Dealing With Your Child’s Emotions

Dealing With Your Child's Emotions

Emotions can be a very strong force that your child cannot handle. There are times your child’s emotions can go out of control. This may lead them to becoming angry all the time for no reason at all. As a loving parent we do not want that.

An article written by Kim Peterson gives us tips on how we can help our children handle their emotions especially when it goes out of control. Her article was based on a series of anger management activities entitled “Don’t be an Angry Bird.”

Dealing With Your Child’s Emotions

So how can we help our kids in their path to emotional maturity?

1. Validate the child’s feelings. Let them know their feelings are normal and acceptable (even if their current expression of those emotions is not).
2. Give their feelings a name. Anytime you have an opportunity, label the feelings you observe in the child and help them to label their feelings as well.
3. Encourage them to verbalize their feelings out loud with I-statements (I’m mad, sad, etc…).
4. Teach them appropriate coping skills. Keep in mind that modeling these skills is the best teaching tool!!

If you are familiar with angry birds, you can see that they like to destroy building (with pigs in it). Well, if you think about it you do not want your child destroying anything, not necessarily your household furniture but his emotions and even yours.

That is why, there is a need for us to deal with our child’s emotions and help them get through what they are feeling for it can be very overwhelming.