Helping our child manage their emotions
Our children may have trouble expressing themselves and this can evoke all kinds of emotions in them.
As parents, it is important to help our children work through their emotions as they may have trouble identifying and managing them. Read on to find out more about how we can support our child.
Support our child by building a relationship with them
During these formative years, our relationship with our children plays an important role in their physical and emotional development.
Studies have shown that a strong parent infant bond helps the infant grow to be more sociable and less anxious around others in future. Conversely, a poor parent-child relationship might lead to children growing up with mood and behavioural problems.
Tips to build a healthy relationship with our child
Trust and care
For example, help them up when they fall. This builds trust as our child knows that they can count on us.
Engage them in activities
All these activities can help foster better relationships with our child and reduce their screen time.
Encourage a balanced discipline
Clear and consistent rules and boundaries can make it easier for our child to know what is expected of their behaviours. It can also reduce conflicts between parents when it comes to disciplinary measures.
It can be useful to give them immediate feedback about their behaviour. Rewarding our child when they do something right can also help them grow into a confident adult.
Give them choices
Start with two options at a time because very young children may get confused with too many choices. As they get older, we can give them more options.
Supporting our child in managing their emotions
Infants and toddlers may have trouble expressing themselves when they are feeling certain emotions, and this causes frustration. When unable to express their emotions verbally, they may throw tantrums or cry.
Here’s how we can support our child to manage their emotions:
We could find out as much as we can about emotions to understand what our child is going through. This helps us provide better support for our child who might be learning how to manage their emotions.
In times when our child has trouble expressing themselves, it is important for us to stay calm, so we can find out the triggers that might be causing their behaviour.
We can also kneel or squat down to meet them at eye-level before introducing them to the words that they need, to help them identify and express the emotions they are feeling.
Then, guide them on how to express themselves calmly and appropriately, such as modelling “I”-statements like “I am angry because I can’t nap”.
Pictures are also useful in teaching emotions for our child who is not very good with words yet.
Play is a great way for children to learn how to express their emotions.
Here are some fun play ideas to help our child become more articulate with their feelings:
Children learn a lot from the physical environment. Establishing a safe, positive, and happy environment is important for their physical and emotional growth.
As a family, we can:
What if our child encounters traumatic events?
Traumatic events like the death of a loved one, domestic abuse and emotional neglect can lead to significant stress, even for infants and toddlers. In the aftermath of these events, we can feel emotions such as fear, shame, guilt, anger and sadness.
Everyone heals from traumatic events in their own time. However, if these emotions are overwhelming and prolonged to the extent that they affect our child and the people around them, it can become a cause for concern.
Common signs that our child feels
overwhelmed by their emotions:
Expressing intense
emotions frequently
Having trouble calming
themselves down
Having trouble identifying
their emotions
Having trouble controlling
their attention
Being impulsive
Useful self-help tools
Helping our child manage
their emotions
Our children are in their growing years. They may face many changes along the way as they enter new school environments, meet new people and go through changes in their bodies. These changes can cause them to experience all kinds of emotions.
As parents, it is important to help our children work through their emotions as they may have trouble identifying and managing them. Read on to find out more about how we can support our child.
Support our child by building a relationship with them
Our relationship with our child can help them navigate various challenges and make sense of their physical world and community.
Studies have shown that a good parent-child relationship facilitates better performance at school. On the other hand, a poor relationship with our child may lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety, as they develop a lack of purpose when they are older.
How to build a relationship with our child
Spend quality time with them
If we have more than one child, spend time with each of them individually where possible.
Have fun together
Be attentive to what they say
- Give our child our full attention and listen to them.
- Be curious about how they are doing in school — ask them about their friends, teachers, and school activities.
- Offer them advice or guidance where appropriate.
Be generous with praise
Teach them to solve problems independently
We can entrust our child with manageable tasks for them to complete by themselves.
If they face situations where they encounter difficulties, we can try:
- Acknowledging and supporting their efforts to overcome their challenges
- Discussing with them what they can do differently next time
Although it can be tempting to offer solutions to our child whenever they share their problems, doing so might hinder their ability to solve problems independently in future.
We can try:
- Guiding them to come to a decision on their own
Supporting our child as they manage their emotions
We could find out as much as we can about emotions to understand what our child is going through. Through understanding more about emotions, we can better support our child as they learn how to manage their emotions better.
- Avoid brushing their emotions away. Doing so might give the impression that their emotions don’t matter.
- Observe their body language when they are feeling a certain way, such as clenching their fists when they are angry.
- Identify the triggers that may possibly cause our child’s tantrum and encourage them to walk away or calm down. Once they are calmer, they will be better able to identify their emotions.
- Get them to practise deep breathing by pretending that they are blowing a birthday candle.
- Try to help our child identify their emotions and teach them words to describe their feelings (e.g. use words like “I am feeling sad.”).
- Describe how we are feeling as well to let them know how their actions might be affecting others.
- Remind them that their feelings, should not be expressed in a way that hurts others.
- Encourage them to check in with their body and notice sensations that may be associated with certain emotions. For instance their face may start feeling hot and their muscles get tensed up when they are feeling angry.
As suppressing unpleasant emotions can cause them to linger and make our child feel more depressed and anxious, we should:
- Help them learn to accept all their emotions as natural and not something to avoid
- Help them figure out what caused them to feel a certain way as this could make it easier for them to manage their feelings
- Try to accept their feelings even if we may not fully understand what they are going through, making them feel secure and supported
- Relate to what they are feeling by sharing how similar situations can also make us feel the same way
- Remind them that emotions can arise from many events and situations or even their own thoughts and memories
- Praise them when they share their feelings successfully, showing them that it is normal and important
- Help them consider if things are as bad as they seem, since unhelpful thinking patterns can magnify the negativity of the situation. For example, they may overgeneralise and think, “I have failed once, I will fail for sure again”.
- Help them reframe these negative thoughts into more positive ones.
- Explore with them the best ways to express and regulate their emotions. For example, ask them if they could work off the feeling by playing outdoors.
- Encourage problem-solving by thinking of different ways to respond to challenges. For example, if they feel afraid to try out a new sport, we could say, “What would help you feel brave?”.
- Take them out to do the things they might enjoy, such as listening to music
- Try to ensure that they have at least 9 to 13 hours of sleep, which can help in managing emotions
- Encourage them to exercise, which has mood-boosting effects
- Teach them relaxation skills such as:
- Deep breathing exercises
- Progressive muscle relaxation, where we tense a group of muscles as we breathe in and relax them as we breathe out
- Guided imagery like imagining ourselves at the beach and feeling the warm breeze on skin
How can our child talk about their emotions?
Talking to others about their emotions can help our child explore new perspectives and understand their thinking patterns.
Encourage them to identify people they can talk to
For a start, encourage them to go to the person they feel they can trust, and say, “Can we talk for a minute? I have something to share.”. Sharing how they have been feeling and why they feel that way can help them feel less alone.
Remind them that they can talk about their feelings anytime
We could also explain to them that they don’t have to talk about every feeling they experience, just noticing and naming these feelings are a healthy start.
Enable them to say things like “I feel angry, but I don’t know why.”. The more they talk about their feelings, the easier it gets.
For older children, journaling can also help them process their emotions.
What if our child encounters traumatic events?
Traumatic events like the death of a loved one, domestic abuse and emotional neglect can lead to significant stress, even for children. In the aftermath of these events, we can feel emotions such as fear, shame, guilt, anger and sadness.
Everyone heals from traumatic events in their own time. However, if these emotions are overwhelming and prolonged to the extent that they affect our child and the people around them, it can become a cause for concern.
Common signs that our child feels
overwhelmed by their emotions:
Expressing intense
emotions frequently
Having trouble calming
themselves down
Having trouble identifying
their emotions
Having trouble controlling
their attention
Being impulsive
Useful self-help tools
Helping our teen manage
their emotions
As our teen navigates the challenges of their teenage years, they experience a series of physical and behavioural changes that can evoke all kinds of emotions in them.
As parents, it is important to help our teens work through their emotions as they may have trouble identifying and managing them. Read on to find out more about how we can support our teen.
Support our teen by building a relationship with them
When we have a good relationship with our teen, they are less likely to experience depressive symptoms, have suicidal thoughts or develop conduct problems (eg. lying, losing their temper).
Instead, they will more likely possess a greater self-esteem, a stronger sense of resilience and better mental well-being.
How to build a relationship with our teen
Be sensitive to physical changes during puberty
We could be sensitive with our comments on their body image and dressing. Try to refrain from pointing out anything different about them as it would draw attention to their physical changes.
Instead, give them the opportunity to develop at their own pace and reassure them that what they are going through is normal.
Explore their interests with them
Have fun as a family
These activities encourage family bonding and goes a long way in strengthening family ties.
Remain calm
We can also ask ourselves what our teen might have been trying to communicate to us and take this chance to teach them more effective communication skills.
Understand where they are coming from
When we, as parents, make an effort to understand their frustrations and where they are coming from, we provide them with comfort and counsel.
Respect them as we would want them to respect us
Granting our teen their privacy and respecting the choice they make can help us build mutual respect between parent and teen.
Supporting our teen as they manage their emotions
Find out as much as we can about emotions to understand what our teen is going through. Through understanding and learning more about emotions, we can better support our teen as they learn how to identify and manage their emotions.
This is helpful because teens have been found to sometimes have difficulty identifying emotions. They may experience many emotions all at the same time, including complex and unfamiliar ones.
We can also learn more about our own emotions and be a role model in managing emotions as well.
- Avoid brushing their emotions off.
- Observe their body language and find out the possible behaviours our teen might portray when they feel a certain way. For example, our teen may clench their fists when they are feeling angry.
- If our teen is having trouble expressing themselves, remain calm and avoid talking to them when we are upset. Remember that the goal is to help our teen better manage their emotions.
- Encourage our teen to cool down when they are experiencing overwhelming emotions.
- Find out how else we can help support our teen in identifying their emotions here.
- We can acknowledge our teen’s feelings even if we may not fully understand what they are going through and relate to what they are feeling by sharing how similar situations can make us feel the same way.
- We can praise them when they successfully talk about their feelings to show them the importance of expressing and processing their emotions.
- Find out how else we can help support them in understanding their emotions here.
- Guide them along as they learn to identify and manage their unhelpful negative thoughts here.
- Self-care tips can help us immensely as we learn to manage our emotions. Explore with our teen and guide them along on the various relaxation tips here.
How can our teen talk about their emotions?
Talking to others about their emotions can help teens gain new perspectives and understand how their emotions and thinking patterns came about. We can encourage our teen to talk about their emotions.
What if our teen encounters traumatic events?
Traumatic events are unfortunate events that can cause great amounts of stress to us. We can encourage our teen to talk about their emotions. And if they have difficulty managing their emotions, do seek professional help.
