Navigating Big Feelings
Our children experience BIG feelings. When this happens, they rely on the adults around them to offer co-regulation and model strategies to come back to calm. As parents, our lived experience confirms that this can be easier said than done and we can sometimes find ourselves meeting our children with frustration and impatience–it is so natural to become distressed when our children are dysregulated.
It can be helpful to remember these points when navigating big feelings within our families:
Co-regulation ultimately helps our children towards self-regulation.
During moments of big feelings, after we take a breath or two to regulate ourselves in order to respond as our best self, it’s essential that we’re present for our child’s distress. The prefrontal cortex is the brain region responsible for regulating thoughts, actions and emotions; when we meet our children with calm we’re essentially offering for them to borrow our prefrontal cortex (or borrow our calm). If we meet distress with distress, the dysregulation for everyone is heightened. While adults won’t always succeed in accessing our own calm, we can strive to do so and make repairs when things inevitably go off track.
Feeling seen and supported will strengthen the parent-child relationship.
A vital part of a strong parent-child relationship is feeling understood and heard. By narrating feelings (ours and those of other family members) our children learn to recognize them; this communicates that these sometimes intense feelings are perfectly normal and that other people experience them too. For example, “It makes sense to feel angry when your toy gets broken. I feel angry sometimes, too,” helps validate your child’s feelings and make sense of unpredictability.
Familiar routines offer grounding and a sense of safety.
When our children feel grounded and safe, this keeps their brains more open to consistent states of regulation; they can anticipate routines, come to expect the general flow of each day, and find comfort in rhythms. Creating structure is an important way to support our children in feeling calm and cared for–consider morning and bedtime routines, and regular times for meals and activities.
Sleep affects behavior (in the best ways and the hardest ways).
Prioritizing opportunities for restorative sleep is a critical component of preventing and easing meltdowns. Aim for a consistent and early bedtime (remembering that young children do not sleep longer if they’re kept awake later, and that children’s behavior when overtired can present as heightened energy and emotionality). If you notice an increase in big feelings and big behaviors, considering sleep habits can be an excellent place to begin problem solving.