One of the recurrent themes I hear in my practice goes something like this...
‘Mum and Dad were never much good when it came to me trying to make sense of my feelings ... they just weren’t good with the emotional stuff. Now I’m older I’m having life experiences and emotions that I struggle to make sense of, so I shut down. I just want to run away ...’
One of the most important roles we have as parents and caregivers is to support our children in understanding their feelings. Children are not born with emotional regulation skills – these skills are taught – and so as caregivers, we are in the pole position to do the teaching and to help our kids navigate this space.
That doesn’t mean we need to be experts or use fancy words; we simply need to take notice and acknowledge what’s happening for our child, and to think about ways forward. Together, those simple actions will give our kids a head start at recognising and regulating their emotions.
If our kids don’t have someone to help them validate their emotions – that is, to give the things they are feeling a name – they can feel awkward and confused. If it happens over and over, or if they are left to deal with loneliness, grief, or anger on their own, it can become a real challenge for them. Over time, this can lead to more confusion, unsettled friendships, inappropriate reactions to events, depression, or anxiety.
As a caregiver, it’s often tempting – and very easy – to jump into solution mode. We feel the need to tell our kids to ‘move on... they don't deserve it… find different friends’. Or we simply tell them not to be ‘silly’.
While this may offer an easy way out at the time, it doesn’t equip our kids with the life skills they need to manage future encounters.
It would be better if we were to acknowledge and name what is going on for them before we moved on to solutions. This could be as simple as saying, ‘You seem to be feeling a bit sad’ or ‘I can hear this is making you feel lonely or left out’.
After we’ve acknowledged their feelings and let them sit with those feelings for a bit, we can chat about the impact those feelings are having on them and how they might keep moving forward. This style of parenting is really effective at building resilience in kids.
There is a lot to be said for preparing our children for the pathway of life, rather than preparing the pathway for them!
Recently, I had a parent contact me to support their 16-year-old son. The parent said he was losing sight of his capability, spending too much time gaming and on his phone, and wasn’t very clear about the kind of job he wanted. The parent despaired that he had always been a straight-A student and was now getting B's.
After a couple of sessions, I got to know him and his perspective. I heard a very clear message. All he wanted from Mum and Dad was love and support. He felt as though they didn’t listen to him and had no understanding of the emotional pressures in his head. He was feeling a lot of anger and unsure of what to do. He wanted to do well at school; he wanted to talk to girls; and he wanted to contribute at home by doing his chores.
But his head was spinning, and he didn’t feel as though he had anyone he could talk to about what he was feeling or any way he could clear his head.
The support I provided was centred on coaching him to develop his emotional regulation skills. He needed to recognise the range and depth of emotions he was experiencing and learn mental and physical strategies to employ when these emotions kick in! A key part of this was recognising the opportunity to communicate better with his parents.
Making sense of emotions and feelings is a skill set I can teach, but giving our kids a head start on understanding emotions during childhood would help so much.
Please feel encouraged to just talk with your kids as much as they will allow. You might be amazed at what a little acknowledgment and old-fashioned brainstorming can do.
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