13 minute read
By Bethany Rees

Awe, parenting! What an honor it is. As parents, we love our children so much that we spend hours chauffeuring them, playing with them, caring for them, thinking about them, and praying for them.  

While parenting truly is one of life’s greatest joys, let’s be real for a moment. There are some days that our child’s behavior has us not only second guessing our parenting strategies, but second guessing our sanity as well. 

Between the ages of 2 and 4, we parents get to experience the meltdowns of our toddlers and preschoolers. Between 5 and 9, we get to experience the fun yet crazy times of our kids learning how to become a part of the “organized world” through school and extracurricular activities. There’s a ton of behavior correction and discipline at these ages. And then by the age of 10 and all the way through 18 (yep another 8 years), we parents get to ride the up, down, and spiraling rollercoaster of adolescent emotions that can often have us feeling disoriented and sick. 

You think you’ve seen a toddler have a meltdown, wait until your teenager has one.

And when this happens, we parents usually do one of two things when our kids, especially teenagers, have a meltdown: we cower and give in to the child’s desire or we go all Incredible Hulk and yell…escalating the situation.

Kids, all kids of all ages, can have big emotions and sometimes as parents we have no idea how to handle them. But besides cowering or going “green” and flipping tables, there is actually a third way to walk through a child’s big emotions. It’s the counselor approach. 

Counselors have amazing skill sets when it comes to serving kids that are having big emotions. They are always calm, they make the kids feel safe in expressing themselves without judgment, and then they ask open ended questions that prompt kids to work through their emotions, so they can decide on their next steps to functioning again. While parents obviously have more of a authoritative role in children's lives, which is as it should be, but it's also important parents know how to tap into various skill sets (like that of a teacher, coach, or counselor) as they work to disciple and raise their kids in Christ. 

So how can parents learn to step into the counselor role when their kids are having big emotions? 

I believe that without getting a master’s degree in counseling, there are 6 things parents can do to help their children when they experience big emotional breakdowns. The six things are: 

1. Understand Their Brain Development
2. Remember That Everyone Needs Time to Calm Down
3. Make them Feel Safe to Share Their Feelings
4. Don’t Judge or Shame the Emotion 
5. Coach Them in How to Zoom Out
6. Recognize that Reconciliation with You is Imperative 

1) Understand Their Brain Development

Counselors are great at understanding the psychology and physiology behind kids' brain development. Therefore they know what the child is focused on and what the child can process at a certain age. 

You’ve heard me say a ton of times that we need to learn how to let our choices lead and our feelings follow. For example, I choose to be patient versus yelling at the car that just cut me off in traffic.  Yes, the ultimate goal in our mental health is to understand that our emotions can often lead us astray, and that we are better served when we make intentional choices over allowing our current state of feelings to drive our behavior. 

BUT…

Rational thought is NOT the world our children live in physiologically speaking. 

Not to get too “sciencey” but adolescents don’t have a fully developed prefrontal cortex, which is where decision-making and rational thought happens in planning, thinking of consequences, solving problems, and controlling impulses. Since the prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed, children (especially teenagers) then rely on the amygdala part of the brain (or the part that is associated with emotions, impulses, aggression, and instinctive behavior). 

So in other words, they are ALL FEELINGS and very LITTLE THINKING. 

And little kids with big emotions don’t have the words to express how they are feeling, so their feelings are usually showcased with huge tantrums of crying and big body movements (collapsing, hitting, etc). 

Your child’s feelings are real, and their feelings are like glitter…EVERYWHERE and ALL OVER THE PLACE. 

2) Remember That Everyone Needs Time to Calm Down

Going with the glitter analogy where their emotions are floating all over the place, kids need time and support to allow their emotions to settle down. They need time to calm down and chill out, but it is hard to chill out in front of an audience.

When children are having big emotions they can very easily be escalated by you and the presence of others. As a parent or teacher, the number one thing we need to do is stay calm and speak softly in a low tone voice. The louder and higher pitched our voices, the more we escalate the situation. 

Work to remove the audience from their big emotions as quickly as possible. For littles, this may mean taking them to the bathroom of a store or for bigs, asking them to join you in another room (how you ask makes all the difference for compliance with the bigs). If the child is out of control and won't comply, you may even need to ask everyone else to leave the space. 

Pulling students or my own children into a safe area away from others (away from the “audience”) and allowing them to express their emotion in a safe place is what helps calm or de-escalate their emotions so that later analysis of rational thought can take place. 

Try to avoid prompting a child to talk it out when they haven’t calmed their emotions down yet. Again looking at science, the emotions are in control of them and they struggle to think through their actions or the consequences of their actions when their emotions are high. They need to calm their big emotions first.

Side note: There are so many levels of severity you can find your child in here, so don't take this advice as a one size fits all. It absolutely doesn't fit all.  As an educator, I have seen and experienced the huge spectrum of kids' big emotions with the worst case scenario being a child that won't calm down and becomes a threat to himself or others. Sometimes situations like these call for us to have to physically restrain the child. However, know that educators and administrators are trained on specific ways to restrain a child that is a threat to himself or others so physical harm doesn't occur.  

For most situations where big emotions are present, there are a variety of techniques you can use to help your child calm down. Knowing which technique works best with your child is a learning process because it depends on the situation, the age of the child, and the “bigness” of the emotions. Below are several tips on teaching your child how to work through calming themselves down when they are having big emotions. If you are modeling a technique for your child (e.g. how to take deep breaths), make sure you are always down at their eye level.

Techniques to Calm Down 

• Deep breathing
• Stepping outside
• Playing with a fidget or sensory toy (pop its, pipe cleaners, stress ball, play-doh)
• Coloring
• Parent sitting quietly by the child and hugging them
• Punch a punching bag
• Scream into a pillow
• Stepping away from everyone (as long as your child is safe, give them space)
• Praying (this is hard for most kids but a great go to when maturity is present)

3) Make them Feel Safe to Share Their Feelings

As your children go through the ups and downs of life events, be intentional in making them feel safe in sharing their feelings. By just LISTENING, working to UNDERSTAND, and then VALIDATING their feelings (LUV talk) you will capture their heart in a true and deep relationship. 

Safety to share big and ugly emotions removes the opportunity for shame to set its hooks into their being.  And remember, that their perception of the event is their current truth producing their current big feelings. Validating their feelings means that you accurately understand how they are feeling, it doesn’t mean you agree with their perception of the event. At this point in the emotion, it is all about LUV talk (listening, understanding, and validating). For example, “I understand that breaking up with your boyfriend makes you feel like your heart is broken, and that hurts.”  

But my child won’t open up to me!

Tip: Do Something While Having a Conversation

Although not all counselors are licensed psychologists or therapists, they have great strategies in helping kids feel safe in sharing their feelings. One of those ways is by having the child do something while sharing their feelings (color, draw, play with toys, etc)

So for us parents, a great tip we can learn from counselors for making kids feel safe to open up to you is to invite them to do an activity with you (color, play with toys, wash dishes, cook dinner, drive to the store, go get ice cream). When you and your child are doing something together they won’t have to give you eye contact and the act of doing something makes them feel less “in the spotlight” and more safe to share. 

Beyond doing a task, if your child still won’t open up to talk, break the ice by telling them a VERY SHORT story about a time you felt the same way they probably do now. For example, if your daughter gets into a fight with her best friend and doesn’t want to talk about it,  you could break the ice by saying “I remember when I got in a fight with my best friend. I was so hurt and honestly ticked off that she would gossip about me that I yelled at her in the cafeteria. I thought everybody was talking about me behind my back all because of my supposed best friend.“ 

Notice how I didn’t finish the story and mention how I got over it or how we became friends again. I also didn’t mention how I “put on my big girl panties and moved on.” I only explained a very short part of the story that shares the feeling I had at that time. By sharing a very short example of a time where you experienced the same emotion that your kid is probably having at this moment, you can break the ice so they can identify and feel safe to share that yeah they’re feeling that way too. Do NOT go into the action of what you did. At this point in time, it’s all about the emotion.  

4) Don’t Judge the Emotion 

As parents we have conditioned ourselves to always correct bad behavior and that is a good thing. But know that when and how you do that matters. There is a fine line in loving our kids through their bad choices back to appropriate behavior and shaming our kids because of their bad behavior. 

Again, when our kids are having big emotions they are not operating in their budding prefrontal cortex (decision making) part of the brain, they are stuck in the amygdala (the emotions). It is imperative that parents hold the line of safety for our children but also promote unconditional love beyond the current behavior being exhibited. In these big emotional moments, our children need unconditional love not performance based judgment. 

So during these big emotions work to be intentional in not overreacting. If they have a loose tongue and slip a cuss word out, you can address that at a later time once their big emotions have calmed down. During the expression of their big emotions, this moment at this time is about establishing a relationship where they feel safe to share their raw emotions, and not feel shamed or judged for them. Keep shame and judgment completely out of this step. 

If your child still doesn’t open up about their feelings, just sit in the quiet with them. Don’t keep pressuring them to share. By just being a safe presence in the room and “sitting in the funk” with them, you are showing them that they are not alone. 

5) Coach Them in How to Zoom Out

Once emotions are calmed down and hopefully shared, you can then work towards the thinking analysis of the event that caused the big emotions in the first place. 

Because of where they are with brain development, feelings must always be dealt with first and once the emotions have calmed down (which may be hours, a day, or several days later), then the conversation can transition to analysis about their behavior. 

While the overall goal is to coach kids through thinking and zooming out, the younger the child, the more direct teacher approach you may need to take as a parent in telling them what is or is not appropriate and what the consequences will be. You can explain the bigger picture issues of their behavior (you could get hurt, you could hurt someone else, I will never reward bad behavior in the store with a toy, etc)

As your child grows into the beloved teenager, you will turn more into the counselor/coach where you will ask them open ended questions to allow them to work through their own thinking.You need to coach them in how to analyze the event, but know that you can’t actually do the thinking for your children. Just like a toddler falls down several times when learning how to walk, kids will falter several times through their thinking processes (remember lack of a fully developed prefrontal cortex), but they will eventually get it. And if they aren't getting it, then step back into that teacher role of directing them if need be...BUT REMEMBER, they will eventually leave your house and they need their own tools to work through thinking without you telling them what to do. 

One way to teach kids how to zoom out is by teaching them how to look at life through varying lenses. Again make sure their big emotions have calmed down first before coaching them through zooming out. 

So how do you lead them to zoom out beyond the big feelings they just had?

Ask them open-ended questions in a variety of areas to get their brain to “see” a bigger picture, and not be hyper focused on the event that is happening right now. The goal is to get your child to see that their world and their life is bigger than the current moment they feel stuck in. Once your kids are able to zoom out, then you know they are ready to think through a game plan for resiliency (see part 2 of How to Raise Resilient Kids for more details). 

I want to remind you that by helping your child work through their emotions first does not excuse them from having real consequences for their behavior. It’s just imperative that as parents we help them work through their emotions first. Why? Again because of science! Kids aren’t able to “see clearly” or “learn the lesson” when their brains are overloaded with big emotions. We have to help them work through their emotions first, then we can work through rational thought, consequences, and lessons learned. 

Below are sample questions to help your child zoom out of the current moment. But know that you need to adjust them based on the age of your child,  and where you are in the conversation with your kiddo. Asking about a birthday doesn’t make sense in the middle of a teenage breakup.

• What fun events are coming up? 
• How do you want to celebrate your birthday this year? 
• What do you want to do for fun this summer? 
• Will you have to see this person after high school?
• Who has power and control over you? (answer: not the person or event causing the big emotion)
• How does this moment NOT define who you are?
• What does a stress free life look like to you? 
• What do you think your life will be like when you are 30?
• What do you think God is thinking about this situation? (answer: Think Prodigal Son! God always wants us to come back to him. He is always willing to forgive us and carry us through our hard times.)

 6) Recognize that Reconciliation is Imperative

After the big emotions and the big event have been worked through, kids will often feel vulnerable and maybe even wounded. Or maybe they yelled those dreaded words of “I hate you,” and they feel awful about the way they treated you. This is where parents can really step in to capture the heart of their kids. Be intentional about the first encounter you have with your child after a big meltdown. While you will still be holding the line of what is acceptable and what is not (and yes there are still consequences for behavior), you can still be intentional in showing your child that their emotions and behavior doesn’t change your love for him/her. 

You can simply tell your child you love them no matter what or you can ask them to join you in a task. No matter what the next encounter is, work to make it one of love and acceptance so your child knows that despite their big emotions he/she is still loved and valued. 

Parenting is hard and it is not an art to be perfected…it is a process to consistently learn from. There are no perfect parents, only a perfect God to carry us through all situations. Prayers for all you parents out there! You are doing great! Just keep going! 

Know Better. Do Better. Live Better. Be a Counselor For Your Kids.

Rocks before Sand!

Scripture: 

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

~Romans 12:12

Theme Song: 

Eye of the Storm by Ryan Stevenson

References Used:

• The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.