How To Help Your Child Regulate Their Emotions

As I watched this 12-year-old smash his phone because he was struggling to get the game working and was visibly frustrated. I couldn\’t help but worry about what kind of adult he will become if he is not taught how to regulate his emotions now!

Emotional regulation is one of the challenges parents encounter. Ironically, parents blame their children for how they handle their emotions but in my many years of practice, I have seen that most children regulate their emotions the same way they have been modeled to. So in essence, for a child, emotional regulation is primarily learned at home. Some people will say that they can manage their emotions but in the fact, they are either repressing or suppressing their emotions. Repressing or suppressing emotions is not the same as regulating emotions. You repress your emotions when you UNCONSCIOUSLY put down your emotions and you suppress when you CONSCIOUSLY put down your emotions. A lot of parents find it difficult to manage their emotions so they repress, suppress, or just erupt. When our children behave in the same manner, we have a problem with it. You don\’t realize that it affects the people around you but when they act similarly, you begin to see it as a problem. Managing emotions is an indispensable skill parents need to learn.

Here Are Six Simple Steps to Help Your Child With Emotions Regulation:

1. Labelling Emotions: You can\’t manage your emotions if you can\’t interpret them. This is one of the most important things parents can do for their children but it becomes a problem because most parents do not have an idea of what labeling emotions is all about. Some parents interpret frustration as anger. Some label disappointment as sadness. Teach your child to know what they are feeling at the time. Once you can put your emotions in perspective, you can control other aspects of your life. You won\’t struggle and parenting becomes easier.
2. Recognizing Their Feelings: When your children are still babies, you should be able to label their emotions for them. For example, if your 3-year-old is having a meltdown, you can label the emotions by saying, \” I know you are feeling disappointed because mummy didn\’t give you the toy, right? Or, \” you are angry because daddy said no.” Or, \” you feel sad because we want to leave the park? It\’s okay but this is why we need to leave.” This will help your children to pair their emotions with how they feel and also understand how they feel but if you do not have these vocabularies, you can\’t share them.
3. Explain to Them What Their Bodies Experience When The Emotions Are Ongoing: There are some physical sensations in your body when you recognize how you feel emotionally. For instance, when you are angry, your muscles tighten up or get tensed up. Sometimes your head is foggy and your mouth becomes dry.
4. Validate Their Emotions: Don’t dismiss how they are feeling by telling them things like, \” Okay, there is nothing wrong with you.” Or, \” there\’s nothing to be scared of.” Saying all that is for them to feel better but comments like this make a child think that their feelings must be wrong. Your child will learn not to trust their feelings but it will be more helpful when you acknowledge how they feel. Even so, normalizing their experience by offering suggestions for dealing with the feeling helps, e.g: a lot of children feel nervous on their first day of school. You can say, \” I know you feel scared now. Sometimes what you think will be scary turns out not to be after all. Do you still remember how you handled your first visit to the doctor\’s office?” That\’s validation and there is nothing quite effective as drawing upon real-life lessons.
5. Allow Them To Express Their Feelings Even if They Are Different From Yours: Children who are not allowed to express how they feel will learn that it\’s not safe to express emotions so they learn to repress their emotions. It is wrong for parents to ask their children why they are angry or tell them that they don\’t have the right to get angry. They will still feel the feelings but will continue to shove those feelings deep down until they can\’t fit in any emotions and then, boom! They explode. All those feelings that they have not been able to express will come bubbling up to the surface. When that happens, the parents become surprised by the outburst but the truth of the matter is that the child has been repressing and suppressing his emotions because you\’ve not allowed him to express how he feels.
6. Teach Coping Skills: Many parents expect their children to know how to cope but they can\’t because they are not taught. Before you teach your child, you need to learn. Teach them to;
7. Ask others to help or assist when needed.
8. Take responsibility for the situation.
9. Engage in problem-solving.
10. Positive thinking.

Becoming an Emotionally intelligent parent is one of the major courses we run in the academy.

You can register for the 2023 cohort here

Without Emotional Intelligence you won\’t succeed but struggle. In order to manage your emotions, you need to go through a curriculum because if you don\’t go through a curriculum, you can’t solve the problem. The ability to regulate emotions affects every area of your child\’s life, their education, mental health, relationship with others, ability to bounce back from difficulty, self-esteem, etc. Let your child know that being angry, sad, or disappointed is okay but the key is how you as the parent manage the emotions. These negative emotions are data that the child will need to work on to make himself a better person.

Separate emotions from the behavior so that you can teach appropriate expression of emotion and not stop the expression of the behavior You are the first beneficiary of your ineffective parenting. If you don\’t teach your children these things, the first person they\’ll give it to is you. Before society will come to terms with a child that\’s not responsible, you\’ll experience it first-hand and that\’s how it is with managing emotions.

DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO BECOME THE ADULT YOU ARE?

I remember hearing my father say to me “When I got married, I desired that my children won\’t get this and that of my characteristics”… What he never said to me was if he worked on himself to become a better version of him in those areas but I didn\’t bother because the answers were staring me right in the face.

My father\’s ability to manage his emotions just like many parents in that generation was one of his parenting struggles… He only wished that his children managed their emotions differently but did nothing about it.

We all hated the fact that my father couldn\’t deal with that part of his life and did we want to become like that? None of us wanted that part of him.

I became a parent and found emotional intelligence to be a Core to the overall success of my children; I didn\’t have a well-developed one and boom, I chased it like my life was dependent on it. But I didn\’t just wish it or only pray it, I worked hard to build myself to become a new version of myself.

I will be sharing and walking with parents through all of my processes in the past 10 years of this journey at the BECOMING AN EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT PARENT course coming up at the TIP academy on the 10th of February. You should register Now!

You can register here: https://selar.co/emotionalintelligentparent

That\’s where my favorite quote from my bestseller Connect To Correct originated from “PARENTING IS ABOUT ME NOT MY CHILD”. I understood that if I do nothing as my father did, then I can\’t replicate the results I have today…..I would be in that place where this question will be a struggle.

When you ask yourself this question today “Do you want your children to become the adult you are?

What response comes to mind?

Pause and give a sincere answer…If the answer is neither here nor there, you need to work on yourself before you blame your child.

A few days ago I asked the parents in our inner circle program this same question and most of them sincerely X-rayed themselves on it and gave answers that would change the course of their lives in the next 30 years. In the conversation, a parent said to me “Coach I am weeping reading these, I am making a vow to become all I can, a better version of me”.

Are you committing to becoming better?
I say that if your parenting isn\’t changing you, you are not parenting effectively… My biggest growth in life has been the one that happened between 2010 When I became a parent and now! Parenting became my superpower.

Anytime I look back, I am so grateful I became a parent but you know what? I was working to become better.. Today I can confidently say, I want my child to become the adult I am today. Okay over to you Are you that person you want your child to become? Would a better version of you do your child some More good? You should start today and join our upcoming course. Want more details on the Upcoming course chat : 0903 663 3600