Episode 07: Big Little Feelings

Given our current state of crisis…feelings are on my mind a lot this week. Specifically, little kids’ feelings. My goal this week is to relay the importance of listening to your little ones, especially when they have big feelings, acknowledging their feelings and not trying to change their minds.

This week has been hard for me personally! The Coronavirus pandemic is happening, my husband went out of town yesterday to go snowboarding in Lake Tahoe and I have been struggling with anxiety. 

Throughout my preparation for Chris leaving and going through this Coronavirus situation one thing has become really clear to me: I need to focus on my kid’s feelings right now. 

The other night, I put Grace to bed and had a major lightbulb moment. She was upset about Chris leaving and she said she was going to have a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day! I laughed at this at first and said it was going to be a fantastic, great, wonderful, very good day. She said no, she wanted to have a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day. I said I’ll make it as good as I can. She said, don’t do that, I don’t want you to make it good! I WANT to have a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day. I finally got it!

She didn’t want me to fix it or to suppress her feelings. She was sad because Daddy wasn’t going to be home. She wanted to feel sad, she wanted to have a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day in order to process her sad feeling and I needed to be ok with that. Thankfully, I got it and said ok, you are going to have a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.

I feel like a lot of adults feel uncomfortable when kids express negative feelings. This probably has to do with crying, when babies can’t talk yet, they express their negative feelings with crying. As they get older and start talking, this transitions, but I bet the feeling of dread/alarm/concern rolls over from crying into verbalizing negative feelings. Also, when kids express negative feelings, this is often comes with tantrums or yelling. 

I have been having a hard time with my daughter’s behavior recently. I’ve been reading a lot about how to get your child to listen to you and to obey. All the books I have read have a common theme. They all basically say, firstly, that young children’s brains are not developed like our adult brains, their primitive brain develops first. This is why they are impulsive, cry, hit, yell and why reasoning with a toddler usually gets you nowhere. Secondly, when your child expresses a negative emotion you should repeat back to them what they said.

For example, if your child says, “I don’t want Susie to play with my doll!”

Just say, “you don’t want Susie to play with your doll”.

Don’t reason at this point, just listen. Repeat it a few times until they start to calm down. This makes them feel heard and it validates their feelings. After they calm down, then you can re-direct them. Dr. Karp

When we ignore our kids’ feelings or try to convince them that their feelings are wrong, like I did, we are sending the message that something is wrong with them for feeling that way. Feelings are ok, but bad behavior is not. 

Let’s try to be really gentle with ourselves, our partners and especially our kids this week. Try repeating their comments back to them and see how it goes. In my experience, its pretty powerful stuff. It has really turned the temperature down in my house in the last 2 days. 

Let me know how it goes, check out my Facebook page.  

I hope everyone stays safe, healthy and sane in these next coming weeks!