Kids can have BIG emotions! Sometimes it’s hard to know what you can do to help, other than just ride it out.
With a little practice, it’s easy to learn how. The answer to ‘how?’ is reflecting feelings. Reflecting feelings is an aspect of reflective listening. It’s a way of communicating with your child by reflecting back to them what you see (or guess) they are feeling. For example, your four year old stamps her feet and begins a tantrum because you won’t let her take her doll’s stroller to Ikea (yes, this was the scenario in my house on the weekend!) You could respond in any number of typical parental ways (and yes, even as a psychologist I do this!) “No, you can’ take it!” etc. The alternative is to use reflection of feelings. For example, “You are so angry right now!” -with an angry tone of voice, you might even stomp your foot as well!
Reflecting feelings really is the cornerstone to managing children’s behaviour and deepening your connection with them. There are so many advantages. These include…
- Increasing your chances of preventing a tantrum or stopping one from escalating (this can also be referred to as helping them stay within their window of tolerance). When children feel heard and understood, they are less likely to escalate their behaviours or tantrum in attempt to really make you get it. Imagine the potential differences in responses from your child. If you were to say “No, you can’t take it!” They are much more likely, I would see definitely more likely to fight back e.g.,., “I have to take it!” As Dan Siegel famously says “Name it to tame it”. Alternatively, saying “You’re so angry I won’t let you take it!” helps them to stop repeating themselves over and over and louder and louder…because you get it.
- Reflecting feelings also helps us manage our emotional response and stay inside our window of tolerance! If we go into fight mode with them, we are both likely to escalate, with each response making the other escalate more and more. Taking the focus off our needs, onto what our child is expressing, takes the heat out of the fight for everyone.
- Helping them increase their emotional intelligence. By giving them the emotional labels for what they are feeling, you help them to increase their emotional self awareness, they are able to learn, for example, ‘when I yell and stamp my feet, when my tummy is tight and my fists are clenched, I’m angry’. This increases their ability to use their words to express anger rather than their body. This is particularly helpful as they get older (think about how many grown adults use their fists instead of their words to express their anger!).
- Helping them feel deeply understood and accepted by you. It also strengthens their bond and connection with you.
- Helps their ‘big’ feelings (anger, sadness, disappointment etc.) decrease in intensity and lose their sharp edges
- Helps them to accept themselves as they are, without the punitive self-judgments many of us are plagued by.
Here are some more examples to help you get the idea…
- Your child abruptly stops drawing on a piece of paper, frowns, crumples up the paper, and throws it down. You could say “hang on, why did you screw that up, it looked great” but your child isn’t going to feel understood by you with a response like that. The drawing wasn’t great to them, and they won’t change their mind about it no matter how many times you tell them it was a good drawing. Their emotion may or may not escalate, but either way, they won’t feel like you understand what they are feeling. Alternatively, you could say “You’re so frustrated that didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to!”
- Your child comes home from school, shoulder’s slumped, head bent down. He looks as if he is about to cry when he says “Eli said I was I look like a girl when I run”. You could say, Eli is just being silly, you don’t look like a girl. No one at little athletics has ever said that”. Again, you’re child is unlikely to feel like you get why they are so sad with a response like this. You could say instead, “Oh honey, you’re so sad right now, what Eli said must have really hurt”. This response also has the ability to help your son open up more. He may then tell you some more about the things that Eli does to make him sad.
- Your child is refusing to go to school. You have no idea why, they just keep yelling “No!” to your every request for them to get ready. You could continue requesting they do things, but this is unlikely to get any response other than no. Alternatively, you could say “Wow, you must really want to stay home from school today, you’re so angry about me asking you to get ready”. This will take some of the heat out of their feelings. Instead of them angrily yelling ‘no’ over and over to your requests, your more likely to get them to open up and tell you about their refusal to get ready for school.
Some tips…
- Just using one reflection of feeling is unlikely to help. You will probably have to say similar things in lots of different ways. E.g.,.,, “You’re so angry!”; “You’re really mad that I said no”; “You think it’s not fair!”
- Sometimes, if kids are on their way to a full blow tantrum, there’s no stopping it. Sometimes you just need to ride it and and be ready with a hug.
- Avoid the word ‘but’. E.g.,.,., “you’re so sad about going to daycare but you always feel ok when you get there” . The ‘but’ just gives the child the message that we don’t really care about their feelings that much, we’re just trying to get to our own agenda. The rationalisations can come later, after you’ve spent a few minutes responding to their feelings.
- Don’t attempt this is your child is in full blown tantrum. This is a time to just wait it out. They’re very unlikely to be able to process what you are saying (or hear!)
Good luck! It can take a while to get the hang of reflecting feelings, but once you do, you’ll be amazed at the impact it has on your child and your relationship with them.
If you would like to read some more on these techniques, this little book is a gem. Say What You See is inexpensive, a quick read, but will help you master the technique in no time.