Big Feelings & Meltdowns: A Parent's Guide to Emotional Regulation in Kids

*This transcript has been edited for read-ability

Myth Busting Big Feelings and Meltdowns

This episode focusses on some myth busting and putting together some realistic expectations about what it means to have emotional regulation skills.

Basically, what does it look like to have and make space for feelings? What does that realistic picture look like? This is one of the things that's been coming up in my one on one work recently.

And if you've been wondering a way to work with me and I've never had an option for you, I highly recommend you go check out my page because I've added some one on one options that have never existed. I have hourly options, I have a mini package, and then I have my longstanding comprehensive package.

Feelings Are Neither Good nor Bad

When I work with parents, there's something that's been coming up with pretty consistent regularity. And that is the idea that there seems to be this notion, this idea that children are somehow always going to be perfect regulators and that they're never going to be unhappy or that we have an unrealistic threshold for what some of the more unpleasant feelings look like.

So when we're talking about social emotional intelligence. People like Mark Brackett talk a lot about this idea that feelings are neither good nor bad. They are meant to inform us. And that's a really important sort of statement. However, the caveat is, not all feelings come out the way we want to see them come out.

Not all feelings are pleasant to experience or be in the presence of so although no feelings are good or bad, we definitely prefer sort of feeling certain feelings more than other feelings. This is why I think happiness becomes the default. Part of what's happening there is we like to feel happy, we like to experience calmness, we like to have spaces that are more in the positive realm.

What About Unwanted or Problematic Behaviours?

So it's really hard to step back and say, 'okay, all feelings are valid, none are good or bad.' Truthfully, we do categorize them. We do categorize sort of unhappiness and sadness and anger and disappointment into a space where we don't really want to feel them or we don't really want to make space for them because they create uncomfortable or sometimes inappropriate or unwanted behaviors.

Yelling, screaming, stomping, attitude, all the kinds of things that parents sort of say about their children or feel about certain circumstances.

So one of the things that's been coming up recently is sort of this idea of like 'hey we've been investing quite a bit of time into feelings and building feelings vocabulary, we have the things are in place. We've been working towards things and yet we're still having these big outbursts or having these big feelings moments. 

This is where you have to step back and say, doing work in making space for feelings means some of the feelings that you're going to experience alongside your child aren't going to be fun, aren't going to be pleasant.

Now, this is where we sort of dig into the next layer of, okay, I get that, not all feelings are fun, not all feelings are pleasant, but I can't have my child screaming so loud that the neighbors are kind of wondering what the heck is going on.

And I have felt like that sometimes as a parent, I'm like, holy cow, I do this work and my neighbors must think. And then I stop and say, I do this work because I'm making space for feelings and we are working consistently over a very long trajectory to make space for the feelings and build tools for the feelings.

Which means sometimes the way those feelings are coming out at home in our safe space is not pleasant.

Big Feelings Moments & Safe Spaces

And I'm not saying that's okay. I have an episode on this, just because your child, you're your child's safe space doesn't mean you make space for unkindness, but it does happen in our safe spaces. We get a little bit feisty with our partners. Our children are a little bit, you know rude, they use a little tone of voice that we don't always appreciate. All kinds of things. Because you're the safe person and you're still going to be there even if they treat you unkindly. I'm not saying that's acceptable, but what I am saying is changing the reaction to a feeling is a big, big, big, big, big trajectory.

And even on that big, big, big, big trajectory, sometimes it's going to be a dino brain moment. What we want is those dino brain moments to be much less, and we want to actively build tools for those feelings, those not as pleasant feelings. So that we're not yelling at someone, maybe we're singing a song really loudly in our bedroom, so that we're not kicking or hitting maybe we're drumming on the couch or we have a space that we're allowed to throw our stuffies or squeeze things that we're not doing something harmful to ourselves or to others. That is the ultimate goal.

But in the journey, in the process, it's going to take some time to build that. The other thing which I've talked about on the podcast before is we can't build tools in dino brain moments.

Emotional Regulation & Effective Tools

So those tricky, difficult moments, and even people have been on this journey with me for a really long time, need the reminder in the moment you are modeling tools for regulation, the ones you've been practicing in calm and connection, and if you don't have my book, The Adventures of Team Brain go grab it because that book takes you through the process of helping children identify their dino brain, understand that we have to build tools for our dino brain in calm and connection.

That we have to stop. We have to breathe. We have to think and we have to act. We have to go through that journey, and that process takes time and we're going to get better at it the more we do it. But in the moment, we don't want to reinforce that behavior. We want to say, okay, big feelings moment, model the tool. Most importantly though, model the tool we've actually been practicing in calm and connection.

Because if we haven't been building tools in calm and connection, we can't recall those in dino brain moments. They're not second nature to us. We're dysregulated. We have no interest in you telling us how to feel or what to do or how to regulate.

And parents, you do not need your child's permission to model regulation. They don't have to agree with you showing them that we need to use tools for our feelings. Until they start to see that this is your reaction to dino brain moments, they may get more dysregulated. They may get frustrated. You may have to step back a little bit in this process. The goal here though is to sort of actively build those tools and then be the one in the moment who is the confident adult guide.

Practicing Tools Doesn't Make the Big Feelings Go Away

Now, the reason I wanted to share this podcast though is I wanted to step back and say, just because you practice tools, just because you're on this ongoing journey, just because you're doing all the things, you're still going to have big feelings and your child's going to have big feelings and making space for those big feelings does mean after school is not always going to be, you know, peachy and pleasant and rainbows and unicorns It's not because you're the safe space and that's one thing that's happening here.

You're the safe space So they're letting go of their feelings. Now, how do we start to address this? How do we start to think about this? I had this conversation with myself yesterday. I was like, whoa There seems to be a lot of big feelings happening at school right now. There seems to be a lot of momentum how am I going to start creating some afterschool spaces for a little bit of calming down for a little bit of, you know, simmering before we have high engagement interaction because those engaged moments, those interactions are charged with feelings and it's not pleasant, right?

So in my mind, when these things are happening, that is how I'm responding. I'm thinking to myself, okay, where am I creating spaces? What does that look like?

I was at a tech summit earlier this year, and one of the things they were talking about is how watching TV, playing a video game or one of these kinds of things of often associated with being chill time. It's our downtime. Well, what some of the research is actually starting to show is that, your brain just kind of hits the pause button on its stress and some people believe it actually activates it further.

So you're not actually chilling. You're not actually relaxing. Your brain is actually not doing any of those things. So if you're a parent who's like, it didn't help, it was only quiet for half an hour or whatever and then it all came back. It's because it literally didn't go away. And for some kids, it actually probably even got worse.

So that's another podcast for another day. This idea of like, What are our parent clues for problem solving to address what are our child needs to show up for regulation, but today's podcast, the focus is not every big feelings moment is going to have the perfect tool. Not every big feelings moment is going to go smoothly.

Making Space For Feelings Means Making Space for All Feelings 

When we are really authentically showing up to say, I'm making a space for all feelings to be welcome, that does mean we also have to say, no feelings are good and no feelings are bad, and we have to accept that unhappiness, sad, mad, jealousy, guilt, frustration, annoyance, all the ones that generally come along with the dino brain reactions, that making a space for those isn't always going to be peaceful and lovely and unicorns and rainbows.

And our goal is how can we take some of those unwanted behaviors, whether it's kicking or screaming or self harm or those kinds of things. Hurting ourself, hurting others with our words, with our thoughts, with our actions. How can we take some of those things and build a tool in calm and connection?

And if you're struggling to navigate these waters alone, don't worry, personal one-on-one sessions are now available to provide more personal guidance.