Working with Your Child's Emotions

Since the heart is where decisions are formed, commitments made, and beliefs established, your child's emotions become an opportunity for parenting. Many parents are afraid of their children's emotions and try to minimize them. It's true that one parental responsibility is to help our children manage their feelings effectively. But, contrary to popular belief, emotions aren't an enemy. They reveal valuable information about what's going on in the heart.

Many children express their emotions freely, giving parents obvious cues to guide their teaching and correction in this area. Some children, however, are more reserved, processing emotions internally without outbursts, tantrums, or crying episodes. Parents of these children must be even more aware of small cues, engage their children in conversation more often, and look for ways to help their children work through life's challenges without clogging their hearts with unresolved emotional residue.

Excitement uncovers what your children get passionate about. Joy reveals what your kids like. Anxiety discloses where your children feel weak or lack control. Sadness pinpoints pain in a child's life. And anger reveals unmet desires, a hurtful experience, or a violation of what they believe is right. Don't back away from your child's emotional intensity. Instead, figure out what else is going on in the heart.

Of course, that doesn't mean that a child who is upset should be allowed to be unkind or hurtful to others. Children who respond with meanness need discipline, but that's not all they need. They also need care and guidance to deal with their emotions in helpful and productive ways.

One mom tells how she began to work on emotion as well as behavior in her discipline. Her ten-year-old daughter was angry because her mom made her do her homework, wanted to check it, and required that she rewrite it. In the past, Mom's approach would be just to be firm and make her do it. This time, though, Mom decided not to be provoked by the angry outburst. While her daughter was still angry, they sat down at the table and Mom said, "Okay, I'm ready to listen."

"You shouldn't be telling me what to do. You're not my teacher. My teacher doesn't care if I turn it in that way."

Mom slowed down the process by suppressing her own desire to argue. She said, "So you're angry because I'm taking control of your homework."

"Yeah. It's my homework and I'm doing fine in this class."

"Okay, let me explain to you what I'm doing. It's true that I'm letting you manage yourself more, and most of the time you do pretty well. Last week though, you didn't turn in an assignment, so I felt like you needed some help. Furthermore, it looks like you've reduced the quality of your work. You used to be much more careful about doing a good job."

Her daughter was still angry, but Mom's refusal to become emotional herself and her willingness to listen produced some positive results. Mom used her daughter's emotion as a flag to identify a deeper issue. Her daughter's emotion as a flag to identify a deeper issue. Her daughter believed Mom shouldn't be involved in schoolwork and the quality of work didn't matter. Mom was able to challenge both those ideas, but only because she took time to listen and discuss without intensity.

"But I can't have a calm conversation with my kids," you might say. It's true that many families have developed such strong patterns of yelling, arguing, and fighting that change is a challenge. In those cases, larger doses of listening and even breaks in the dialogue that allow the child and parent to think for a bit before returning are necessary to get things back on track.

Emotional intensity signals something significant is going on in the heart. When life is moving at a calm, expected pace, emotions typically bounce around in a small range. It's when things are going exceptionally well or terribly awful or surprises happen (both good and bad) that children react emotionally. The intensity of the highs and lows varies from personality to personality.

Some parents are hesitant to move into this area of emotions because they're afraid it will open the door for their children to be rude, mean, and disrespectful. Children need firmness, and parental control is good for teaching self-control. The heat of the moment is rarely a good time to discuss emotions, but look for other times in life to help children process and understand how they feel.

Kids long to connect with others, but many don't know how. Emotions are an essential tool for understanding and building relationships. Teach your children how to see, understand, control, and relate to emotions and you'll give them a gift they'll use for the rest of their lives.