor with your feet planted on the floor, hug your knees tight
27. Palm Presses
    Press your palms together, and hold for 5 seconds. Repeat a few times till you feel calmer.
28. Hand Squeeze
    This is similar to the previous exercise, but you will interlace your fingers and squeeze your hands tightly.
29. Wall push
    Face the wall and place your palms flat on the wall. Push for five seconds.

Calming Massage for Kids

Medical research has shown that the benefits of massage include pain relief, reduced anxiety, and depression, and temporarily reduced blood pressure, heart rate, and state of anxiety.
But even if you don´t know anything about massage, lots of kids find it really soothing to have a soft foot, hand, back, or head massage.
These are some fun massage ideas for kids:

30. Foot massage with lotion
31. Head massage (we sometimes use essential oils and administer a nice and relaxing head massage before the shower) 
32. Arm massage
    Firmly squeeze your arm, start with your shoulder and move all the way down to your shoulder.
33. Hand massage
    Use your thumb to press firmly the palm of your other hand
34. Ear massage
    Gently pull and rub your ear lobes to stimulate the nerve endings and release endorphins.
35. Story Massage
    Story massage is a fun and interactive way of combining two great activities: storytime and massage for kids.
    Mary Atkison has created a beautiful book where she associates ten easy-to-follow massage strokes with words and sentences from popular tales or fun situations.

Calming Down through Intense Activity

Physical activity can be an effective calming strategy for kids, helping them release built-up energy and reset when emotions feel overwhelming. Some simple examples include:

36. Bounce-on ball
37. Jump / Skip jumping / Jumping Jacks
38. Go for a run / Get your child to run around a piece of furniture if you can’t go out 
39. Go bike riding 
40. Play catch with a weighted ball
41. Dance like there’s no tomorrow!

Using Deep Pressure as a Calming Tool

Deep pressure is one of the most effective calming strategies for kids, helping them feel more secure, grounded, and relaxed. Many children find deep pressure touch especially soothing.

Some examples of items and activities that provide deep pressure input include:

42. Weighted blankets 
    ⇒ These are a few tips on how to use weighted blankets with kids. 
43. Weighted vests
44. A weighted stuffed puppy
45. A body sock
46. Blanket wrap
    Put a blanket on the floor and ask your child to lie down on it. Wrap the blanket around tight enough to give a gently hug (obviously, the head should stick out)
47. Baby Swaddle Wrap (for those who are not babies anymore!)
    This is similar to the previous strategy, and I use it with a big boy, not a baby. Instead of a complete swaddle wrap, I wrap him from waist up with a big towel. 

Other Sensory Strategies to Calm Down Kids

Sensory strategies are calming strategies for kids that use sights, sounds, textures, and movement to help them relax and feel more regulated. These activities can be especially helpful for children who feel overwhelmed by their environment.

48. Look at the relaxing motion of a lava lamp
49. Use lights to calm your kids down. These items are some examples: a night light projector, or an electric jelly fish tank.  
50. Soothing sounds, such as nature sounds or white noise. This machine has different natural soothing sounds.   
51. Use noise-canceling headphones to block noise around you.
52. Use your sensory bottles 
53. Play with a sensory bin.
54. An indoor swing (the back and forth movement of a swing is extremely soothing)
55. Enjoy the rocking input from a rocking chair.
56. Use wiggle cushions. Wiggle cushions are great for kids with ADHD or sensory issues. This provides gentle movement, so it comes very handy when they need to sit down for long periods of time (they may not feel the same urge to stand up and move around)
57. Essential Oils.

“Change of Scene” Calm Down Ideas

Sometimes, one of the most effective calming strategies for kids is simply changing the environment. Moving away from the situation that triggered the upset can help children reset and feel more in control.

Some examples include:

58. Move to a different room
59. Step outside into the garden
60. Go for a walk (or have a parent or caregiver go with the child)
61. Move to a calm down corner 
62. Set up a calm-down tent, a small space where your child can retreat when they need a break from overwhelming stimuli.

“Change of Activity” as a Calm Down Strategy

Another effective calming strategy for kids is shifting attention to a different activity. This can help children take a break from what’s upsetting them and reset.

Some calming ideas include:

63. Watch a favorite TV program
64. Play board games
65. Play computer games
66. Read a book (or have a parent read a story)
67. Play with playdough
68. Listen to music (you can try a streaming service like Amazon Music here)
69. Listen to an audiobook (audiobooks can also be a calming alternative, you can try Audible here)
70. Sing out loud to release tension
71. Play “tickle monster” and laugh together
72. Play with fidgeting toys

Related: Learn how to help students focus with fidgeting devices

Art-Based Calming Strategies for Kids

Creative activities are effective calming strategies for kids, helping them express emotions, process their thoughts, and shift their focus away from anxiety or frustration. While drawing and coloring are not the same as formal art therapy, they can still be powerful tools to support relaxation and emotional regulation. 

73. Make a drawing of your day: a creative way to share some things that your kid may not be able to express with words.
74. Draw your feelings (for example, using colors or shapes to show emotions)
    Related resource: Emotions Drawing Activity for Kids (A Directed Drawing Activity)
75. Try mandala drawing or coloring other repetitive designs to help calm the mind and shift focus away from worries.
76. Draw to express worries or negative thoughts, then talk about them or set them aside
77. Prepare gratitude stones (I’ve mentioned gratitude rocks before as a grounding tool, but here they are used as a creative activity, decorating them while thinking about things you feel thankful for)

Using Imagination to Calm Down

Imagination-based calming strategies for kids can help shift attention away from strong emotions like worry, anger, or frustration, while creating a sense of safety and comfort.

78. Think about things that make you happy
    (We have a “wall of happiness” in each child’s bedroom, a simple way to turn wall art into a coping tool)
79. Visualize yourself in your happy place
80. Swap negative thoughts for happy memories
81. Write down your worries on a piece of paper and then tear it up.
82. Mentally throw away angry or worried thoughts (imagine throwing them out of a window or into the rubbish bin)
83. Put your worries inside a worry box.
    A “Worry Box” is a place to store away worries until you are ready to deal with them.
    When a worry thought strikes, you write it down on a piece of paper, and you store it away in your worry box.
84. Feed your worries to the worry eater.

Yoga as a Relaxation Tool

Yoga can be an effective calming strategy for kids, combining movement, breathing, and body awareness to help them relax and release tension.

Yoga can include different poses, each offering a simple way to relax the body and calm the mind.

Some simple and fun yoga poses for kids include:

85. Cat pose
    Kneel on all fours and slowly raise your back (arch the spine). Then lower your back 
86. Cow pose
    This pose is usually used as a counter-posture to the Cat Pose. Kneel on all fours lift your head and look forward, while your belly moves toward the floor and your back lowers.
87. Child pose
    Kneels and fold your body forward so that your thighs rest on your calves and your head rests on the floor.
88. Legs up the wall
    Extend your legs up the wall and rest your arms by your side. Can it get easier than this? 😊 
89. Corpse pose
    Another easy one!. Lie on the back with your eyes closed and the legs slightly spread. Rest your arms by your side.  

Related reading: Learn more about the benefits of yoga for kids.

Other Calming Ideas for Kids

There are many other calming strategies for kids that can support emotional regulation in everyday situations, including ways to express feelings, build helpful habits, and develop simple coping skills.

Expressing feelings & reflecting

90. Help them express their feelings with an emotions chart.
    Being able to express our emotions also helps us soothe and relax.
91. Keep a journal to write down their thoughts and feelings.
    A journal can help children notice patterns in their emotions, identify triggers, and reflect on how they respond to different situations
92. Retell the story.
    I use this technique quite often. Sometimes we have situations that we can’t discuss directly because they lead to frustration, anxiety, or anger. I still want our son to reflect on what has happened, so we retell the story as if it had happened to his best friend. I even draw it out, like we’re telling a story together.

Thinking & coping strategies

93. Teach your kids problem-solving skills.
    You can use the “Stop / Think / Do” technique: stop when you feel upset, think about possible solutions, and choose one to try
94. Self-instructions
    Some kids may benefit from using self-instruction to guide them through some difficult situations. It provides them with a script of what needs to be done (What is the problem? What is my plan? How can I do it? …)
95. Practice your positive affirmations (including affirmations for anxiety)
    Related resources:
    • Anxiety Affirmation Cards for Kids
    • Positive Affirmations Cards (cute animals)

Daily habits that support calm

96. Create routines
    Predictable routines help children feel safe and reduce uncertainty, which can make it easier for them to stay calm throughout the day.
97. Start the day by thinking about three things you are grateful for
    Related resource: Gratitude Ideas for Kids
98. Make sure your child gets enough rest and sleep

⚡️Quick calming ideas

99. Give me a smile.
    I sometimes use my own hands to gently move my son’s lip corners up into a smile. Did you know that even a fake smile can help your brain feel happier?
100. Talk to someone you trust
101. Ask for help
102. Take a warm bath
103. Have a snack
104. Drink a glass of water or milk
105. Start counting until you feel more relaxed

How to Use Calming Strategies with Kids

Tip 1: Practice calming strategies when your child is calm.
Children are much more likely to use these strategies effectively if they’ve practiced them before they feel overwhelmed. Try introducing and practicing new ideas during calm moments.

Tip 2: Offer a small number of choices.
When children are overwhelmed, too many options can feel confusing. Offering two or three calming strategies at a time can make it easier for them to choose and engage.
In moments of high distress, you may need to gently guide the choice or choose a strategy for them.

Tip 3: Create an easy-to-access calm-down space.
Keep items that help your child self-soothe in one place where they can easily reach them. This could be a calm-down box or a calm-down corner with tools they can use when they start feeling overwhelmed.
Related: Calm-down box ideas for kids

Tip 4: Use calm-down cards.
Visual supports can make it easier for children to choose and use calming strategies, especially when they are feeling overwhelmed.

Calm down cards can:

• help children make choices
• support self-regulation
• support communication or offer an alternative to spoken communication

Tip 5: Model calming strategies.
Children learn a lot by watching adults. When you use calming strategies yourself, you show them how to manage big emotions in real situations.