It's tough seeing our little ones upset. But you're the best person to help them manage these and teach them to be braver.
Read our tips here, and perhaps use our Emotional Coaching wave handout to support your kids with managing their worries.
Kids need a routine to support them to feel safe. This should include consistent kai times, bed times and play times. Sometimes though we find with anxious kids their routine is super inflexible and so they become anxious if things change.
Allow for some flex sometimes, like the weekends but explain this to your kids so that they’re aware of it. Many kids will be excited over a wee change like a stay up later night to accommodate going to nana’s, but kids who have experienced no or very little flex might find this hard. Make the change anyway, and support them with this - point out that nothing bad happened as a result!
Our kids learn by watching and imitating us, so try to model positive coping skills by managing your own stress and worries in a healthy way. This means:
It’s going to be normal that your child has worries and it’s important to acknowledge these even though sometimes they seem ridiculous like monsters under the bed! Here’s our best tips to emotionally support kids:
Talk about and read books about emotions - all of them. This makes them okay, normal and gives your child the language to be able to do just that.
If they tell you about a worry, validate this by listening and letting them know you understand.
Try some problem solving WITH them! That means not fixing it yourself or taking over… ask “what do you think might help” or “what can we try that might help”
And if it is monsters under the bed, the answer is that “there are no such thing as monsters”. As soon as we go looking for them, we’re buying into monster realness!
There are loads of things we can do support our kids to be calm and model this. The most effective ways are:
These are really normal, and meltdowns happen for so many reasons, but mostly because we can’t contain the big feelings bubbling up.
We will often talk about our kids "having tantrums", but not so much their "disappointment" that they couldn’t have what they wanted, or "frustration" that the task is challenging, or ‘sadness’ that their friend has to go home.
We're big fans of emotion coaching and to make this easier we've created this 'wave' illustration because emotions are like waves - Emotion Coaching poster.
If you see the big emotion coming, you can try simple distraction – pick them up, sing a song, find something to do really fast!
If the meltdown is still bubbling, name it for them - “It is disappointing that you can’t have chocolate at 7am, I get it.”
Name their way out of their big emotions too, so add to the above, “I can see you’re trying to keep calm.”
The tantrum may still come and that’s okay. Wait it out and praise them for calming down (when they do!)
When you have a minute, think about the times of day or activities which seem to be associated with meltdowns. Can any changes be made to help mitigate them?
Remember it’s okay for children to have meltdowns – big emotions are tough. Think about what helps them to calm down again and support them in this.
Everyone has meltdowns - knowing what to do to manage them is the life-long skill and that’s what we need to foster.
We kind of get this – for young kids, the world must be so huge from their perspective, there’s hardly a chair they don’t have to clamber onto front-ways. So new situations and people won’t always be exciting, and even the familiar will sometimes be daunting.
So if our kids limpet to our lets, or won't let us go, this is really normal.
Keep your kids informed. Let them know what activity's coming next so there aren't too many surprises throughout the day.
Reassure them, but not too much.
Over-reassuring may mean (to them) that there is actually something they should be worried about.
Go through with whatever it is they’re worried about. Even if you have to be the parent with the child who only stands at the door and watches the birthday party, that is totally okay.
Kids need to learn, it’s never as scary as they think, so they need to be there somehow to understand this.
Kids will cue off you – so if you’re okay, they will be too.
Keep creating opportunities to try new things and take some risks – playgrounds, tree-climbing, scootering and splashing in the waves are all ways we can talk about being worried, and brave and sometimes discovering it can be fun too.
Being out-of-control can be scary for us, but also scary for our kids.
We're big fans of emotion coaching our kids. Here's what you need to know to do that.
Have a think about what may be causing the outbursts. We’ve discovered, alongside parents, that when we trackback, before the meltdown, that we may have been able to help much earlier and stop the meltdown from occurring.
Or, there’s an "in-common" with raging out such as: homework, tiredness, overwhelm and hunger can all be common factors. See if there’s anything you can change up in order to help with the underlying stuff first.
Anger is a great disguise too – it can look and sound like anger, but it’s actually jealousy, embarrassment, guilt or disappointment.
Try and name this in the moment and empathise, for example, "I get that you’re feeling embarrassed right now, it’s a hard one eh?".
Dr Daniel Siegel says: "We’ve got to name it to tame it". A great phrase.
Start talking about emotions as a matter of course in your family, for example, "I feel happy today", or "I need to take some time to calm down", or "I think Harry Potter might feel disappointed by that"...
Often kids who have regular outbursts feel very alone in it, like they’re the only ones, or that something is wrong with them. Make emotions normal!
Organise a place for your child to go when they’re feeling like they’re going to be really angry and something for them to do – colouring, reading, have a squishy toy available.
Remember, your aim is for them to do something other than lose their sh** - if they have a place to go and something to do that helps calm them – that’s your aim being met! Praise them for their new positive strategies.
Finally, teach them proper tummy breathing exercises to help them calm down – it really works! And practice all of the above regularly and when they’re calm so they know exactly what to do when they’re not.
