Teaching Kids to Handle Feelings

David-ShanksHandling strong emotions can be a challenge for adults, but can be overwhelming for children.  I believe that the ability to tolerate feelings is a skill which can be learned, and which can materially contribute to your child’s happiness in life as well as their well-being and success.  Many studies have shown a connection between emotional stress and health issues including conditions such as ADHD, anxiety disorders and depression.  While life can and usually will bring stressful situations, my goal is to teach the kids I work with to handle stresses with the least negative impact on their mind and body.

Sometimes it is difficult to understand what a child is feeling.  This is obviously true for some of my youngest clients who haven’t developed the language to communicate emotions, but it can be just as true for older children.  What all these children need is a safe space in which to explore feelings and come to understand that we all have fear, anger and shame, but that we can learn to live with them and move on.  Parents can provide this, but for some kids, the feelings are so strong that counseling can really make the difference.

A child’s emotional reality or experience can at times be overlooked or misunderstood. We tend to think that the intensity of the feelings is measured by the amount of trauma that we see from our perspective as adults.  For a very young child or toddler, however, losing a stuffed animal can be as difficult as losing a family pet. For a school aged child, having a best friend move away may be just as difficult as having a parent move out of the house. What is important for the child is that their genuine feelings are acknowledged and, at the same time, we model for the child that they are still OK, that they can feel the feelings and, when the time is right, let go.

In many cases I work with the parents to help them to help their children.  There is a fine line between acknowledging emotions with compassion and allowing the child to hold on or to stay in the position of victim.  What we all want for our children is to see them grow up into healthy, happy, whole and successful people.  I think that one of the finest gifts any of us can give kids is to hold this vision for them and model it, as best we can, in ourselves.  What kids need most is to be really seen and also to see in us, the possibility of being a whole person who can handle what life brings us.

So some children carry fear, anger or shame when there is no apparent reason “out there” in their lives.  I have seen other children who have experienced real and significant loss or trauma.  Many times the trauma is not physical but may involve real or imagined social rejection.  This is particularly true with older children and teens. We have all heard cases of teen suicides following social media attacks. The pain is real.  It is real to the child and needs to be seen.  And there is the opportunity to transcend it – eventually the child or teen needs to work through the pain so that they can come to understand that while it hurts at the time, this too will pass and life can once again be full of joy.  The goal is not to forget, but to heal.  I believe that we are all naturally resilient and can come through these experiences, however difficult at the time, given enough support.  The right kind of help, and modeling by parents & adults can play a crucial role in helping kids through the rough spots and can prevent a lifetime of unnecessary suffering.

David Shanks, LCSW is a therapist in Carrboro/Chapel Hill

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