Age has much to do with handling emotions, even though it can also be a matter of individual personalities and nature. When kids start school or meet new people every day, they are likely to come across various new strong emotions like disappointment, anger, fear, excitement, etc. As a parent, your first instinct is to protect your child from everything that disturbs them, but your child must learn to handle the emotions themselves. Having said that, you can help them make things easier. Read to know how!
- Attempt to teach them about emotions
Recognizing feelings and being able to define how they are feeling is the first step in normalizing the strong feelings. If you get to know that your child’s new friends have avoided him today, you might want to express your support by saying, ‘I know you are sad because your friends avoided you today.’ Or if they have scored lower than expected in a test, you can say, ‘I can tell you feel disappointed.’ Having a word to define how they feel will help them rather than staying confused about how they feel.
- Be a model of acknowledging and coping
Even parents go through a variety of unexpected feelings every day, which is something you can use to show your kids while teaching them coping. If you have made some mistake while working, you could share your feeling out loud, saying, ‘I cannot believe I did that, I am so mad at myself right now.’ This is the acknowledging part, after which you can show how to cope by saying, ‘Okay, let’s calm down.’, ‘Things happen.’, or ‘We are only human.’ You can proceed to talk about how you’re going to solve the problem at hand after.
- Don’t avoid big waves of emotions
Often, parents ignore their children when they are shouting or crying at their loudest by calling it ‘tantrums’. Instead, pay close attention to what has caused their frustration in the first place. It could be a result of emotions built over time. At this point, it is your responsibility to stay calm and give them some space. If their crying was a result of something you haven’t bought for them, you might want to say, ‘I know you are upset because I haven’t bought what you wanted, but once you calm down we can find something suitable for you.’
- Try to listen and relate
Give them a safe space to talk about how they feel. Their feelings and problem will indeed feel minute compared to yourself, but you cannot minimize their feelings by saying, ‘It’s nothing to cry about, you will feel okay in an hour.’ Instead, you can listen and relate. If your kid is upset over the treatment of his friends towards him, you can say, ‘I understand you feel sad/angry about how your friend treated you today. Even I get upset when people don’t understand me.’
Conclusion
If you want additional help for your child in helping them build skills and work on their development, you may communicate regularly with their Montessori caretakers too. Montessori nurseries are supposed to provide comprehensive support, including emotional, physical and psychological, etc., for well-being of your children.
