Do you ever say…
👉 Use your words…
👉 I’ll talk to you when you can calm down…
👉 Take some deep breaths and calm yourself down first.
Do these phrases leave space for them to feel their emotions?
OR
Are they forcing our children to ignore their feelings to get them to calm down?
Often we use these phases because we are trying our best to make it through our child’s upset and perhaps understand it a bit more.
Sometimes we get so zeroed in on finding out why they are feeling this way that we ignore the actual feelings.
Of course, this isn’t our intent.
We just don’t like the way the icky emotions feel in our body and we aren’t sure what to do.
So we just try to make them go away.
We think if our child looks calm then the emotion is gone.
But often the emotions have been pushed down to feel another time (since there wasn’t permission to feel it in the moment).
Sometimes it’s not the right time to fully process emotions.
Let’s say we are in the grocery store and our child is having a meltdown. We can reassure our child that nothing is wrong with them and quickly leave the store to prevent judgmental looks from other adults.
However, when possible the ultimate goal is is to allow the emotions to come in so our kids can feel them all the way through.
To let our child experience their feelings in whatever form they present in.
It might not look pretty. They might cry, scream, tantrum, yell, say unkind things, whine, etc…
Our role is to remember…
→ This is all part of the process of becoming emotionally mature.
→ To give them space to get made mad and let the emotions come out and create healing.
→ To listen to them and not shut them down by asking them in that moment to reflect, regroup or self-regulate when they aren’t able to in the moment.
Their immature brains 🧠 become more mature by giving them space to feel their emotions. This is no small thing. Many adults aren’t comfortable processing or feeling their emotions when things get dicey.
❤️❤️ Inviting our kids to emote and choosing to be there with them throughout the process is one of the most important jobs we can do as parents.
It will take time, but if we stick with it —
💥 We’ll figure out how to hold that space for our kids
💥 They’ll figure out how to feel their emotions increase their emotional maturity
