Helping Small Kids Deal With Big Emotions
Antoinette Steyn • November 30, 2020
Things you can do with your child at home to contribute to their understanding of emotions:
- Play role play games. E.g. where you get sad in the game and your child has to comfort you or where you get excited in a game and your child has to learn to be happy with you.
- Create tools for your child to support difficult emotions like anger and sadness. E.g. Use a “Time Bottle” (bottle of water and glitter) and give it to your child as a tool. When your child is very angry he or she can take the bottle, after a good shake, and sit somewhere in a quiet space until all the glitter settles down in the bottle. This “time bottle” can be used for different situations where the child needs some time to reflect, calm down or even be calmed. Other coping strategies can include having a break and jumping on the trampoline. Another example is to do something comforting for your child when he/she is sad like him/her going to their “favourite spot” in the house, which you can create in his/her room. I created a “reading corner” in my child’s room. Whenever he needed time alone he adapted the behaviour of going to his “reading corner” and sitting quietly whilst paging through his favourite books or playing with a favourite toy such as building blocks.
- Start teaching your child appropriate ways to deal with feelings that are uncomfortable. Children need to be taught that just because they feel angry, they can’t simply break things or hit someone. Instead, they need to learn skills to manage their anger and resolve conflict peacefully. This is often achieved if they can be taught to verbalise their feelings.
- Keep on encouraging your child to make use of words to express how they feel. This can also assist them to stand up for themselves without lashing out and retaliating.
- It is important to reinforce your child’s positive behaviour with consequences which is also positive. When you find that your child is verbalising his emotions in a certain situation praise their efforts.
- Keep on modelling healthy behaviour and emotional reactions as a parent. Verbalise some of your emotions as well to use as an example for your child. E.g. “I am so mad that car almost bumped into us and I really got a fright” take deep breaths and calm down so that your child can see that you deal with your own emotions and feelings. When you get mad as well and shout at the other car, your words afterwards in trying to explain yourself to your child are likely to fall on deaf ears.
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