10/08/2024 | Child Development, Parenting
A Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Child’s Sensory System
As parents, especially those raising neurodivergent children, it's important to understand sensory processing and how it affects our kids.…
Need Help Handling Your Child’s Feelings? Try these Tips.
Children need nurturing and supportive relationships with parents and caregivers to help them know how to regulate their emotions and handle their feelings. Most parents really struggle at some point (or many points!) to hold kids' feelings with compassion.
Here are some things to consider along your journey.
Building Positive Relationships
- Regulate your own emotions so that your child feels safe to communicate theirs.
- Step away if you need to help yourself calm down. Have someone else watch your child for a few minutes.
- Be patient with your child while they find the words to express how they feel.
- Recognize what your child does when they are sad or angry.
- Stay calm when the chaos arrives.
- Show love in the good times and tough times.
- Maintain a sense of humor.
Helping Kids Handle Their Feelings
- Praise your child when they tell you how they feel.
- Let them know what they are experiencing is normal.
- Allow children some freedom to make their own choices.
- Support them even when they mess up.
- Be consistent in your responses and follow-through.
- Celebrate when your child does something well.
- Make sure they have caregivers who nurture and love them.
- Teach your child something they can do: art, cooking, woodwork, sewing, car repair or gardening.
- Support their after-school activities.
- Help your child step away from a situation that may be overwhelming.
- Make sure your child has a safe, secure place to sleep.
- Create routines that help your kids eat and sleep on consistent schedules.
- Be aware that hunger and fatigue can escalate your child’s reactions.
Regulating emotions and being intentional about creating healthy relationships in your family is no small feat. It often takes practice, especially if you didn't receive that level of attunement as a child. Be patient with yourself. Your effort to love and accept your child so they can do that for themself and others is powerful work, and you don't have to be perfect at it.
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