Letting Kids See How We Manage Emotions

My daughter came home from school one day and asked me to help her with her math homework. We sat down at the table, got out her worksheets and began to work through the problems. Math is not her easiest subject, though she tries her hardest to figure it out. As we sat down and began, I realized I knew what the answer was, but I couldn't explain how to get there. I tried my best, but my words did nothing other than confuse her. A solution came to my mind. Maybe if my words are not communicating how to solve the problem, my ability to actually do it in front of her would be more helpful. Finally, she got it! She looked at me and told me that it was easier for her to understand watching me solve the equation. That's when it clicked for me. The easiest way for my girls to understand how to deal with emotions is not for me to tell them, but for them to see me work through my own.

Ability to show emotion

Let's begin with the ability to show emotion around our children. Emotions are a human reaction to anything, whether that's sadness, happiness, anger, joy, or excitement. One of the biggest mistakes we can make is keeping our emotions bottled up. Whether they are good or bad, they are important to express. Not only is it good for us to express them, it's also beneficial for our children. Being vulnerable with our kids! It is not necessarily easy to share our feelings with our children, or even our natural response, but it is extremely valuable for their well being. Our kids need to start by seeing us as who we are, not who we want to portray, at least to an age appropriate level. They need to see that emotions are healthy and normal, not weird and embarrassing. They need to know that all humans have feelings, including adults.

How kids respond to feelings

The biggest issue that kids deal with is how to respond to feelings. Too often they will shy away when starting to feel emotions, afraid of what others might think. Kids take anger out in the form of aggression, whether that's verbal or physical. They don't quite understand yet how to speak to others through their anger and work things out. When their hearts start to feel sad, they push others away, instead of allowing us to come alongside of them in their pain. Our job as parents are to guide them in every aspect in life, which includes emotions and how to react to them. It's our job to teach them to express their feelings in a healthy way.

Teaching the correct response

Let's say my child hears my husband ask me to clean the dishes while he is away at work. He leaves for the day and I choose to do everything but the dishes. At the end of a hard day of work, he comes home to see not one dish cleaned. He would be upset with me for disregarding the one task he wanted to be done.  Our daughter is there watching what he is going to do next. She could see him yell at me and say hurtful comments for not doing the one thing he asked me to do. Or, she could see him express his anger by explaining why it hurt him. We could all be sitting and watching a movie as a family. All of a sudden I'm hit with sadness over how a friend treated me the following day. My child asks why I'm upset, because naturally kids care. I could either say that people suck and they're underserving of our love and forgiveness. Or I could explain that even though people hurt us, we show them love and grace anyways. The next time our child becomes angry or sad with their sibling or friend at school, they will at least think through the way they saw mom and dad deal with that same emotion. Whether the proper way to handle a situation is engrained in them yet or not, they are slowly learning how to have emotions, and deal with them.

We are the parents

Once we decide to bring our own children into the world, we are now responsible for them. We are responsible for teaching them the best we can. How to love others and how to be a good human being. It's our job to show them that who we are isn't measured by the emotions we have, but how we express them.

We as parents have the ability to raise up a generation of people who are known by their love and respect, and that is an amazing responsibility!