I wouldn’t generalize this topic with other kids. This is about my own child who will turn 5 in January. He often misbehaves and has difficulty in handling big emotions. His triggers are mostly related to screens- phone or smartwatch. He gets aggressive if we deny him. Rarely he may turn aggressive when overwhelmed with tiredness, hunger or sleep.
When frustrated, kids often lose their control. They may not understand what they are feeling. In such situations telling them to ‘behave’ or ‘stop screaming’ may not work.
Going through online sessions and books from library, I am listing down steps to help me let him learn responding in better way in case of unpleasant situations and to be calm. Because calm kids make happy mom. 🙂
1. Teaching him to identify his emotions
I have to teach my child to identify and name different emotions. He already knows and speaks about basic emotions like sadness and being happy. He can tell me when he is excited. But I have to help him learn to identify big emotions like frustration and anger. I can do that by below methods.
- Identifying and naming my feelings in daily communications. Whenever I get angry, I have to tell him verbally that I am angry instead of acting angry. I can also try labelling other emotions like being proud, disappointed, confused etc.
- Reading and talking about it. He loves books. I can teach him about emotions through his books. Instead of just reading the book, we can discuss whenever there is any emotional aspect in the book.
- Validation and Praise. I need to give him confidence that its okay to experience big emotions. Its a great job if you can come to me and tell me if you are upset or angry. But anger and frustration doesn’t have to be expressed by loudly screaming and kicking. Below calming techniques can help when big emotions kick in.
2. Calming Techniques
Teaching him different ways to calm himself so that he can talk about his feelings instead of loudly expressing them through tantrums. Out of various strategies suggested on internet, I found below 2 most suitable.
- Deep Breathing – Deep breathing, can help increase oxygen flow to the brain and body, which can relieve stress. Practice deep breathing with him when he is calm and happy. Then teach him to take long breaths whenever there are emotional outbursts.
- Counting from 1 to 20 – This would distract him from the current situation and help him calm down.
3. Practice
Practice dealing with unpleasant situations through role plays. Practicing small frustrations, will prepare him to deal with bigger ones.
Whenever kids misbehave, give them a bear hug, validate their emotions and ask them to follow one of the above methods to calm down. Practicing it daily would train their mind to follow this approach intuitively.
Along with above techniques its important that we give calm and soothing environment for our child to deal with his big emotions. Kids don’t misbehave because they want to, its because they cant control their emotions and bodies right then. So before you give them lectures about how badly they are behaving, you need to help them gain balance and comfort them first.
Most of all its very importance to keep your calm when kids are not calm. Only then we can help them regain their balance.
