Feelings Come and Feelings Go

Hello my StrongStart friends,

We have all been riding this emotional rollercoaster for more than a year now. Every day brings a variety of emotions: fear, anxiety, relief knowing our loved ones are safe, sometimes getting lost in a moment still brings us happiness.

When young children experience strong emotions, they do not have our wisdom to know that the feeling will pass. They need a loving adult to help them learn to manage their emotions by naming and acknowledging feelings with understanding and empathy (“I know you are frustrated because… I wish we could…” I understand… ). Children need to know that is OK to have all sort of feelings, and that adults have them too.

CLICK HERE to hear me read Llama, Llama red Pajama by Anna Dewdney, published by Penguin Random House. Little Llama goes through all sorts of emotions and is comforted and reassured by her loving mama the end of the book .

Previously, I have shared how in our StrongStart we are teaching our children to to learn to recognize their strong emotions by naming them (” You feel… angry or sad…”). We ask them to take a deep breath, we offer them a hug. Nowdays I’m finding that I I need to remind myself of these same things.

Let us do it together: Let us take a deep breath in. Slowly, deeply! Fill your lungs with air. Then pause. Take a deep, long breath out. Do it together with your child, all of your children. You will be giving them a life-long gift; knowing how to manage strong emotions. They will be grateful to you!

CLICK HERE to hear the song we often sing in StrongStart to help us deal with different emotions. It is called “Happy Firetruck”.

To give love to your child you need to be kind to yourself too. We all need to look for ways to comfort ourselves, do something that brings us smile, joy and light! Small or big. To calm my emotions I often need to stop what I was doing and take a deep breath, focus on my breathing and nothing else. I plan time to do something that brings me joy: walk in the nature, connecting with people dear to me in any way I can, smelling my lavender plant…