Why is teaching kids about feelings so important?
The experience of emotions is so universal and innate to who we are as human being’s, parents often mistakenly assume that a child’s self-awareness around feelings also comes as naturally.
The truth is, just like any other skill vital to healthy social and emotional development in your child, learning how to identify and cope with emotions needs to be supported and encouraged.
1. Normalizing feelings decreases anxiety.
Intense emotions are a universal aspect of the human experience. Yet, for a small child, big feelings can feel scary and overwhelming. Making space for your child’s strong emotions and validating their experience allows your child to develop a healthy acceptance of their feelings. When your child doesn’t fight against their feelings, undue stress and anxiety is eliminated.
2. Knowing our emotions promotes emotional intelligence.
Many parents automatically expect their child to know how to let their feelings out in a healthy way. However, the first step in coping with emotions is being able to identify them. When you familiarize your child with a wide vocabulary of emotion language, they are better able to pinpoint what it is they are experiencing. Emotional attunement is a vital building block of emotional intelligence.
Tip: Expand your young child’s emotional vocabulary by introducing them to new, more nuanced ‘feelings’ words - check out this incredible list!
3. Learning how to self-soothe reduces unhealthy behaviors.
Once a child develops the skills to identify their emotions, they can begin to develop self-awareness around what calms and soothes them. This is a process of trial and error where you can come alongside your child to help them observe and identify what seems to lower their physiological stress.
Tip: Mindfulness is a great tool to help kids self-sooth. Check out Kidevolve’s, Magic Snowglobe and A Zoo In My Chest to help them identify feelings and learn to calm themselves.
4. Working through powerful emotions frees up a child to be their best self.
If a child falls into a pattern of feelings suppression, they will be unable to function to their full developmental capacity. Unresolved feelings linger in the subconscious, where they will compromise the internal resources and mental energy your child needs to function in their day to day environment.
5. Learning about emotions helps parents too.
It is easy to encourage a child’s suppression of feelings through statements such as “stop crying, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich isn’t that big of a deal”. Your well-meaning attempt to teach your child reason will be lost on a developing brain that is being flooded with stress hormones. The takeaway? Your child’s (and your own) brain can’t learn while in a heightened state of emotion. When we allow the feeling to come and go, everybody wins.
6. Successfully working through emotions is the cornerstone of good mental health.
When expressing ourselves becomes routine, we’re less likely to engage in negative coping patterns which lead the way to anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns.
7. Emotional health is critical to physical health.
Just as with adults, it is not uncommon for a child’s unresolved feelings to manifest physically through bodily symptoms such as headaches, stomachaches, ulcers or high blood pressure.
8. Cultivating good emotional health paves a path for long-term health and well-being.
If we’re being honest, many parents are still trying to figure out how to take care of themselves emotionally, possibly due to having a weak framework of emotional intelligence as a child and/or ongoing adult life stressors. Starting early with your child gives them a leg up on long-term emotional well-being.