Understanding your child’s emotions

Shubhangi Warkari is back with another interesting topic, the most difficult situation a parent goes through, not understanding what your child wants to communicate with you.

Most of the times we fail to understand what our child is exactly expressing his concerns, good or bad.

Let us know in this article in detail the different aspects of your child’s emotions while he / she expresses her feelings.

While you begin to read this article, what are your feelings? What is going in your mind? Can you describe and share it effectively? Okay! Let’s take it the other way! How many of us can exhibit and convey the emotions that are wiggling in our mind now?

Well, emotions or feelings are complicated. Especially for a child, who is told not to take their favourite chocolate from any person without asking you, or why you had to leave the game midway after getting an office call.

For children, it’s difficult to understand and label their feelings. Children usually don’t have the vocabulary to talk about how they are feeling. They express their feelings through facial and bodily expressions, behaviour and play. Sometimes, the way of expression of their feelings may be problematic, inappropriate and a shocker too.

Understanding emotions and dealing with them is one of the most important key skills that needs to be inculcated in a child from the right age. Many people will overlook or deny the importance of emotional understanding. But, give it a thought? Doesn’t your emotions affect every minute of your life or how you feel in a day? How you spend your days with the same feeling or sometimes multiple emotions trying to cope up? Do you sometimes feel you behaved or expressed inappropriately? Do you find difficult to take decisions?

Emotions can bring the best or worst in you. In fact, not trying to express feelings, curbing them often leads to emotional turmoil leading one to adapt steps that might affect personal and professional lives, sometimes even going to the extremes.

Understanding how we feel and naming our emotion is the most important step, and harder too. There are many reasons why this is so difficult. We have been told and made to believe that strong emotions should be suppressed. They are the signs of negativity, weakness, and don’t have acceptance in the society or organisations. And, this learning is passed to our children too! But, in the world of complexities, it does not fit.

It is important we begin teaching our children about emotions and feelings as early as possible. We must understand that their feelings will affect the choices they will make in their life, and will make them mentally strong.

Remember, behind every behaviour is a feeling. Children who understand their emotions will have good coping skills to deal with situations that life throws at them. They need to be shown and taught how to manage their feelings in positive and constructive ways. Learning this, often leads to positive attitude and behaviour later in life.

Take these examples, a child who says I’m disappointed or hurt, is better equipped to resolve conflicts, find solutions even in future. A child who can says he is angry with you or doesn’t like a thing, place or person is less likely to show aggressive behaviour or use temper tantrums, than compared to a child who doesn’t express his feelings, and use aggressive ways or throw tantrums to convey his feelings.

Children can be taught to label their feelings in practical and relatable ways. This is the first step in helping them learn to identify their feelings so they convey their emotions and be happy and successful. It will help us to understand their emotions, see the real issue and build a roadmap to address the problem.

http://www.progressiveminds.co/