Normalize emotions and help your child learn how to process them
At a time when physical health is a high priority for everyone, it’s just as important to prioritize emotional health. Helping your child identify, reflect on, and share their feelings is critical for their overall wellbeing. Emotional check-ins with kids are a powerful way to help them reduce anxiety and feelings of isolation. With the added stress of distance learning, cancelled activities and missing their friends, many young students are suffering emotionally and struggle to explain how they feel. They may be more sensitive, cry more often, misbehave, have trouble sleeping or waking up on time. These are some of the signs that children need emotional support*. Regular check-ins with mom or dad are valuable life lessons for children and help build resilience.
Create Structure
A daily check-in isn’t difficult to do, and it doesn’t take very much time. Whether you check-in with each child in the morning before the day begins and/or every evening after dinner, it’s helpful to maintain a level of consistency. Over time, having these quality moments together will become something to look forward to and cherish looking back.
Whenever you check-in, give your child your full attention for five to ten minutes. Help your child communicate their feelings using one of these structured check-ins or create your own:
- Internal weather report – “If your mood were the weather, what would it be?”
- Number scale – “Rank your mood today on a scale from 1-10 with 1 being worst/negative mood and 10 being best/positive mood”
- Highs and lows – “What was your high and low of the day?”
- Rose, bud, and thorn – “What was your rose (best thing that happened today), bud (something they are looking forward to), and thorn of the day (worst part of the day)?
Follow up with open ended questions for them to explore their feelings further. Keep timing in mind. Don’t try to have a deep check-in right before rushing off to an appointment. If you feel that a more in depth conversation with your child is required, make sure there is uninterrupted time set aside to explore those feelings. Be present and free of distractions during the conversation so your child knows they are being heard. Leave your phone on silent and out of sight.
Know Thyself
Take time before checking in to reflect on how you’re feeling, and set your intention to listen and not react. A successful habit of daily check-ins with your child starts with an environment of support, trust, and respect where every feeling is valid and can be expressed. This is probably the hardest part – can you remain calm and neutral when your child is angry or sobbing? Do you tell your child not to feel sorry for themselves or to stop crying? Are you able to set aside the stress of your day while you sit with your child? The point is to let your child express any emotion they may have, while they count on you to listen and validate what they’re feeling. When you can remain calm and sit with your child as he expresses strong emotions, you are giving your child an opportunity to release the power of those feelings so he can more appropriately respond to the situation.
This Too Shall Pass
The point of these conversations is to normalize feelings. Celebrate your child’s feelings of accomplishment by praising their effort, not the outcome. When he shares stories about his day, admire the qualities of compassion, patience, kindness and forgiveness. These are the habits of an emotionally healthy person.
On the other hand, if your child is sad or angry, let her know it’s ok to feel that way. You don’t have to fix the problem; in fact, this is not the time to come up with solutions. What you’re doing is showing your child that she is going to be ok, no matter what she is feeling at the moment. If the emotion is particularly strong, after some time, help your child recover by taking big breaths and slowing exhaling. Physically, taking deep long breaths slows the heart rate and relaxes the body. Breathe with your child, and you’ll notice its calming effect.
By identifying feelings, letting them exist and then letting them go, we help our children become more resilient. So much energy is wasted and so much stress is created trying to control and suppress what we often refer to as negative emotions. The practice of mindfulness has shown that when we allow these feelings to just be, they don’t take hold of us the same way. What a precious gift to give our children.
