Raising emotionally healthy children who will live their BEST life..
Over the past year and a half, children have been forced to spend more time indoors than ever before, and this has had tremendous effects on their ability to regulate their emotional responses to both their own stress and that of others.
Inside: Kids need love for healthy development in all areas. Here are 72 Fun and Easy Ways parents can show love for children every day.
“Mom are we going to make the trail again?”
We were sitting on the front porch in the middle of July as my 5-year-old asked me this. I didn’t have the faintest clue what he was talking about.
“You know, the trail of hearts that goes from my bed to breakfast downstairs?
It took me a few seconds, but then it clicked. He was talking about the sweet (but not so sanitary) little tradition I had randomly started a few years ago of putting down a trail of candy conversation hearts from the kids’ beds down to the breakfast table.
At first glance, I thought it was the candy for breakfast component that had them waiting in eager anticipation for our simple ritual, but after a couple of years, I realized it was something else.
This simple act of love left a positive emotional imprint that lasted must longer than the 2 minutes it took me to scatter the mediocre tasting candies.
My children loved to wake up to something made by me, just for them.
While it’s somewhat easy to be intentionally thoughtful on special or celebratory days, let’s be honest, being intentional about showing love for children during day to day life can get lost in the mix of… well surviving.
The thing is though- for your child, being loved is a means of emotional survival.
In human development, it’s been well documented that a child comes into the world with the vital primary needs of safety and security, and gets these needs met through responsive and attuned attachments caregivers.
Essentially, the thousands of small moments of love you show your child throughout their early life, build the foundation for their emotional health and future relationships.
Emotion scientist Barbara Fredrickson describes the importance of showing love to your kids:
These moments of positive connection that parents can develop with their kids are, as an affective neuroscientist described, like fertilizer for the brain. They support brain development and social skill development. One of the most important things we can give to our kids is that caring attuned attention.
Making it a priority to demonstrate love for children clearly and regularly has the following benefits according to research:
Showing kids love doesn’t have to be elaborate or fancy, and in fact, it can most definitely happen in the small moments of daily life.
Here are 72 ways you can show love for children (and boost their emotional well-being) today!
Showing love for children doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be intentional. This list will help you remember how important small daily acts of love are to your child, and just how you’llll be able to make them happen.
Related>> How to Build an Unbreakable Bond with Your Child
Related resource::: Give your child the lifelong superpower of emotional regulation skills with the Calm Kids Set
Related read >> How to use Your Child’s Love Language to Make Special Days more Meaningful
Demonstrating love for a child doesn’t need to come with a big price tag. As your family’s schedule (and the stresses of the world) ebb and flow, work with the time and resources you have.
This poem from Diane Loomans always hits home for me and helps me shift my mindset to slow down and make sure I’m showing love to my kids every day.
Other parenting articles you’d love:
75 Awesome Calm Down Strategies for Kids (that they’ll actually want to try!)
The Best Mindset for Parenting a spirited Emotionally Intense Child
10 Insights of Remarkable Parents from a Family Therapist
Easy Ways to Bond With Your Child (even when there’s no time in the day)
10 Everyday Ways to Improve Your Child’s Mood and Behavior
Inside: These healthy daily routines for parents encourage positive, mindful parenting that raises well-adjusted and emotionally healthy children.
I fondly remember the days of staying up till 2 am only to wake up at 6, throw my hair up in a ponytail, grab a PopTart, and head out the door to class/work.
I mean, how did I not even need the coffee??
If you find yourself musing “How do I get my child to listen?!” on a semi-regular basis, congratulations!! (Yes, I really mean that.)
“I don’t understand my math problems at all and now my day is ruined!”.
My 10-year-old daughter tends to be a bit of a ‘black and white’ thinker.
In her quickly moving mind, most situations are deemed either all good or all bad within a matter of seconds, and she struggles to see the grey possibilities that exist in-between.
Will we have to wear masks at school?
Can we still have recess?
Will online school be the same as it was last time (in the Spring)?
This was only the tip of the ‘question iceberg’ that surrounded our family’s recent discussion of what might take place during the upcoming school year.
While each family will select the school option that’s best for them and their children, there is one variable that all children will have in common heading into Fall, the uncertainty of what’s to come.
Why is this important to address? Because biologically, uncertainty wreaks havoc in the brain of your child affecting both their academic learning as well as their emotional well-being and mental health.
Basically, uncertainly equals anxiety, and an anxious brain is a brain NOT ready to listen, learn, socialize, and focus throughout the day.
The difficulty human beings have handling uncertainty isn’t particularly surprising given the fact that security, safety and predictability are all very basic human needs.
It’s not hard to see that humans value control above almost all other capacities. We admire others who are in control, and we congratulate ourselves as we learn to control our personal circumstances (or have the illusion that we can control them).
The effect of uncertainty on the human mind has been studied at length, and time after time the results are the same; humans would actually prefer knowing a negative consequence will happen to not knowing if the consequence will be positive or negative.’ Pretty crazy right?
The good news is, this same research also shows that while humans may be averse to uncertainty, we can learn to live within it, and your child can too.
While you can’t prevent uncertainty in your child’s life, you can help to equip them with powerful tools that will allow them to cope and thrive within it.
Here are 5 simple ways you can help your child to feel more confident and prepared heading into the uncertain schoolyear ahead.
If you ask yourself how many important conversations you have about significant life events relating to your child’s life, how many of these conversations have you included your child in?
As your child gets older and has the ability to verbalize and think critically about the topic at hand, it’s time to show them the respect of asking their opinion.
This doesn’t mean they get the final say. After all, you’re the leader of the family and ultimately decide what’s best.
It does mean that you’ll gain a better understanding of your child’s point of view on the matter and can then work to collaborate and gain mutual understanding of the final choice moving forward.
If there was ever a time to normalize emotions, now is it. The world is emotionally charged, providing the perfect opportunity to teach your child about different emotions and healthy ways they can cope with them.
This happens simply by asking your child often, “how are you doing today? How have you been feeling?” (these emotions flashcards are a great resource for this)
Read books and offer visuals depicting different emotions and normalize and validate all of their feelings (even the ones that make you uncomfortable). Listen, listen, listen.
When your child has an outlet for their emotions not only will they feel more connected to you, they’ll be preventing anxiety and depression that can creep up when emotions are bottled up.
In addition to talking about their emotions, your child’s stress needs a physical outlet as well.
Providing opportunities each day for activities that act as natural stress relievers is a guaranteed way to help them blow off steam and lighten the load their nervous system is carrying.
Some activities that are powerhouses for relieving stress are physical exercise, doing anything out in nature, and having periods of time for them to choose what they play (not including screens).
Sounds simple, but building these activities in daily takes dedication, planning, and prioritizing on your part which is often easier said than done.
While coming up with a plan for the upcoming months has likely left you feeling less than confident many days, when you’re ready to deliver the news to your child, it’s time to put your game-face on.
It’s easy to forget that you set the emotional tone for your child when you begin an important conversation.
If you’re feeling super uneasy or anxious, that’s your cue to get your own confidence and emotion ducks in a row, before communicating with your child.
Honesty with age-appropriate information is good, but without your child feeling an underlying sense of safety and security from you, it will be hard for them to find confidence in the uncertainty.
Focus on the positives and make sure they walk away with the clear message that “We can get through anything together”.
The irony is, the more you need ‘self-care’ the harder it is for you to put it into place. Why? Brains under stress have a harder time seeing the big picture and applying reason and logic.
Your child picks up on so much more than the words you use when sitting down to have a discussion. They pick up on your emotional energy, presence, tone of voice and demeanor.
It’s ok for your child to see you face stress and adversity while experiencing real feelings, but it becomes overwhelming to your child if it becomes commonplace and they feel the captain of their ship is not ready to be at the wheel.
Create boundaries with your child and make sure they’re not absorbing ongoing exasperating phone calls and conversations about stressful topics.
Find outlets for your stress and work through your own emotions so they’re not inadvertently dumped on your child.
While the months ahead are likely not what any of us would have chosen, it’s an opportunity to learn and teach a powerful lesson. While we often can’t control the circumstances around us, we can still choose to control how we respond to it.
With your support, your child can come out of the uncertain year ahead with more confidence and resilience than they had going into it.
Sign up below to gain life-changing insights and strategies on discipline without damage, helping your child manage their emotions and the best way to get your child to listen.
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Parenting an Angry Child? 10 Possible Reasons Why
10 Simple Everyday Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Mood
The Best Way to Help a Child Deal with Anger Now (and throughout life)
Between my friends, clients in my therapy practice, and the Parents with Confidence Facebook community, I’ve seen a strong reoccurring theme these last few weeks with kids.
There’s a good chance you’ve seen it with your child too.
“I feel sad and angry sometimes and I don’t really know why.”
“He keeps freaking out on me ALL THE TIME and I don’t know what to do.”
“Little things that never bothered her before are causing her to completely fall apart.”
While there doesn’t seem to be much everyone can agree on right now, one thing we surely can is that we’re all living in a stressful time.
Have YOU been feeling unsettled, unfocused, and overwhelmed lately (I can’t be the only one)?
Now just imagine how your little people feel, as they are waaaay more dependent on consistency, predictability and stability to provide them with a vital sense of safety and security.
When your child’s brain’s sense of safety is threatened, it activates their brain’s emotional center, or amygdala, cueing more emotional outbursts.
Everyone’s emotional house is crumbling a bit right now, which really isn’t all that surprising is it?
So what’s the first and more important thing a parent can do when dealing with their child’s emotional outbursts?
Stop acting like they shouldn’t be having an outburst.
Here’s the thing. Your child will have a very difficult time successfully working through (aka getting done with) their emotional outbursts if you’re not creating an environment that allows and welcomes emotions (and especially big ones).
I know it’s uncomfortable when your child cries and I also know that your brain goes into panic/stress/anger overload when your son whacks your daughter with a piece of his Hot Wheels Track.
This happens because you are a good parent and you are HUMAN.
You want to protect your child from pain and discomfort and care about them so much that you become emotionally overwhelmed right alongside them!
While this may be our instinctive (and learned in many cases from a childhood where our emotions were dismissed) reaction, it’s not a helpful or healthy one when it comes to raising an emotionally intelligent child.
Because emotions are actual physical-chemical responses in your child’s brain, Resisting, and trying to force them away does not work.
When it comes to calming an emotional child, the only way out of an emotional outburst is through.
We are certainly good at acting as if we have the power to stop the emotional fireworks from being set off though aren’t we?
“You’ll be ok, you’re not going to die from it!”
“It’s not that big of a deal, you’ll be fine“
“Knock it off, that’s enough!”
Take just a quick second to think about how you’d feel if your partner/friend etc responded to your tears or anger with those phrases.
Pretty eye-opening isn’t it? Not to mention epically disrespectful AND unhelpful.
Related resource:: The Magical Phrase to Use with Fighting Kids {Printable}
Your child’s dismissed and invalidated emotions aren’t going anywhere good (ignoring them enough will send them to the subconscious mind where they can fester into anxiety and depression) so it’s time for you to ‘suck it up’ (see what I did there?) and learn how to get a little more zen when your child’s emotions start to fly.
1. Reflect on how you show up when your child’s emotions become escalated. Do you become emotionally heightened right alongside your child and begin to yell? Or do you tend to shut down and move away from them?
This is likely your default mode for responding to stress, or how you react when your limbic system starts to activate ‘fight, flight, or freeze’ mode.
Knowing your own tendencies and reactions when you become overwhelmed, will allow you to explore whether or not that pattern is going to be helpful for your child. When it comes to fostering your child’s emotional regulation skills, coming alongside them as a calm steady guide is always the most helpful approach.
2. Reflect on where your patterns or reactions come from. When you were young did your caregivers quickly shut down your emotions communicating they were intolerable? Many of us heard the common phrases “Stop crying!” “Just deal with it” “Tough it out” and learned that emotional expression needs to be extinguished.
Perhaps by nature, you’d consider yourself a very emotional person. As a highly sensitive person (or HSP), I’ve learned that I’m affected more deeply and intensely by the big emotions of my children.
Exploring both nature and nurture will help you better understand yourself and become more intentional about the way you react to your child in stressful circumstances.
3. Count to 10 and repeat a helpful mantra in times of stress. When your brain is stressed, it likes to default to old (and oftentimes unhelpful) habits. You need to steer it in the right direction and the best way to do this is with your thoughts.
Give yourself a phrase or mantra to repeat often such as ‘Pause, and let it be’, ‘I can handle this’, ‘breathe and allow their emotions to come’ etc.
Remind yourself that the only healthy way ‘out’ of emotion is going through it. Emotions are meant to be noticed, felt, and listened to as they communicate so many helpful things to us!
These 10 seconds will allow your brain’s stress reaction to calm down and will model for your child that emotional expression is healthy and acceptable and that their emotions are not too big or scary for you to handle.
Only when you successfully make space for their emotional expression first can you move into the ‘hands-on’ part we all like to jump to, talking to your child and helping them to cope.
A simple phrase that validates their emotion will go far to help them feel seen and heard, “I see you’re very upset and I’m here” is a great validating phrase for many situations. In situations where your child is expressing their emotions in ways that are physically or emotionally unsafe a limit is still needed.
It’s possible to provide both reassurances of their emotions and set a limit on their behavior at the same time. “It’s ok to be mad but it’s not ok to hit your brother. I’m here to help”.
Related resource:: The ‘Calm Kids Set’ will teach you everything you need to know to foster emotional regulation skills in your child and it’s 40% off for a limited time. Grab it here.
The question of how to raise an emotionally intelligent child is a life-changing one, and it starts with the ’emotional atmosphere’ they internalize in their everyday environment.
While stress is at an unprecedently level right now for both adults and children alike, instead of viewing this in only negative light, we can see it as an opportunity to grow and expand ourselves as parents, and to foster invaluable social and emotional skills for our children.
Healthy emotional development in children starts with the foundational concept that our emotions are meant to be acknowledged and accepted.
Oftentimes in parenting, ‘listening to your instincts’ is a helpful concept. For many of us, responding to our child’s emotional outbursts is a exception to this rule.
The good news? Raising an emotionally healthy child that will live their best life, can start with the small simple step of practicing going against your ‘instinctual grain’, during your child’s emotional outburst today.
Sign up below to gain life-changing insights and strategies on discipline without damage, helping your child manage their emotions and the best way to get your child to listen.
Other articles you’ll love:
75 Awesome Calm Down Strategies for Kids that Work
10 Anxiety Symptoms in Children That Most Parents Miss
Parenting an Angry Child? 10 Possible Reasons Why
10 Simple Everyday Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Mood
The Best Way to Help a Child Deal with Anger Now (and throughout life)
It’s the difference between a confident child and an insecure one, a cooperative child and a defiant one, one that agrees to set the table and one that scoffs (ok, most of them scoff either way but what’s important is that they still set the table). [Read more…]
Inside: Learn the best and most effective parenting phrase to use when intervening with kids fighting or any type of day to day family conflict.
Emotions are running high right now for your family. I know this because they’re running high in mine too.
“Stop it!”
“Mom, she said she hated me!”
“Well, I never want to play with you again anyway!”
…and that all happened on the other side of the bathroom door in a 30-second time span of the kids fighting.
With everyone at home together all. the. time. stress levels are at an all-time high, making it truly difficult for all parties involved (small or large) to keep their cool and practice good communication and emotional regulation skills.
We know from studying the brain that when emotions get bigger, reason and logic get smaller. This happens because when the brain’s emotion-center (amygdala) is activated the thinking center’ (pre-frontal cortex) quite literally goes ‘off-line’ and is harder to access. (Think of when you’re really nervous and your mind blanks.)
Your kids are not exempt from the stressors piling up around us right now. Unpredictability abounds and all of the routines and structures that keep kids emotionally tethered have been taken away.
For many families, this means sibling fighting is at an all-time high.
I want to share the magic phrase that has been a lifesaver for me during this time at home with my kids and family.
When it comes to children fighting (or any two parties communicating positively) there’s a primary skill I learned in my family therapy training that works like magic.
This approach works so well because as opposed to most attempts at conflict resolution, it avoids blaming and criticism which puts the other person on the defensive.
It also effectively communicates what the individual needs, which is a vital part of resolving conflict that often gets left out.
Finally, it’s an amazing way to help your child build self-awareness, emotional intelligence, problem-solving skills, and communication skills that will help their future relationships thrive.
So what is this amazingly powerful strategy to use when kids are fighting?
The basic concept is what’s known as an “I statement”, or making sure to start your phrase with an ‘I’ instead of “You”….but it doesn’t stop there.
There’s a specific ‘I statement’ phrase that can be used in just about any situation where tensions are rising with siblings fighting or in any family conflict.
Sibling conflict often feels overwhelming to address as a parent, which leads to parents either avoiding their kids fighting all-together or quickly jumping in to manage and negotiate the conflict for them.
Both approaches fall short when it comes to teaching a child the valuable conflict resolution and communication skills they need to get along with others.
The power of an ‘I statement’ is pretty remarkable. Not only does it streamline communication in a way that side-steps arguments, put-downs, and negativity it’s also very easy to remember.
If you make this magic statement a habit, your brain will file it away as the magical tool it is, and you’ll have it in your back pocket ready to dissolve any sibling conflicts that pop up.
This phrase is golden because not only does it start with “I feel’ which keeps the focus on the child speaking and not on attacking the sibling, but it also proceeds to deliver information about the WHY behind their emotions and the NEED or BOUNDARY that lies beneath.
Your new favorite sentence:
I feel ________ when ________ and I need you to please _________.
Pretty amazing right?!?
Here are some examples.
“I feel overwhelmed when you talk to me while I’m doing my homework and I need you to give me 10 minutes.”
“I feel angry when you call me stupid and I need you to not call me names.”
“I feel left out when you play with Sam more than me and I need some playtime with you too.”
It’s all but impossible to be reactive or negative with someone when they are genuinely communicating about their own experience, thoughts, and emotions.
This miracle phrase for kids fighting (or anyone in distress!) dissolves defensiveness and reactivity while also equipping the other child with the specific information they need to move forward positively (talk about killing two birds with one stone!).
:::: Related Resource >> Grab my Positive Discipline Set for 40% off (all the tools you need to start your journey of discipline without emotional damage)
So often we tell kids what not to do while forgetting that they need teaching and guidance on what they should do.
Not to mention each child is learning invaluable lessons in the process:
Simply prompting your child with this phrase whenever you hear tensions rising, will work miracles to help resolve family and sibling conflict.
With time and repetition, you’ll soon be able to whip this phrase out on auto-pilot… and what’s even better is that will time and repetition your kids will start to use the phrase unprompted on their own!
Now go enjoy a calmer home!
Here’s a peek at it…
Other parenting articles you’d love:
10 Insights of Remarkable Parents (from a family therapist)
75 Calming Techniques for Kids that work {printable}
Positive Parenting Isn’t Working? Here are 7 eye-opening reasons Why
5 Ways to Raise Good Listeners (without yelling or negativity)
I wake up most days feeling full of energy and ready to take on the challenges ahead.
I get the kids fed and ready to start their day…and have my first of 597 cups of coffee (all of them equally amazing). Things are OK.
As the afternoon wears on, by about 3 pm I can start to feel the energy drain from my body. I get slow and lethargic and my limbs feel heavy.
So much for exercising or cleaning the kitchen floor…
I hate this feeling. I hate feeling tired, unproductive and irritable. There are still things that need to be done, darn it.
The day wasn’t supposed to go this way…
Maybe it’s the opposite for you. Mornings might find you feeling like a wet blanket…and then by lunch, you somehow work up the motivation and positive energy to play with your kids or do the laundry.
Here’s the biggest lesson I’ve been learning in all of this stay-at-home craziness:
Wherever I’m at emotionally is OK.
While this may seem simplistic at first glance, accepting moods and emotions just as they are, has proven very challenging for us human beings.
Especially when you’ve been taught throughout your life that to feel SAD, MAD and SLOW isn’t OK.
We internalize all of those ‘don’t cry’s and ‘you’ll be ok’s’ and ‘be tough’s’…and now we’re fully grown adults who get mad at ourselves for having very normal and healthy emotions.
Why does this matter?
During my clinician training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (basically just a popular curriculum for teaching mindfulness developed by Jon Kabat Zinn), I learned that this phenomenon is a concept known as ‘secondary pain’ and it matters A LOT because when you RESIST and FIGHT your emotions, you end up making things 10 times worse.
60 Bedtime Activities that make Bedtime Easy + Fun! {Printable}
Not only are you experiencing the discomfort of your primary emotions… you then invite in a bunch of guests known as ‘secondary emotions’ to the party.
What does fighting or resisting your emotions look like? Well, it can look like all of these things and many more: beating up on yourself internally, excessive anger, numbing with screens, food, shopping, alcohol, exercise, or distracting yourself with work.
Essentially, instead of being present with and allowing yourself to feel emotions of overwhelm, sadness or anger you dig an ’emotional hole’ that ends up being much much deeper.
Here’s a quote that I’ve been holding close right now:
“The best way out is always through”
It’s a quote from the poet Robert Frost, but it’s been adapted in many contexts to symbolize the importance of allowing ourselves to feel our emotions… in order for that emotion to pass in a healthy and natural way.
After all… that’s what our emotions are designed to do. To come and to go, while serving the purpose of communicating something to us.
Emotions as a chemical reaction only exist for a mere 90 seconds.
Related > 10 Insights of Remarkable Parents from a Family Therapist
So, while I hate my mid-afternoon energy slump and not getting any cleaning or exercise in, I’ve been getting a whole lot of practice learning how to soften and accept, after my initial knee-jerk response of irritation and frustration.
This usually sounds something like this,
“It’s ok that I feel yucky right now. It’s understandable. There’s a lot going on and I did the best I could today. My body and emotions are trying to tell me to slow down and I don’t need to fight this”.
I’m doing my best to roll with the waves of my emotions, preventing them from becoming a tsunami.
After all, life is offering up plenty of ’emotional tsunami’s’ right now as it is.
Related > 25 Mindfulness Activities for Kids (they’ll actually want to do!)
Wherever your moods take you throughout the day is OK. If you need to take the afternoon off- for Pete’s sake lie down on the couch for a few hours.
If you need to break down and cry, let those tears flow mama.
If you don’t have the energy to make dinner tonight let the kids eat cereal… for all 3 meals.
If you’re a crabby lunatic for the first hour of ‘schooling at home’, forgive yourself, let it go, and move forward.
If you need to scroll for a bit on social media, don’t stress about it, just be aware of your actions and explore other outlets too.
Listen to what your body and emotions are telling you and find the peace and empowerment that exists in LETTING emotions BE and letting things GO.
This, is the most important self-care you’ll ever do.
Other related articles:
Parenting in a Pandemic: How to Protect Your Child from Stress and Anxiety
How to Raise an emotionally intelligent child
