by Holly Hartman
I have a pamphlet from the 1950s that was handed out at hospitals to new mothers, and it’s clear that back then it was believed that infants didn’t experience real emotions like anger, sadness, or even joy. Today it seems unbelievable that anyone could hold a baby who is howling with rage because their pacifier has fallen from their mouth and conclude that the child doesn’t have real feelings! Research over the last thirty years has caught up with what most of us know on an intuitive level; babies do indeed experience a wide range of emotions!
As caregivers, we often feel it’s our job to protect our children from distress and negative feelings. Not only is this not possible, it’s not even in the child’s best interests. Experiencing negative feelings is a part of being human, and learning how to cope with those feelings while we’re young is a key to becoming a healthy adult. The article “First Feelings: The Foundation of Healthy Development, Starting from Birth” at zerotothree.org provided these suggestions for helping our children learn to self-regulate.
Label Feelings
Young children don’t have words yet to express how they are feeling, so when we give a name to their emotion, we let them know that feelings are normal and acceptable.
Listen
When children share difficult feelings, it is important to acknowledge the feeling as real and important. Then you can move on to helping your child managing the feeling appropriately.
Let Them Know All Feelings are OK
We don’t make unpleasant feelings go away by ignoring or denying them, so practice allowing the child to express their emotions while you listen or just stay present with your child.
Teach Coping Tools
We can show our children how to stomp their feet or run a lap. We can support them to take tiny steps toward the unfamiliar when they are afraid, like visiting a new school before the first day. Think of this as helping children build an emotional tool-box that will grow with them throughout their lives.
Manage Your Stress
A child’s meltdown frequently leads to our own negative emotional reactions. When we caregivers pay attention to our feelings and cope with them successfully, we model healthy behavior and resiliency for our children, and find ourselves better equipped to weather the storms of family life successfully.
Learn more about The Basics at https://thebasics.org/
Holly Hartman is an early childhood educator, author, and member of Stillwater’s Early Childhood Coalition, Inc.