Understanding your own emotions is crucial to being able to help your child properly deal with their own feelings at a young age. Children usually have no problem feeling emotions and expressing their feelings with their entire bodies. Often times when our children feel unheard, they continue expressing their feelings in louder and bigger ways. Parents may feel uncomfortable when their children express their upset.
They may even try to fix, happy up, or scare the feelings away.
If you are like me, we 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 and from our children. When triggered and upset, slow down and listen to your body. Learning to identity and express emotions in helpful healthy ways can be quite difficult, but it’s well worth the work.
Acknowledge Feelings
Feel Feelings
Own Feelings
Manage Feelings
Regulate Feelings
Express Feelings
The following is an idea for starters.
On the top of a piece of paper or in a journal write:
“If I was okay to feel whatever I’m feeling and I wouldn’t be judged as bad or wrong, what would I be feeling?”
What do you hear? What is your body telling you? Listen with your heart.
We need to be honest with ourselves. When we are comfortable with our own feelings we can accept and be comfortable with those expressed by our children.
Another helpful idea is to write letters you don’t intend to send, but just express those honest feelings so that you and your body hears them and releases them.
Feelings are supposed to be felt, not fixed.
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