Understand Your Child’s Emotions Before They Do

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I’m pretty sure I’ve never gone through such highs and lows in my entire life as I have as a mom. Are we all programed to feel bad and take the blame for everything? Or is it just me? While my husband was in grad school and I was home alone with our son if he had a bad day I felt like it was my fault.

Why is he throwing so many tantrums? I’ve already told him several times today, “Please don’t yell. We’re all in the same room.” Then there’s the times when he went to a friend’s house for the afternoon and their mom gushed at how well behaved he was the whole time and within five minutes of walking in our front door he had 3 tantrums.

My husband would tell me all the time: “It’s not just you. Other moms go through it too. You have to remember kids have emotions they just don’t know how to express them yet. He’s just learning”

Still I continued to internalized it. I still am, and he’s almost 4. It’s exhausting.

Then I heard about the movie Inside Out and I was so excited. It couldn’t have come out at a better time for our family.

Inside Out is about a little girl, Riley, who is learning how to deal with a stressful move across the country through her ever changing emotions.

My sister is a manager of a therapy facility and she told me about a really great way to learn how to understand your child’s emotions better. It’s a technique that occupational therapists use to help parents gain a greater understanding in what their children are really trying to say when they act in certain ways, throw tantrums, etc.

I knew I had to go to Walmart and get the characters from Inside Out and flashcards with animals on them! I’m so excited to share with you a great way you can learn how your child is feeling, before they even know how to tell you themselves. How life changing is that? It’s a great way to help your child understand their emotions. Trust me. I could have used this technique a couple years ago…it really would have made my life a whole lot easier.

Here’s how it works:

Let your child pick a card from a stack of cards

Have them pick a character

Now they act out what the picked. i.e. Angry Lion

Pay close attention to how your child acts. These are the exact faces my son makes everyday. Now I know when he makes these faces he is either angry, or sad. The same goes with all the other emotions. Your child will they are acting as a lion, or a bear, but what they’re really telling you is how they show that exact emotion.

How do you help your kids sort through their big emotions?

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