Help Your Child Climb a Mountain of Emotions

February 6th, 2008

Handling children can be a difficult task at times. We feel like
they’re not listening to us; they feel like we’re not listening
to them. Good listening and speaking skills are essential to
successful parenting. Your child’s feelings, views and opinions
have worth, and you should make sure you take the time to sit
down, listen openly, and discuss them honestly at a noise level
you both can tolerate.

It’s a natural tendency to react at 100 decibels (shout level)
rather than to respond at 65 decibels (normal hearing level). An
elevated voice level accomplishes nothing except to raise
tempers and frustration.

What causes this emotional elevation? Many factors are in play
to make what could be a positive experience into a gut wrenching
one. We all bring our own childhood baggage into our adult life
and, often, our children bear the brunt.

It’s natural to pass judgment based on our own feelings and
experiences based on our own upbringing. However, communication
is about forgetting our past and being receptive to our child’s
feelings and emotions and allowing them to express themselves
openly and honestly without fear of glass-shattering screaming
from us. By reacting emotionally, we send our child the message
that their feelings and opinions are invalid. But, by calmly
asking questions about why the child feels the way they do, it
opens a dialog that allows them to discuss their feelings
further, and allows you a better understanding of where they’re
coming from.

Getting your child to open up will give you an opportunity to
work out a solution or a plan of action with your child that
perhaps they would not have thought of their own. Your child
will begin to believe that you do understand and truly care how
they feel.

It’s crucial in these situations to give your child your full
and undivided attention. Put down your newspaper, stop doing
dishes, or turn off the television so you can hear the full
situation and make eye contact with your child. Keep calm, be
inquisitive, and afterwards offer potential solutions to the
problem. When offering solutions, allow your child to comment on
them. Allowing them to comment will further the dialog between
you and help to arrive at a workable compromise.

Compromising is the toughest part of parenting because it forces
us to give some weight to our child’s opinion. Remember, your
child may lack the knowledge to form an accurate opinion but
they will cling to what they believe is the right thing for
them. It’s your job to persuade them, with a logical argument,
not with a dictatorial statement.

During this process don’t discourage your child from feeling
upset, angry, or frustrated. Our initial instinct may be to say
or do something to steer our child away from their position, but
this can be a detrimental tactic if done emotionally. Again,
listen to your child, ask questions to find out why they are
feeling that way, and then offer potential solutions to
alleviate the bad feeling. The key is to remain calm and not
allow yourself to also become upset, angry, or frustrated. You
must be the leveling force.

To our children, their negative experiences or feelings are like
huge mountains to overcome. We may see their problems as
molehills but, to our child, they are far from it. You can be
their guide to climbing their mountain by actively listening and
participating with our child as they talk about it. Showing them
the right path demonstrates to them that we do care, we want to
help and we have similar experiences of our own that they can
draw from.

Remember - respond - don’t react the next time you need to help
your child climb a mountain.

Jim DeSantis

About the author:

Jim DeSantis is a retired broadcast journalist who writes for On Line Tribune Family Life blog and who edits Easy Fat Loss Videos website.