Parents often wish to have children who come in along with an instruction manual. This is mostly because children are found to behave in myriad ways that always perplex the parent. They are at a loss on how to deal with the changing emotions of their kids. You wish that you would know the exact time to change the diaper that would lift up their mood.

You might also wish that how to convince them to eat their veggies without throwing a tantrum. You might also wish that you could handle their emotions when you tell them that they must stay away from a friend who is a bad influence. Or, you might wish that you know how to drive them towards a certain cause and deal with their flustering angered emotions!

Dealing with Child’s Emotions

Dealing with child ‘s emotions is basically possible through a few stages:

Be aware of the emotional development of the child. You should know that the child is growing up and make sure that you are well informed on what to expect regarding the probable behaviour of the child at his respective age. You can read books or enrol in counselling sessions or attend workshops to get a clear idea on this. The aspects that will be explained to you are:

• How to acknowledge your child’s feelings.

• The best way to deal with negative emotions of your child.

• The details of all the related info and what you ought to do in a given situation

Remember, the most important fact while dealing with child’s emotions are calling for an appropriate acknowledgment of those emotions. That is the beginning part. Given below are the principle factors:

• Recognise and acknowledge the child’s emotion.

• Enhance your intimacy with the child’s emotion

• Give your complete attention as you try to validate the child’s emotion.

• Label the child’s emotion accordingly.

• Draw the necessary limitations with the child’s emotion. 

How to Practice the Rules

The next aspect is putting the above rules into practice. Let us consider this example, where your little one is throwing tantrum in a store as you will not buy her the toy of her choice. She yells and starts throwing things out of your shopping cart. Here is how you can deal with the emotions of the child:

Recognise Child’s Emotions

First acknowledge and recognise the emotion of the child. It must be a blend of annoyance, distress and frustration in her. For the moment put yourself in her shoes and realise her emotions.

Enhance Your Intimacy with the Emotion

Try to empathise with the feelings of your little one. Remember, you cannot and must not label any feeling as bad or unacceptable. So once you empathise, you will be able to connect at a deeper level with your kid. You will be readily able to tell her or him that you can understand how upsetting it is when you do not get the things you want.

Try to Validate the Emotion

Accept before your kid that you realise and understand that it is upsetting for him and you also understand that he really wants the toy.

Now Label the Emotion

Say something like; I can see that you are angry because I cannot get you that toy.

Finally, set limits to the emotion. Be calm as you tell her that I can well understand that you are angry but I cannot let you throw out the things out of the cart just like that. If required, you must sit on the floor or the bench with the kid, as you patiently talk to her.

The objective is to help the child understand that you are there to help her and listen to her. And also you accept her with her feelings and emotions. This will help the kid to understand that it is good to let out feelings but there should be a limit to all.