Managing Big Emotions: Little People,Big Feelings
Children have big emotions ….. all the time. You already know that, but what is happening in the brain?
What is the best way we can help them? How can we raise our children to have healthy emotional expression while listening to their bodies?
All emotions are important and should be expressed rightfully so. It’s helpful to think of strong emotions as waves. Ride with the wave- accept it, notice it and let it pass, and the emotion will settle. Resisting or pushing down emotions would be like trying to stop a wave in the ocean. Or to use the organ analogy, trying to stop your stomach from digesting. Once our kiddos can name their feelings, it’s time to talk about healthy ways in expressing them. Try colouring to express a feeling – they might need to scribble it out, or rip paper (set a station up, so they are not ripping up important documents!) Later, you can talk about ‘what colour is mad?’, or ‘what does a mad pumpkin look like?’ Older kids can write about their emotions -help them use descriptors like feeling ‘hot’ when they are mad, or ‘butterflies in the stomach’ when they are nervous or excited. If they are trying to hurt themselves or others when they are mad, allow for a different outlet of movement: ‘Do your arms need to move? Try punching this pillow’, or ‘Do your legs need to kick? Let’s go kick a soccer ball or jump it out.’ Another good example is ‘It’s not okay to hurt, I’m going to move you away from this situation, so you don’t hurt anyone. Let’s race to see who can do 10 jumping jacks!’
So why teach children about emotions? The child’s brain is not fully developed until they’re in their midtwenties. We can help develop and nurture the brain by helping the child name their emotion. The left side of the brain is logical, linguistical and literal. Whereas the right side of the brain is non-verbal, creative, holds personal memories and is more persuaded by the body. When we name an emotion, we are helping the left and right side of the brain integrate (Siegel & Bryson, 2012). This allows the whole brain to work as one and can help the brain make sense of what is occurring (rather than generating internal conflict).
‘Name it to Tame it’ as Siegel & Bryson (2012) coined. When you see an emotion occurring in the child – name it. You can model this by saying – ‘You look mad right now!’ Or ‘You’re sad we couldn’t go to grandmas today, huh?’ Feel free to over-exaggerate your words and actions to show your empathy; stomp your feet when they are mad, curl your shoulders when they are sad. ‘You are mad right now, it’s okay to be mad. Do you want to stomp your feet?’ They will pick up on this and start saying ‘I am frustrated right now/ I am mad right now’.