Here Are Some Ways You As A Parent Can Help Your Child Express How They Are Feeling In An Appropriate Way
Children experience many of the same feelings that adults do. They get excited, angry, jealous, frustrated, sad, nervous, and scared.
But unlike adults, kids may not have the vocabulary to properly communicate what they’re feeling. So they may resort to engaging in inappropriate and problematic behaviors, such as throwing toys, shoving another person, or having a tantrum.
Alternatively, they may shut down when asked what’s wrong or mope around dejectedly. As a parent, you are in charge of teaching kids about their feelings and helping their emotional development along.
It’s a big responsibility to take on, and it can be overwhelming for many parents to try to figure out how best to tackle it. So here are some of the ways you can help your child express their feelings in an appropriate manner.
One thing you can do is to simply be present in a moment of anguish. Depending on the child, pointing out what they’re feeling may make them more upset.
Instead, keep the encouraging words to a minimum and stay right beside them as they ride out the wave of their emotions. When you do speak, opt for soothing phrases that don’t mention their feelings.
While next to your child, maintain a calm demeanor and try to regulate your own feelings by taking deep breaths, which may encourage your child to follow suit.
Another way to help your child explore emotions is by playing simple games. After an emotional incident, offer a theory about how you think they were feeling in the moment and what caused them to feel that way.
Then, have your child rate the accuracy of your interpretation. If you were completely wrong, they could give you a thumbs-down. If you were right, that calls for a thumbs-up. And if you were somewhere in the middle, that means you get a thumb to the side.
Halfpoint – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual child
You could also create a feelings chart with faces where they can point to the face that expresses the emotion they were feeling.
Lastly, consider coming up with a metaphor to describe emotions, so you can discuss certain feelings without it being directly applied to them.
Compare emotions to the colors of a rainbow to explain to your child that there is a range of emotions that people experience.
Or use the train tunnel analogy to point out that humans are like trains, and you must travel through a dark tunnel of difficult emotions to get to the light on the other side.
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