If you don’t know how to process YOUR emotions when this happens, you will be frustrated, angry, and unable to give your child what he or she really needs.
Kids don’t want to flip out.
They don’t want to throw themselves onto the Price Chopper tiles and spin circles when you won’t buy the cereal with the toy in it.
They don’t want to hurl the Willowtree angel figurine right at the baby’s head.
They don’t want to scream until they sound like someone who smoked a pack a day for 40 years and inhaled some helium.
They don’t even want to tell you that you are stupid and they hate you.
SO WHY DO THEY???
Emotions.
Das it.
They have emotions, and some of those emotions SUCK.
They are SUPER uncomfortable.
And they have very little experience dealing with them.
They literally haven’t learned to process them and regain access to their thinking brains. They need our help. So they melt down.
But so many times, WE aren’t able to give them the space, stability, structure, and safety that they are really asking for.
Because WE have emotions.
And WE HAVEN’T TRULY LEARNED TO PROCESS OURS EITHER.
We get so frustrated, bewildered, and angry at the way our kids act that instead of nurturing and disciplining them, we yell, punish, shame, and scowl.
How are they supposed to figure out how to calm down when they are frustrated when WE ARE LITERALLY SHOWING THEM THE OPPOSITE??
It ain’t easy.
But it CAN be.
It starts with you learning two things:
1. What emotions are, and how do they impact what we and our kids do?
2. How you can literally control what you feel in any given situation.
YOU can be calm and collected no matter how many tiny humans are screaming, naked, or both, even when you are already 15 minutes late.
And when you are calm, you show your kids not only that you love them and accept them no matter how they feel, but also that it is possible to be in a difficult situation and still honor God.
This skill is INVALUABLE.
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