Unlocking Emotional Intelligence: The Essential Guide to Validating Your Child's Emotions
*The following information is for your enjoyment only and not to be taken as therapeutic advice. These are my personal thoughts and feelings based on my own experience as a parent with a background and fascination in psychology and child development. This post is credited to my mentors and the developers of Emotion Focused Family Therapy and Emotion Focused Skills Training, Drs. Joanne Dolhanty, Adele Lafrance, and Mirisse Foroughe, to whom I am forever grateful for their impact on my parenting journey and personal growth as a psychologist.
Let’s face it. In the parenting world, emotions are often a barrier – both our own and our kids’. Whether it’s their tantrum at an inopportune time (usually rushing somewhere for something), our anger that results from it, their anxiety about school/grades/peers, defiance to our rules, conflict among siblings, and on and on and on. Of course there are those amazingly delicious, joyful, warm, happy, memory-making, bonding moments. But those do not encompass the majority of parenting. Or at least they don’t for me or my clients. Or anyone else I know, for that matter. Parenting is a relentless journey of emotional warfare with those blissfully amazing moments that make it all worthwhile. And the hope that our kids will grow up well-adjusted enough to be independent contributors to society that keep us from becoming too lonely in our senior years (am I right?). I love parenting. And it’s exhausting.
Emotions. They are everywhere. All of the time. We see them, feel them, and can sense them keenly in our environment. The problem is, they’re often illogical, irrational, exaggerated, and difficult to tolerate. And this is even true for adults! The younger the brain is, the more of all of the above. And that makes sense, doesn’t it? As kids mature, they mature emotionally as well. Which means becoming more able to tolerate distress and painful feelings, reason with their emotions and catastrophic thoughts, use effective coping strategies, seek comfort, etc. The same as we do/did. At least most of the time. For all of us, we can struggle with intense thoughts and feelings that are any or all of illogical, irrational, exaggerated, and difficult to tolerate. But that does not mean they’re not valid. Just because you are jealous of your friend and colleague who received the promotion instead of you doesn’t mean you’re a bad friend or person (irrational). It means you’re human, and you can have two experiences at one time; 1) X is my friend and I am happy for their success. 2) I wanted that promotion, and I wish I’d gotten it. Result = jealousy, anger, disappointment. And how understandable is that? And here is Rule #1: Emotions need to be understood. Read that again. Emotions need to be understood. That’s why they’re showing up. They’re our human signaling system, and your own and your child(ren)’s emotions are signaling to you to be understood and interpreted.
Parents mean so well. I love parents; I relate so much to the struggle to want to understand your kids and give them what they need. And many parents lead with this obvious question to their kids in their quest to understand and give them what they need: “What’s wrong?”, or “Do you need anything?”. The genuineness is sincere. Parents are reaching for their kids, just waiting for them to grab on and tell parents what they need to hear so they can get the job done and the emotion(s) fixed and on with everyone’s lives because the demands never stop coming in and there are a million jobs to do! Who can relate? And then of course there are times (so many times) when there is no patience to ask what’s wrong, or what they need, or do the open-ended debrief about all the things going wrong. Like I mentioned, those million jobs still need to get done regardless of whatever emotional sh*tstorm is landing overhead today. But what if there was a quick fix? A shortcut, if you will? What we’ve been lacking until recent research and clinical evidence has brought to light is the science behind emotion. Yes, we all feel emotions. Yes, emotions are universal (at least the core 6 – and while I loved Inside Out 2, ennui isn’t one of the core 6). But what do they need? Do they feel the same way inside all of us? These answers are becoming clearer. In another post, I will dissect more about what each specific core emotion feels like in the body, what it needs, and what it prepares our bodies to do. In this post, we’ll fast forward to the critical info about how to deal when they show up in our kids.
Most of the time, we’re talking about anger, sadness, fear, shame (*Spoiler Alert*: this one shows up a lot, folks), and any of their associated emotions (e.g., jealousy, guilt, grief, etc.). Behaviourally, anger could be displayed as protesting – stomping, refusing, crying, yelling, etc., while sadness could be crying or withdrawing, and anxiety could be avoidance, crying, protesting, reassurance-seeking, etc. It does take some skill to recognize what behaviours in your child are attached to which emotion. For example, you can see that crying showed up across all the examples provided. Kids often don’t know any other way to express big feelings except to cry. Asking them what’s wrong in these moments is almost certainly bound to fail. They either don’t know or couldn’t tell you in that moment if they did. That’s why they need US! Wouldn’t it have been great if we were all raised to know these things, too? If you were lucky enough to have emotionally attuned, well-adjusted parents who were parented by emotionally supportive parents themselves, you are a minority! And kudos to you – you get to pass on this beautiful modeling for many generations to come. For the rest of us, the work might start with us. What I know in my work with parents over the years is that they are cued right into their kids and can often accurately assess the general target area of their kids’ emotion(s) – and that’s all that’s needed! Which brings me to Rule #2: If you can’t find the emotion, target the behaviour/position. If you’re unsure of what emotion your child may be expressing/feeling, broaden your language for feelings and focus on their behaviour. What is their body telling you? Yelling and crying could be sadness, anger, shame, or anxiety. But all these behaviours depict feelings of upset or hurt. These are perfectly acceptable states to validate! A child who is holed up in their bedroom and snaps at you to, “Get lost!” every time you open their door is depicting withdrawal (sadness) and yelling (anger/irritability). Are they angry? Depressed? Both? Neither? You are not expected to be psychic. But what do you know? They want to be alone. So, validate that.
I imagine most of you may be saying something like, “I already do that,” in some way or another. And if that’s true, that’s great! You’re halfway there. I say halfway because almost all of the time I hear this, the validation is happening after instead of before the reasoning, logic, and problem-solving attempts. I invite you to ground yourself in a recent example of a high or low conflict incident with your child. Anything that stands out vividly. Write it down before you go further and, for fun, try to recall the flow of the conversation…
Did the beginning include some form of problem-solving (e.g., offering to help them get ready, communicate with coaches/teachers on their behalf, etc.), reasoning or logic (e.g., arguments against their position, reminders of consequences, reminders of positives, etc.)? When did you communicate some statement like, “I get it, you’re going through a really hard time,” or “No wonder you’re upset right now”? The sooner the better when we’re validating kids’ emotions. This will serve to immediately de-escalate the emotion rather than signal a need for the child to continue escalating in the hopes of helping you understand what they’re feeling. Which is the 3rd and final rule: Rule #3: Problem-solving, logic & reasoning go last. Your child will be much better able to hear your arguments for change or attempts to help/problem-solve if they feel well enough understood and validated in their current emotional state. That means all attempts to distract or redirect from this feeling will have the opposite effect. PSA: This does not mean these strategies never work. Don’t get me wrong; I can often redirect and distract my kids from a negative emotional state with problem-solving, logic and reasoning. However, this only works for emotions being experienced in a low or moderate range of intensity (think 1-4 on a 1-10 scale). Once your child is experiencing emotions above that low-moderate range, they are much less able to access their problem-solving, logic and reasoning abilities. This is biological, as our threat system is put online when there are heightened emotions (above 4 on the 1-10 scale) and we are more oriented toward survival (fight/flight/freeze) than discussing pros/cons, consequences, rewards, reasons for/against, etc. So, think of validation like a dose effect response. The bigger the emotion, the more the need for validation. Lay it on a bit thicker if the emotion is bigger (regardless of your belief of how big the emotion should be) before moving to problem-solving, logic, or reasoning attempts. This is what it looks like when we put it all together:
Rule #1: Emotions need to be understood: I can understand why…
Rule #2: If you can’t find the emotion, target the behaviour/position: …you might feel upset/be angry with me/feel anxious about…because (VALIDATION).
Rule #3: Problem-solving, logic & reasoning go last.
VALIDATION
What is it? What isn’t it? It’s fairly simple, but it isn’t easy. It’s just communicating the others’ perspective. BUT it HAS to come from a place of good intention. For example. You cannot validate that a child does not want to do their math homework because, “you never do”. This may be true, but it’s not their perspective of why they don’t want to do their math homework, nor does it come from a place of good intention. Good intentions may just be protecting their own ego/sense of adequacy. So, validating is a 1) because statement that 2) communicates your understanding of your child’s perspective 3) from a place of good intention. Simple! Let’s see it:
Rule #1: Emotions need to be understood: I can understand why…
Rule #2: If you can’t find the emotion, target the behaviour: …you don’t want to do your math homework because I know math is really challenging for you and you really want to do well; you can be really hard on yourself when something doesn’t come as easily and it’s frustrating to feel like you’re not making progress. I get it. *Remember to lay it on as thick as the emotion/behaviour is. If child is very avoidant/angry/sad/etc., be very validating. Offer many reasons instead of one or two. *
Rule #3: Problem-solving, logic & reasoning go last:
a) Problem-solving: Listen, why don’t we set a timer for 30 minutes of focused work before you take a brain break, and I’ll sit with you for the first 5-10 mins to get you started.
b) Logic: I notice that whenever you get over that hump of resistance and focus on your math, you actually motor through it so much faster than you realize. If you need any help I (or whatever support – such as AI) am available.
c) Reasoning: Math is really hard for a lot of people. Not everything will come easily, and that’s okay. Just do your best, you don’t have to worry about getting it all right. If you need help, I (or whatever support – such as AI) am available.
Let’s try another example of a super common, mild to moderate emotion…
Rule #1: Emotions need to be understood: I can understand why…
Rule #2: If you can’t find the emotion, target the behaviour/position: …you’d rather have chicken nuggets for dinner because they’re so delicious and it’s your favourite thing to eat!
Rule #3: Problem-solving, logic & reasoning go last:
a) Problem-solving: How about we put chicken nuggets on the list for the weekend/next week/etc.?
b) Logic: Remember we only have chicken nuggets on weekends/special occasions/etc.
c) Reasoning: We already prepared X for dinner so we will have to wait to have chicken nuggets.
Validation really is a magical tool for de-escalating kids’ challenging emotions and getting them to be more psychologically flexible. It does not come naturally, and that is normal and OK! Practice makes permanent (my childhood snowboard coach taught me that one). The more you exercise validating first, the easier it will come. Join your child’s resistance rather than trying to problem-solve or reason and see if it saves you time and energy in the end because you’ve avoided the whole emotional rollercoaster you have learned to prepare for without warning. This post did not cover validating more intense, clinical emotions (e.g., depressed/suicidal youth, obsessive-compulsive disorder, trauma symptoms); however, the same principle of validation first applies. Nevertheless, a clinical population often requires clinical support, and I encourage you to seek professional support as a caregiver for your individual needs. This is my favourite work. Check out my website for more information or inquire for details!