Coping With “Big Feelings”

Naming difficult emotions and the events that cause them is the first stage in teaching children resilience. Big feelings are abounding in response to alterations in our lives caused by the pandemic: frustration, anger, fear, loss, irritability.

One creative idea proposed to help children (and adults) cope with all the changes we are undergoing is to make them conscious by writing them down and creating a chart that depicts visually what’s different now and what’s the same.

The first column might list things like 1) can’t play with friends, 2) had to stop sports camp, 3) missing out on going to Tahoe, 4) mom and dad working at home, often can’t play. Then write the aspects of life that are the same: 1) mom and dad finish work at 5, 2) still eat breakfast at 7, 3) go to bed at 8, 4) have pizza on Fridays. You can brainstorm what items to put in each column and talk about the feelings involved, especially those in response to items in column one.

Recognizing feelings and naming them is the first developmental step in learning self-regulation. Resilience involves being able to tolerate big feelings, but interestingly, we can’t handle difficult emotions without first being able to name them. The old ways of teaching children to manage intense reactions were to punish the behavior with no discussion of what’s causing it, to distract children, or to talk them out of their responses. Yet none of these methods develops children’s abilities to deal with challenges in a resilient way.

Our job is to stay aware that many behaviors happening right now are the result of the unprecedented demands placed on all of us. It’s natural that bursts of anger and aggression would be occurring, and though we have to set limits, taking the time to talk about underlying feelings teaches self-regulation. It’s a way of creating compassion for our children and for ourselves.

What Did You Give?

If you buy children gifts at this time of year, or on other occasions, you might be interested in an important article Ben West’s dad, Jim, forwarded me this week. Although the piece is about Santa Claus, the content pertains to giving children presents for Chanukah, other holidays, or a birthday.

The article points out what happens when one child tells another that Santa Claus brought her a very expensive, popular technological gift. Children who didn’t get the flashy new item report feeling that Santa must not care about them. The article’s caution: don’t attribute big gifts to Santa. However, more importantly, it highlights our cultural emphasis on materialism and the practice of encouraging children to talk about their possessions with pride.

Traditionally, that’s been our emphasis. Why is it that on a holiday or birthday, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and well-meaning friends call and ask a child “What did you get?” We raise children to believe that the objects they receive are a measure of their worth as a person.

There are countless articles on dematerializing the holidays, and every family has its own approach to gift-giving spending. But I wonder what would happen if we change the question we ask children at this time of year or on other special occasions. What if Grandma called on Christmas and asked “What did you give?” rather than “What did you get?”

Children can learn to invest their energy in the gifts they have created or selected for family members and friends and find delight in the other person’s positive response. In addition, they can find satisfaction in giving to people who have less.

There have been many articles over the last few years about children spontaneously deciding to give away their birthday gifts. These generous impulses reflect a new consciousness in children. Of course, we wouldn’t want to insist that children give away cherished objects. However, we can start to establish a new norm that it’s not polite to talk with others about expensive gifts. Instead, we can encourage children to find joy in talking about the satisfaction of giving and thinking about a world where everyone shares in abundance.

Children Discover the Power to Help

Fifteen year-old Gitanjali Rao is the first child to be featured on the cover of Time magazine. This is an important breakthrough for our times, as we see more and more instances when children come up with innovations and create projects that change their communities. In this age, we are recognizing the miraculous power of instilling the values of helpfulness in children from an early age.

Rao is an inventor who has had an impact in fields of water pollution, opioid addiction, and cyberbullying. Time selected Rao from 5,000 applicants, all making a positive difference in their communities, and as Time says, “Every year there are more children to honor and thank.”

Reading about Rao, the takeaway isn’t to accelerate children’s academics but rather convince them that they can help. As a child, Rao says she had no “a-ha!” moment when she discovered she wanted to go into science, but rather an overriding feeling that she wanted to make others happy, to bring positivity and a greater feeling of community to the place where she lives.

Children can learn the satisfaction of being helpful at any age, if we notice and point out the effects of their efforts. “Setting the table helps me because I can pay attention to cooking.” “Calling Grandma helps her to know she’s not alone, and people care about her.” “Organizing your books makes the whole house feel brighter.” Putting energy into making children believe they are helpful is especially important at this time, when events related to the pandemic and the shutdown over the holidays can make them, and all of us, feel helpless.

To aid this effort, we are asking parents and teachers to give us photos of children being helpful in order to create a quick pre-holiday photo exhibit in our hallway for all to see before school closes. Eight-by-10 photos tend to show up the best. Let’s celebrate the potential of the children in our community to discover the power they have to aid others and eventually change the world around them.