Parenting is a Top Down Proposition
Kids know nothing about how to manage their emotions - you have to teach them
Social-emotional learning has become a buzzword that’s used a lot in schools, but not always in ways that are helpful and useful. Yes, it is helpful for children to learn how to identify emotions they’re feeling. But kids aren’t always taught what to DO with that feeling. The teaching sometimes stops at that step. Great, now Johnny knows he’s sad, and everyone knows he’s sad. What does it mean and what does he do with that knowledge?
If kids are going to become skilled at recognizing and managing their emotions, it’s up to you as the parent to teach them. You’re with your child more than anyone else, you know them better than anyone else, and you’re a powerful teacher for them. You can teach them how to use appropriate strategies when dealing with their big emotions when you supply the vocabulary, teach foundational concepts about emotions, and demonstrate and teach appropriate ways to act when they have big emotions.
Here are some foundational things kids need to learn about emotions:
Kids do need to be able to name the emotion they’re feeling.
That’s necessary vocabulary. They also need to be able to name the emotion another kid is feeling. It’s not all about them, all the time.
Kids need to learn that emotions don’t define them.
Remind them, “you’re not mad, you feel mad in this moment.” You need to teach your kid that emotions occur in waves, and that they come and go. The emotion will pass, but they’ll still be who they are.
Kids need to learn that emotions are BIG and hard to feel, but they always have a choice about what to do with that emotion.
Yes, they feel really angry right now and their impulse might be to hit the person they’re angry with. But that’s not an okay choice. What other choices do they have? That’s up to you as the parent and their developmental age.
Some choices parents I know give their kids are: going to a quiet spot to calm their body, going for a run, tensing and relaxing their muscles… and then talking about what they’re mad about with the person they were mad at.
As the parent, you have to maintain the expectation that your kid will use appropriate behavior when they’re dealing with their own emotions, even as they’re learning the skill of managing emotions.
And if you tend to fly off the handle and sometimes react to your own big emotions in ways that are not okay… Well, that’s good news! You then have a wonderful opportunity to teach your child how to manage their emotions by demonstrating how you manage your own.
When you want to scream at your child, cry, or scold them with mean words, you can make the choice to ground into your body instead.
As you practice grounding into your body and calming yourself, you become a beautiful model to your kid. As you take deep breaths, or give yourself a hug, then relax your muscles, you’re showing them,
“This is what it looks like to calm my body. Do you see how I’m not yelling or hitting? Do you see me choosing to wait to use words until I can say what I mean, and that I’m not using words to hurt?”
By attending to your own needs in an emotional moment - calming your frightened/angry/anxious self - you demonstrate that you’re making a choice about what to do when you’re in that emotional state. You can come back to your child with the resources to deal with any situation in a calm, intentional state.
Your preteen may have dissed you, and there may be unpleasant consequences for their behavior, but you’ll do it in the calm, mindful way you choose to demonstrate as a parent.
Your young child might not be able to stop themselves from hitting yet. But as you calmly correct and expect them to be able to soon, they learn their emotions don’t control them.
You’re the teacher, you’re the model. Embrace that role, especially around emotions!