Key points
- School-age children are still learning the social and emotional skills they need to manage frustration, cope with disappointment, and express feelings in safe and helpful ways.
- Behaviours that feel challenging, such as yelling, are often signs that a child is overwhelmed or struggling to communicate what they need.
- Children learn best when adults connect with them, set clear and consistent boundaries, support them to understand what happened, and try again when things go wrong.
- Acknowledging a child’s efforts, strengths, and moments where they cope in positive ways helps them build confidence and emotional skills over time.
- Physical discipline, shouting, shaming, or isolating a child can increase their distress and are not recommended ways to support behaviour or emotional development.
- If you are worried that your child’s behaviour is intense, ongoing, or affecting their daily life, speak with their doctor or another health professional.
Understanding behaviours in school-age children
School-age children experience a wide range of emotions and express themselves in many ways. It is common for them to:
- Argue
- Yell
- Refuse to do something
- Have strong emotional reactions.
Behaviour is a form of communication. Children may act in ways that feel challenging because they are still learning the social and emotional skills they need to manage feelings like frustration, disappointment, worry, and conflict. In these moments, their behaviour may signal that they are overwhelmed and need support to understand and work through what is happening.
As children grow, they get better at understanding expectations, pausing before reacting, solving problems, and reflecting on how their behaviours affect others.
What influences emotions and behaviours in school-aged children?
Children are still developing important skills during their primary school years, such as how to:
- Manage their emotions and impulses
- Solve problems
- Cope with change
- Consider other people’s perspectives.
During this time, demands for a child's energy and attention also increase. They may have more jobs to do around the house, more homework from their teachers, and more social activities planned with their peers. These changes are important steps towards independence, but they can feel overwhelming while a child is still developing coping skills.
Specific factors that can affect a child’s emotions, behaviours, and coping include:
- Illness
- Tiredness or not enough sleep
- Changes to their daily routine or environment, such as starting at a new school
- Stress or not enough time to rest
- Feeling misunderstood
- Hunger or not eating regularly
- Too much screen time
- Differences in how they learn and experience the world, such as finding loud sounds overwhelming
- Friendship problems, bullying, or feeling left out
- Anxiety, low mood, or other mental health problems.
Children need support from adults to feel safe and understood, and to manage big emotions. It is best to match the type of support to their requirements and strengths. For example, children who get overwhelmed by noise may benefit from quieter spaces, more breaks, or sensory tools such as fidget toys.
If your child’s behaviours are ongoing, intense, or affecting everyday life, they may need extra help. Speak with their doctor or another health professional if you are concerned.
Helping children to manage their emotions
Build connection
Your child is more likely to feel safe, settled, and able to work through hard moments when they feel connected to you.
Try to spend regular positive time together, even in small ways. You could play a game, go for a walk together, or spend a few minutes doing something your child enjoys. These moments will strengthen your relationship and help your child feel understood.
Notice what is going well
Pay attention to moments when your child is trying, helping, or fixing a situation after something has gone wrong. Noticing these times will build your child’s confidence and emotional skills.
- Draw attention to behaviours you want to encourage in your child.
- Be specific in your praise. For example, you could say: ‘You stayed calm when that was tricky, well done,’ or ‘Thank you for helping me.’
- Focus on your child’s effort and progress, not just whether they get it right.
- Acknowledge the positive things your child says or does after something has gone wrong, such as coming back to apologise, trying again, or helping to fix a problem. This concept is called ‘repairing.’
- You could say: ‘I noticed you came back and tried again; that was really important.’
- Behaviour reward charts can sometimes help encourage positive behaviours in younger children. In older children, motivation may come more from shared goals, problem solving, and meaningful rewards such as choosing a special activity to do with you.
Stay calm when emotions are big
School-age children gain independence over time, but they still need calm adult support when they are overwhelmed. This could mean:
- Staying close
- Speaking in a calm voice
- Helping them to pause for a moment
- Reducing pressure on them for a short time, such as pausing instructions
- Giving them time and space to recover before problem-solving.
Teach them about feelings and relationships
School-age children are still learning how to understand their emotions and consider other people’s feelings. You can support them by talking about emotions, naming what you notice, and helping them make sense of hard moments.
The goal is to build your child’s awareness, empathy, and problem-solving skills over time.
For example, imagine your child takes a toy from their brother. You could say something like: ‘I wonder if your brother felt upset when that happened. What could we do to make him feel better?’ This framing keeps the focus on understanding, learning, and repair.
Managing behaviours that feel challenging
All families, schools, and communities have different expectations about behaviour. What feels easy to manage in one setting may feel harder in another.
Some behaviours you may find challenging include:
- Refusing or struggling to follow instructions
- Getting easily frustrated or overwhelmed
- Frequent arguments, yelling or emotional outbursts
- Hurting others physically, such as hitting, biting, or kicking
- Strong reactions when things do not go as expected
- Trouble with everyday tasks, such as getting ready, eating, or getting dressed.
These behaviours do not always mean your child is being ‘naughty’ or difficult on purpose. Often, they are signs your child is struggling with stress, emotions, sensory overload, or pressure. Try to think about what your child may be telling you through their actions and what support they need in the moment.
Offer support before behaviour escalates
Children often cope better when adults step in early, before they become too distressed. This may stop their behaviour from escalating.
If your child is showing signs that they are getting overwhelmed, it may help to:
- Use calm and clear language.
- Reduce the pressure on them, if you can.
- For example, take a break from asking them questions.
- Offer them choices, rather than telling them what to do.
- This gives children some sense of control while keeping boundaries in place.
- For example, you could say: ‘Would you like to pack up the game yourself or would you like me to help?’
- Explain what to expect next.
- Knowing what is going to happen can help your child feel more secure and in control.
Set clear boundaries
Children need clear boundaries to feel safe and to learn what is expected of them. It is helpful to:
- Keep rules simple and consistent.
- Focus on teaching, not punishing.
- Involve your child in setting rules, where suitable.
- You could have a family meeting to discuss expectations, such as finishing their homework before using a screen or brushing their teeth every morning and night.
- This approach ensures they understand how they should behave.
- Respond to their behaviours quickly in logical and appropriate ways.
- For example, if your child is using scissors unsafely while doing crafts, you may want to pause the activity. You could say to your child: ‘We need to use scissors safely, so we are going to take a break from cutting for now.’
- Try to avoid complex consequences, as these can confuse children and make it harder for them to understand what has happened.
- Be a calm role model.
- Children learn a lot from the adults around them. Try to set a good example by showing the behaviours you want to encourage. For example, speak calmly, manage your frustration, and repair relationships after conflict.
- You do not need to be perfect. Role modelling is as much about showing your child ideal behaviours as it is about how you fix things when they go wrong. It also teaches that relationships can recover after hard moments.
Why harsh discipline can be harmful
It can be hard to stay calm when your child is struggling with big emotions. Many parents have moments when they feel frustrated, overwhelmed, or unsure what to do. However, harsh responses can be harmful as they may make children more distressed.
Your child will learn best when they feel safe, supported, and understood.
Physical discipline
Physical discipline is any response to a child’s behaviour that causes them physical pain or discomfort. This includes smacking, hitting, spanking, slapping, pinching, or pulling.
Research shows that physical discipline can have harmful, long-lasting effects for children. It can:
- Increase their aggression
- Cause more challenging behaviours
- Lower their self-esteem
- Teach them that hurting others is an acceptable way to manage conflict
- Increase their risk of anxiety, depression and other mental health troubles
- Strain the parent-child relationship.
Physical discipline does not help children learn the skills they need to manage their emotions or behaviour better.
If there is violence or aggression in your family, you feel unsafe, or you or your child are at immediate risk of harm, call emergency services (000). For additional support, contact The Orange Door.
Shouting or shaming
Parents may sometimes raise their voice when they are stressed or overwhelmed. Repeated shouting or yelling can be scary for children. Being yelled at – especially by a bigger, more powerful adult – can activate a child’s stress response, and make it harder for them to feel safe, think clearly, or learn from the situation. Over time, repeated shouting can worsen challenging behaviours and emotional wellbeing.
Shaming, belittling or humiliating children can also be very harmful. These responses may stop behaviour in the moment, but they leave the child feeling scared, ashamed, or disconnected, rather than supported to learn.
Use time-out carefully
A time-out is when you remove a child from a situation where they were behaving in ways that felt challenging.
A brief time-out can give everyone a chance to pause and take a breath. It may be useful if a child’s behaviour is unsafe. However, long periods of isolation can be upsetting – especially if the child is already distressed and does not understand what is happening. Long time-outs may make them more distressed, rather than helping them to calm down.
If used, a time-out should be:
- Short
- Calm
- Predictable
- Focused on safety.
It is important to follow a time-out with repair and reconnection. This means coming back together, naming feelings, and reassuring the child that the relationship is still safe. For example, you could say: ‘That was a hard moment. We were both upset. Let's work out what happened and what might help next time.’
For many children, a supported break or ‘time-in’ with a calm adult nearby may be more helpful than being sent away alone.
When to seek professional help
You may want to seek extra support if your child’s behaviours are ongoing, intense, or affecting their ability to cope at home, school, or with peers.
Start by speaking with your child’s doctor or one of their educators. A doctor can help you think about what may be contributing to your child’s behaviour and refer you to another specialist if required. A teacher or support person at their school, such as a counsellor, can share insights into their behaviour and practical advice.
Common questions about behaviour in school-age children
What effect can too much screen time have on my child’s behaviour?
Screens are a normal part of life for many school-aged children, and they can be helpful for learning, creativity, relaxation and connection. However, when screen
use takes up a lot of time, it can sometimes be harder for children to get enough sleep, physical movement, downtime, or social connection with family and friends.
Some children may also find it harder to stop screen-based activities – especially when they are highly stimulating or used to cope with stress, boredom, or big emotions. This can sometimes lead to conflict, irritability, or trouble spending time off screens.
Rather than focusing only on the amount of screen time, it can be helpful to think about what your child is doing on screens and whether it is impacting other parts of their life.
What other things could be influencing my child’s behaviour?
It is important to think broadly about what may be impacting your child’s behaviour. Factors such as their developmental stage, temperament, sensory needs, communication style, and the supports available around them can all affect behaviour. For some children, their behaviours may also be linked to neurodivergence, learning differences, anxiety, trauma, or things like their environment.
Are reward charts a good idea? I do not want my child to start expecting rewards for the chores they help with.
Reward charts or other incentives can be helpful in some cases – especially when a child is learning new skills or practising a new behaviour. They tend to work best short-term, alongside encouragement and clear expectations. Over time, the goal is to reduce rewards as the skills become more familiar and your child gains confidence.
My child is struggling to focus at school. How can I help them?
Many children find it hard to focus at times. They may find it more challenging when they are tired, worried, overwhelmed or do not feel confident in their learning. You can support your child by keeping routines predictable, helping them get enough sleep, and reducing stress where possible.
You may want to speak with your child’s teachers to understand what they have noticed at school and whether there are patterns in when your child finds it harder or easier to concentrate.
If these suggestions do not help, and you are worried your child's focus is affecting their learning or wellbeing, speak with their doctor. Sometimes, attention troubles are related to learning differences, anxiety, sensory needs, or conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
For more information
Developed by The Royal Children’s Hospital Psychology department. We acknowledge the input of RCH consumers and carers.
Reviewed May 2026
Please always seek the most recent advice from a registered
and practising clinician.