Helping Your Child Express Their Feelings

​Does your child have difficulty expressing how they are feeling? Is it hard for them to find the words? Children benefit from parental support in helping them make sense of their emotions. Many children can become overwhelmed with their feelings, and with the right parental support children can feel validated, understood and less alone in what they are feeling. Find below four tips to help your child in expressing their feelings. 

1. Active Listen With Your Child. Many parents try really hard to listen, and many are eager to interject with the solution. One of the most valuable things you can offer as a parent is active listening which includes providing your full attention, getting on your child’s level, and reflecting what you have heard. The article from the CDC explains more.
2. Empathize. One of your greatest tools as a parent is empathy. It can be so powerful to feel validated and understood. As a parent think about when another parent really empathized with you, and you felt like they got you. An example of this could be if your child comes home from camp really upset and says they do not want to talk about it, as the parent you could respond “it can feel hard to talk about our feelings and I imagine something upsetting happened at camp today, I am here to listen.”
3. Support Your Child To Use a Coping Tool. Sometimes kids forget about all the tools they have learned at school from their teacher, from a group, or even from you as a parent. Simple tools can include deep breathing through the feeling, drawing or writing out the feeling, and playing out the feeling with figurines. Having a written or drawn out list of the tools can really help as you can simply remind your child to go over and have a look to see what could help. If you do not have a list simply offering verbally some of the options, can help your child start thinking of what would best help them. If your child is having difficulty you can offer to do it with them.
4. Check-in Later. After your child has been able to work through the emotion and feels calmer. You can check-in with them again, and ask them how they are feeling. This simple action can offer a valuable opportunity of reflection of how their emotional feelings shifted before and after, and you can reinforce their ability to use a coping tool to help themselves.

If you need additional support reach out to me I am Nicole Levy and I would be happy to help. Book an initial consult directly though  https://oab.owlpractice.ca/mindfulhealingjourney/booking