Parenting Priority: How To Express Emotions and Feelings

Parents: The only thing we’re to do with feelings, is to feel them.

Acknowledge Feelings

Feel Feelings

Own Feelings

Manage Feelings

Regulate Feelings

Express Feelings

Children usually have no problem feeling feelings and expressing their feelings with their entire bodies, and often times when they feel unheard, and not “connected” to you, they continue expressing those uncomfortable, unresolved, disorganized emotions in louder and bigger ways.   Parents may feel uncomfortable when their children express such upsetting feelings, and they may even try to fix , happy-up, or try and scare the feelings away, however the  feelings and emotions remain in their bodies.

We want to teach our children to own, manage and regulate those emotions so that they’re able to express themselves in helpful healthy ways. Our world needs emotional intelligence people.  As parents our call is to be intentional and rear children who are self-aware and self-regulated.

Where do we begin? We must start with the one person we’re ultimately in charge of… which is you and me.

Most of us didn’t have permission to feel our feelings when we were young children so acknowledging them as adults can be difficult to accept in ourselves or from our children. So acknowledging our feelings is a great starting point. We are humans and not robots, and self-care is essential.

After acknowledging and accepting all of our feelings and emotions, we want to begin to be aware of where we’re experiencing the emotions in our bodies.  We need to notice, without judgement, where we feel our emotions. We need to  befriend the feeling and give it a name which helps us to own the feeling, not become the feeling. “I feel mad, not I am mad.”

Then we’re to manage and regulate the emotion by breathing through the sensation. Saying a favorite mantra, quote, prayer, Bible verse are helpful to say and hear, in an effort to  center ourselves and restore peace, when feeling trapped, buttons are being pushed, the world isn’t going our way, or we’re getting ready to make a rash decision.

Aware of my body I breathe in, calming myself I breathe out.

It’s All Good

It  Is What It Is

Let Go, Let God

Easy Does It

After you have calmed your body and shifted into your executive brain state, you will be calm enough to know what to do or not to do, or what to say or not to say. Learning to express emotions in helpful healthy ways can be difficult, but it’s well worth the work because you’re worth it!