- Many modern and popular parenting techniques place a high emphasis on attending to our kids’ emotions.
- I give my daughter space when she experiences big emotional outbursts.
- I want her to learn that emotions are passing sensations.
I could see the emotional monsoon coming from a mile away. That’s why, as we approached the house, I gently warned my daughter that we would need to take her rainboots off before going inside. She continued splashing through the puddles in our driveway, either unable or unwilling to hear me. Sure enough, when we entered the garage and sat down to take off our shoes, a torrent of tears erupted.
“No, you’re NOT taking my boots off!” she screamed. Days earlier, her daycare teacher informed me that she even refused to remove them during naptime.
I briefly considered allowing her to wear the boots inside just to avoid the fight. But glancing down at our muddy footprints only strengthened my resolve.
I breathed in, took her tear-streaked face in my hands, and explained why the boots needed to stay outside. More shrieks. I slipped off her shoes (narrowly avoiding a kick to the face) and carried her thrashing body into the kitchen, where I placed her on the ground. She curled into a ball, threatening to explode again at any moment.
“I love you,” I reassured her, patting her back. “I’m sorry we had to take off the boots. We can put them back on later. Right now, I need to cook dinner. Can I give you a hug?”
“NO!” She spat. “I want my boots!” She scrambled back toward the door, slamming her tiny fists against it. “Give me my boots!” she wailed.
Her outburst continued to escalate, but I started making dinner anyway.
I ignored her and carried on with the evening to-dos
Modern parenting philosophies (like gentle parenting) would advise me not to leave her side. These “big emotions” deserve our utmost attention and investigation, according to gentle parenting experts.
Many millennial parents have fallen into this “pendulum parenting” trap. We were raised to suppress our own emotions, so now we’re over-correcting that mistake by giving our kids’ emotions all the power.
But here’s the mistake I think we’re making as parents in this gentle parenting era: we need to go beyond identifying the emotion and teach our kids how to move past it.
We need to teach our kids how to move past their emotions
Stopping everything to comfort a child for 45 minutes over something like rainboots or rice crackers does not increase their emotional competence. It’s communicating that, despite whatever else is going on, their emotions reign supreme. Nothing and no one else matters; plans get lost in the wake.
Oftentimes (especially when it comes to toddlers), emotions do not represent reality. So, instead of validating our kids’ emotions, we validate their outsize reactions to trivial matters. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Havard-trained neuroscientist, explains that the physical sensations of emotions pass after 90 seconds. Our feelings persist because we choose to dwell on whatever caused them in the first place. The solution is to acknowledge the emotions and allow them to move through us without continuing to react.
All emotions will pass once I stop giving them my attention
I don’t expect my daughter to understand or comprehend what took me years of therapy and practice to figure out. She’s only 2, after all. But if I can show her that our emotions don’t have all the control, I think it will save her a lot of heartache in the future.
So when a toddler tornado hits, I get out of the way.
After labeling her feelings and offering comfort (if she wants it), I give her time and space to express her emotions in a safe environment. But I don’t add fuel to an already-raging fire by giving it more of my own energy and attention. Even the worst storms will eventually pass.
Emotions are a sometimes delightful and sometimes distressing part of the human experience. But they are only one part — there’s so much more to life, and the actions that we take in response to our circumstances (and feelings) matter more than anything else.
