Discover 4 ways to help your child to name and express their big feelings.
Modern parents are increasingly aware that it’s important to help kids with big feelings by naming them.
But things weren’t always done this way. For most of us when we were kids, when we expressed big feelings, whether that was anger, sadness or even ‘too much’ joy, we may have been ignored, punished, told to ‘settle down’ or even to go to our room and come back when calm.
The idea was that by ignoring or punishing the behaviours that were less socially favourable, kids would learn to behave in the appropriate way. This was good in theory, only what we learned was also “we don’t express that feeling in this relationship”. So, kids learned to bury or hide these feelings, not to express them in a healthy way – at least not to their parents.
Times have changed and millennial parents are trying to do things differently. They now know that there’s a better way to teach our kids that feelings will come and go and the best way to move through them is to accept them.
One of the best ways to do this is to help our kids to name feelings. According to Dr. Daniel Siegal, ‘we need to name them to tame them’. This works because it’s the process of giving a huge feeling a name that helps the thinking part of the brain (the part that helps us with logical thinking) come online.
But this is easier said than done. In fact, for most parents these days, we’re learning to feel our feelings alongside our kids. This can be anything from mildly uncomfortable to straight up terrifying for us to do, and it’s easy to get it wrong and feel like naming your kids’ feelings ‘makes it worse’.
This is tricky stuff and key factors in helping our kids may lay in understanding the importance of timing, body language and being authentic.
Here are 4 ways to help your child to name and express their big feelings:
- Calm you first.
Know that these moments are just as hard for you as they are for your child. Tune into your own body and aim to relax your face, calm your breathing, and centre yourself. It can really help to get down low and close to your child. We want to calm ourselves before we attempt to calm our child, so we start with compassion for us, which often brings up compassion for our child.
Say to yourself: “this is really hard; I am doing the best that I can and so is my child”
- Body language is key.
Our kids see us more than they hear us. Know that it’s much better for your child to express emotions fully rather than quickly so be aware of body language that’s trying to ‘hurry’ a feeling. Sometimes our words are on point, but our body conveys frustration, or fear. We need to make sure as we name words, we are showing that empathy through our tone and body language.
“You are so sad right now, I’d be so disappointed if I dropped my ice cream too, you were so looking forward to that”.
- Play to work through feelings
When we use play to help kids with big transitions like moving from a cot to a big kid bed, it is through this safe environment that our kids get to prepare for change and talk though feelings in a safe way. Meaningful play has the power to help our toddlers have a big start in life and lots of fun.
We might get out our LEGO DUPLO bricks and practice putting the LEGO DUPLO character to bed as a way of talking though emotions that come with change.
- Your job isn’t to fix or solve it.
It’s your job to let your child know that you GET IT. While we may not always know what it’s like to have that exact experience, we do know what it’s like to have that underlying feeling. We all know disappointment, anger, frustration –this is what we tune into. If we stay away from solutions and hang in the feeling until our child feels heard it goes much better.
“I’d be mad if my brother knocked over my LEGO brick tower too. You worked so hard on that.”
These moments will always feel messy and imperfect but if we stay open and aim for connection, they can leave us all feeling much better than if we try to distract or fix.
We hang in there and in these messy, far from perfect moments what our child sees, hears, and feels with every fibre of their being is this: “Nothing you ever do or feel will make you unlovable, I see you, I hear you and I’m here for a hug when you are ready”
This is the power of co-regulation, and it leads to a child who, as an adult, is much more likely to be able to name, manage and regulate their emotions long term, and isn’t that a gift we’d all love for our kids?
Genevieve Muir is the founder of Connected Parenting, an Obstetric Social Worker, Parent Educator and mum to four boys with a passion for helping parents in the first five years of raising kids. She’s currently working with LEGO DUPLO to show how these big bricks help to offer toddlers a big start in life through meaningful play and endless fun by teaching our toddlers important EQ skills including resilience, self expression and confidence.