Helping Children Cope with ‘Big Feelings’

We like to see happy children but like adults, children also feel other emotions such as sadness, anger, frustration, jealousy etc. Unfortunately, when children’s emotions come into action and each day these emotions grow and become big, we start calling our children as ‘Problematic’.

If a child cries for too long or at the drop of a hat, we label him as a ‘cry baby’.

If a child throws things or screams, we label him as a ‘cranky child’.

If a child refuses to follow instructions, he becomes an ‘ill-mannered’ child in the eyes of everyone.

If a child does not want to try out a new thing, he is called a ‘fearful’ child.

The list can go forever…

When these children grow up and become adults, they get new but similar labels such as ‘emotional’, ‘aggressive’, ‘defiant’ and ‘panicky’ etc. It is surprising that we conveniently accept these labels when we become adults and we often say “Now, we don’t have the time to go back into our childhood and undo what happened to us’ or ‘Now we are fine the way we are but we don’t want our kids to face the same problems as we did, we want them to become happy people and not problematic’.

If this is what we want for our children then we have to start listening to them and understand the reasons behind their tears, anger and fear.

Listen to the feelings behind your child’s behaviour!

There is a difference between listening to children and suppressing their voices. Some people quiet their children by giving them gadgets, toys, food or providing a baby sitter and some people would shut their children’s voices by emotional drama; they would show anger and the child would get frightened to speak up or some adults would start crying in front of their children and give them guilt for a lifetime where they start believing that they should not express their emotions as it makes other people sad or angry.

1. Do not label the child, simply label the child’s feelings – Instead of saying “Stop crying over small things”, define the child’s emotions and say “You are feeling sad because….” This simple way of communication teaches children to identify their own emotions and they learn to express them well. Remember, a problem well stated is a problem half solved!

2. Pick up opportunities to talk to children about their feelings – Do not drop the matter by saying “Oh he’ll be fine in a few days”. Tell your children some feelings come & go easily and some may stick with us for too long and become big. You can help them revisit the moments where they coped with a feeling quickly so that they know they have the capability to cope with their emotions. However, with certain episodes, some feelings stay on a little longer and fade away as children talk about it which helps them move towards healthy coping. Remember, tough times don’t last, but tough people do!

3. No Feelings are not good or bad – Allow children to experience all sorts of emotions such as feeling defeated, jealous, joyful, greedy, hurtful, regretful etc. When you give labels to feelings as good or bad, the child starts to give those labels to himself and starts to think that he must be a bad person to feel angry or defeated and he must be a good person just because he is always happy. Help your children find healthy means to cope with different emotions. Remember, all feelings are okay but all behaviour is not okay!

4. Teach your children to give closure to the day – We have to give closure to each and every episode or emotion before going to bed. It is the end of the day and so to the feeling. If your child wants to forgive someone, talk to someone to resolve a problem or he is being impatient, whatever the feeling your child is experiencing, try and talk about it and help him give closure to it so that he can start a fresh day next morning. Remember, to heal a wound you have to stop touching it!

5. Be a role model – Your children would see your actions and would use the same problem solving strategies when they are feeling stuck. If you can identify your own emotions, talk about them with your family, give closure to your feelings and not carry them the other day or many days after the episode has occurred then your children too would learn the same. After all, children are great imitators so give them some great things to imitate!

6. Seek help from a professional – Visiting a psychologist can be difficult because of various reasons, such as, parents might feel that their issues would get highlighted, there is a social taboo about visiting a counsellor or it could simply be a state of denial where a parent might think that his/her child can never have any problems where s/he has to see a mental health professional. So, to make your life easy I would like to tell you that the children who visit me regularly have given me a simple name, they call me a ‘feeling teacher’ because no one has to suffer in silence when they can talk and feel understood in a safe place.

I hope these few simple steps and important reminders would help you in preventing from making small feelings big and break the web of big feelings.

Feel free to contact me to discuss your child’s feelings

Write to me at prachi@stapoo.in  and for appointments call at – 9871381259