3 Steps For Responding To Your Child’s Emotions

How to help validate your child’s feelings

Validating your kiddos emotions can be really hard. They often have very big feelings over things that, to adults, feel very insignificant. It might seem silly that they are so sad that the red cup is in the dishwasher or that they have to hold your hand to cross the street. Logically, you know these things aren’t a big deal, so it can feel really frustrating when your child is acting like the world is ending.

Oftentimes, adults end up lovingly saying things like, “Don’t be sad.” While your intentions might be in the right place, what your child is learning is that they can't trust their emotions. There body is cueing them to one thing, but you are cueing them to something else.

Instead of dismissing your child, try these 3 steps to help your child know that they are understood.

1. Name the emotion your child is feeling:

Dr. Daniel Siegel coined the phrase, “Name it to tame it.” When we put words to feelings, they become a whole lot less overwhelming. First and foremost it lets our children know that they are seen, heard, and understood. It also helps to build your child’s emotional literacy by giving them words to describe the feelings they are having. Labelling an emotion puts a boundary to the feeling and can help a child remember that this feeling isn’t forever.

2. Empathize:

This is the part where you have to dig deep, because it needs to come through authentically. To show empathy, you need to put aside all judgements about your child’s feelings. You need to use perspective taking to understand what your child is feeling. Instead of trying to empathize with the situation that your child is struggling with, I recommend trying to empathize with the feeling they are having. You then need to communicate to your child in some way that you understand what they are feeling. This can come in the form of sharing that this is a feeling that you have had as well. Shared humanity is just as grounding for our children as it is for us.

3. Coaching:

Gently offer some coaching on how to move through the emotion. You can offer different coping strategies such as breathing, identifying where the emotion is felt in your body, getting a hug, etc. It is important to remember that the goal isn't to solve your child's problem, but to offer guidance. It’s important to note that sometimes kids just need us there to be the safe place where they can learn to sit in their big emotions; sometimes they don't need us to coach them.

This process might go something like this:

“You are feeling very angry that we cannot stay at the park longer (name it to tame it). I can see that you are angry because you are yelling and your fists are balled up (non-judgmental). Leaving the park can be really hard (you understand and hear them). Sometimes I get angry too (empathy). When I am angry, I feel like I have a hot spot in my belly. Where do you feel your big mad (awareness to the body)? Let’s try to breathe to make the hot spot cool down (coaching).”

Now this may be too many words to say all at once to your child in the midst of the heightened situation. Keep in mind that sometimes calm silence or big pauses where you model calming techniques like breathing can be more helpful than too many words. You know your child best and it may be different in every situation.