“I want them to tell me how they’re feeling”
This is one of the most common desires I hear from parents. There are many reasons why children struggle with openly expressing their feelings. No matter the reason, one way adults can encourage children to talk about their feelings is modeling what it looks like. If you’re asking a child to be open, honest, and talk about their thoughts and feelings, I’m wondering do you do the same?
Adults may think we need to protect children from our negative emotions, which causes us to hide when we’re upset, disappointed, sad, frustrated, annoyed, etc. What we are really doing is teaching our children that when we feel any negative emotion, we have to hide it. This causes the problem we are hoping to avoid in the first place. INSTEAD, we need to model what it looks like to work through difficult situations and feelings. We need to model what it looks like to take deep breaths when we get upset. We need to model what it looks like to be vulnerable to openly talk about and address positive and negative emotions and experiences.
How do we do that?
The next time you may feel a certain way, name it and model what it looks like to work through it. If you are feeling frustrated, you may say “I am feeling frustrated right now so I’m going to take a 10 minute break and when I’m calm enough I will come talk with you.”
If you’re not sure how to work through the emotion you have, it is okay! You may model this by saying “I’m feeling pretty disappointed right now, and I’m not sure what to do.” You may even find that your child will teach you the coping skills you or their counselor taught them!
People learn from the people they are around the most. Have you ever been around a person and found yourself talking or thinking the way they do? That is exactly what happens with children. They learn from us whether they are aware of it or not. We can’t ask children to openly talk about their feelings, if we, as adults, aren’t willing to do the same. If you have questions or specific situations you need help modeling, talk with your child’s therapist on how to appropriately express your thoughts and feelings.
