Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / From Meltdowns to Mindfulness: How to Support Your Child’s Emotional Regulation

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From Meltdowns to Mindfulness: How to Support Your Child’s Emotional Regulation · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Through these small bites of self-visation and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, thank you for taking some time to be here with me.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And today I want to tackle what I feel is something that we don't as parents talk about a lot.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's why kids and teens struggle with emotional regulation and what we as parents can do about it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I want to I want you to sit with the idea that kids cannot regulate emotions that they're not allowed to have in the first place.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to sit with that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of times we as parents want us, we want them to regulate something that we may have not given them room to have in the first place.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Gen X and millennial parents, we really need to pay attention to this because when we were kids, it's important for us to pay attention to what we were taught about how to handle our emotions.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us, and I'm not saying all of us, but a lot of us may not have been taught anything about handling our emotions.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't given any instructions on managing emotions or what it really was to have certain emotions, because a lot of times the message we received was actually we needed to shut them down.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were set, we were told things like stop crying, you don't have anything to be sad about, uh, boys don't cry, be brave, fix your face, get over it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, small messages that on the on the face of it don't seem like a big deal.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, and it wasn't that our parents were bad, it wasn't that they didn't care.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it partially is how they were raised.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's important to recognize that those emotions, when we're sad and we're told to stop being sad, we're not acknowledging that there's an emotion of sadness.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And just because we don't acknowledge it doesn't mean it it disappears.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: What ends up happening is that we just bury the emotion and then it'll show up later in a different way.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So for many of us that we're taught, you know, just push through it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I often said I learned very early on and continued to into my young adulthood to say, oh, I just need to brave, brave face it, you know, we struggle with uh how to express how we're actually feeling.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we bottle things up until maybe we explode or we feel guilty for having emotions at all.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so now when we're the parents, you know, we're responsible for helping our kids do something that we may not have learned how to do.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I'm talking about mindful parenting, a lot of times this is what I'm referring to because we need to become mindful of what we're doing with our emotions, what we've made them mean, what we have made them mean so that we can help our kids do the same thing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I hear from the individuals that I actually work with in terms of the parent coaching that I do is, you know, many parents say, Well, I want my child to be happy.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I want them, you know, to smile.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have kids myself.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to have great lives, but that's a lot of pressure to put on a kiddo that they have to be happy all the time.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because happiness isn't a permanent state, it's an emotional state like any other one that we have.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Happiness isn't gonna be there all of the time.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if we, if our kids pick up the message that they have to be happy all the time, then when they're not feeling happy, there's almost self-shaming that's happening.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not the message we're trying to give our kids.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, that's not the message.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to recognize that if we teach our kids that, you know, sadness is a bad emotion, then they're not gonna learn that it's okay to express their sadness and recognize that the sadness is here to tell them something.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if we want to raise emotionally healthy kids, we we have to shift our mindset.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of maybe only focusing on happiness, we start focusing on the most important thing, which is emotional resilience, which is letting them feel what they need to feel, letting them process through it, move through the emotions, using your their emotions as information so they can figure out what action they want to take.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us, you know, we we we say we want our kids to express their emotions, but then when they do, it can be really hard for us to handle.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: When they're feeling angry or they're feeling frustrated, or they're feeling sad, or they're feeling defeated, it can be really difficult for us to handle.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to stop and pause and recognize that that's our work as parents.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have to learn how to process through our emotions that we're having about the emotions that our kids are having.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, we were taught that maybe those emotions are bad.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so deep down, we're having an issue with those feelings as though now we make it mean that we're we might be failing as parents.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to deal with that story that's going on before we can even talk to our kids, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we're thinking, why is my kid so angry?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: I must be doing something wrong, or why are they so sad?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: I try so hard to give them a good life.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they I must be I'm doing something wrong, or why are they so frustrated or this small thing?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is ridiculous.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, again, it goes back to self-doubt about being a parent.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have to remember that emotions, again, are not good or bad.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: They just are.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when we shame or dismiss certain emotions, we're sending the message that I only accept you when you're happy or calm, or, you know, we're having fun.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so then kids learn to suppress or hide, or potentially even lie about how they feel.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes that I work with young adults, it takes time for them to finally feel safe enough to put words to the fact that they're feeling anxious because they've learned to answer.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm fine, everything's good, there's no problems.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when in fact, behind the scenes, they're having thought loops on a daily basis and thinking and worrying about something, but they've been taught that that's not okay because there's something wrong with that.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so they have to learn that it's actually okay that those that's information for them that they get to work through.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So what do we do instead?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do we help our kids learn to regulate their emotions when we're still learning how to do it ourselves?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first, it's about staying curious and empathetic, right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Acknowledge the emotion without judgment instead of saying stop crying, take a moment to recognize and to acknowledge to your child, I see that you're feeling upset.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me more about what's going on?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or that looks really frustrating.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Would you like to talk about it?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or that looks really frustrating.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Can I just sit with you?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's it it gives them permission to have the feeling that they're that they're that they're feeling.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's okay.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay to feel upset, it's okay to feel angry.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's maybe we can sit together and figure out what's going on.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's another way to approach it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And for us as parents, we need to model emotional regulation.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: We need to do our work, you know, because our kids, whether they're little or teenagers or even our young adults, are still watching us.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they learn from what we do, not just what we say.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're constantly exploding in anger or we're shutting down or we're saying some really mean things, you know, they're going to take that in.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: So as a parent, we too can say, wow, I'm feeling really frustrated.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to take a deep breath before I respond.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or I've had I've had a really tough day.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to take a minute or two to reset and actually putting voice to that because that's what we're doing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're giving them space to recognize this is okay.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And also we can work through it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can teach them coping strategies.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: We can teach them how to take deep breaths.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: We can teach them things like journaling.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: We can, you know, teach them to have a stress ball that they squeeze and recognition and help them recognize that that's okay and that they can explore ways to release some of the feelings that they're having and validate it instead of fixing it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of times our kids need to be seen and witnessed.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of saying, you know, it's not a big deal, actually acknowledge that sounds really hard.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or, you know, I can tell that that really meant something to you.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just really acknowledging them and seeing them, it'll mean so much to your kiddos.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to just say that this work isn't easy.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: It takes practice, it takes unlearning as a perfectionist myself, and somebody who is high, you know, type A, this is work that I've done myself as a parent.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my oldest daughter will fully admit that my youngest daughter is getting a different version of me.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because I've given myself permission to grow and expand.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if you grew up in a household, maybe where emotions weren't talked about, it doesn't mean that it's too late to start building your own emotional intelligence now.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I recognize that it feels heavy, it feels messy, but if we don't do the work, you know, how are we going to actually grow and evolve?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And how are our kiddos going to grow up and evolve?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's about showing up and learning and being willing to do the work and being willing to grow.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this week, maybe you could just pay attention to how you're how you actually do respond when your child might be sharing some emotions with you.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel resistance within yourself?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And do you notice some some of your patterns showing up?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then ask yourself, is there a small shift that I can make?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Can I maybe step into curiosity instead of fix-it mode or curiosity instead of judgment mode?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And just as you're doing that, just recognize that it's important work that you're doing.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if this resonated with you or you know somebody that it might be helpful for, by all means, I hope that you'll share it with them.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you'd like to explore what parent coaching could look like or just coaching in general in order to help move you forward, whether it be professionally or personally, feel free to book a time with me at any time at coachwithcomedy.com.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, stay welcome.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Username It's Authentic Me.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.