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How often do we tell children: “Don’t cry!”, “Don’t whine”, “What are you, a crybaby?”. And we do not understand that by this we devalue their feelings. But how to react when the child is crying and does not want to listen to anything? We deal with the psychotherapist Yulia Chulkova.
Emotional intelligence helps both adults and children in life. I remember the five-year-old daughter of my friend, in front of whom her mother was called by a passenger who missed the plane.
While the woman was terrified of how to explain what had happened to the child, the daughter said: “Mom, it seems to me that my uncle was just very upset because he didn’t make it to the plane. He could not express his feelings and therefore screamed in resentment. Most likely, the mother also explained her feelings to her daughter in a similar way, and she was able to understand the other, based on this experience.
After all, emotional intelligence helps not only to achieve goals, which is certainly important. It gives us the ability to stand up to the challenges of life without feeling like a victim.
How can you help your child develop emotional intelligence? First you need to teach him to recognize specific feelings behind a set of vague bodily sensations and impulses. This is where parents get in trouble. After all, no one taught us this. And no matter how good our intentions are, it is very difficult to act contrary to our own childhood experience.
Automatic reactions
1. «Don’t cry,» «don’t be afraid,» «don’t be sad.» Often these words fly out before we realize that we are saying something wrong. Unfortunately, for a child, they may sound like a call to restrain emotions, because children think literally. It will be better if you show the child that his feelings are important to you: get distracted from business, hug, console.
2. “Oh, come on, think about it”, “is this really a reason to cry and get angry”. Perhaps with the help of these messages, the adult wants to protect the child from «negative» feelings. But in fact, he simply devalues them. Such phrases teach you to rely on the feelings of others more than on your own. With one of my clients, we worked for over a year on her ability to draw on her own feelings. At the age of three, she was afraid that she would be eaten by a huge «Soviet» closet in the bedroom. The older brother and sister liked the idea, and they added fuel to the fire. Parents, in response to the complaints of the youngest daughter, laughed and reacted only to the elders: “Stop scoffing.” As a result, the client learned to distance herself from her feelings so much that she did not take them into account at all.
Subsequently, when her boyfriend «joked»: «You say that all women deserve gifts, why don’t you have them?» — and burst into laughter, she felt disgusting, but believed her partner that she was really unworthy of gifts. Once the feelings were rehabilitated, the client’s life changed dramatically.
So that in the future the child does not have such difficulties, it is better if you figure out together what is happening to him. He may feel physical discomfort and react, for example, by screaming, although he is actually hungry or frightened. The more feelings a person learns to distinguish, the more appropriate his reactions will be.
3. “And if I whine now?”, “Well, what a whiner.” Perhaps this is how an adult tries to find out what he really needs. But instead, it just devalues his feelings. Therefore, it is better to simply ask: “What do you want?” Without ridiculing the child.
4. «No one will be friends with such crybabies.» Such a reaction causes the child to be ashamed of his feelings, a feeling that something is wrong with him. It will be better if you let him feel that everything that happens to him is normal and you will help, no matter what happens.
5. «If you don’t stop now, then…». Sometimes such words are spoken by exhausted, morally exhausted adults. Therefore, it is worthwhile, as in an airplane, to put on a mask first on yourself — to recover, and then take care of children’s perception. In a child, an inadequate reaction of an adult can cause anger or resentment: after all, they are going to punish him for who he is.
6. «Boys don’t cry.» Often adults hope to raise a “real man”: strong, successful. But in fact, they achieve only one thing: the child decides that he has no right to feelings.
In this vein, it is interesting that, according to statistics, 6 times more men die from suicide in Russia than women.1. Many researchers attribute this to the fact that “real men” cannot ask for help, cannot admit weakness, and cannot accept support. It is also curious that, according to statistics, 90% of2 top managers have high emotional intelligence, so that «real men» are also less likely to succeed than those who pay attention to their experiences.
How to react?
- Show that the feelings of the child are important to you and you are ready to help: “Go, I will protect you!”
- Name the feeling that the child is experiencing and explain the reason. “You fell. It hurts you, and it’s also a shame that your new blouse is dirty.” “You are angry because I stopped your game. I’m sorry, but you can’t put a hairpin in an outlet. It’s not safe, you can get electrocuted, and it hurts a lot.” «You were afraid of the dark.» «Grandma left and you were upset.»
- Support the child in experiencing feelings. “I am with you and will hug and comfort you until all sadness with tears leaves. And we’ll wash the blouse.» “I’m sorry I can’t let you. I’m sorry. When I don’t get what I want, I get very angry too. Come, I’ll comfort you.» “When I was little, I was also afraid of the dark, but then it went away. And you, too, someday will stop, but while you are afraid, let’s leave the nightlight. “I also feel sad when I part with loved ones. Let’s draw a postcard for grandma, and on your next meeting you will make her happy.
- Talk to your child about the feelings of the people around you. Talk about how the feelings and behaviors of others are connected. This will help him understand his feelings.
It is difficult to get away from automatic reactions to the child’s manifestations of feelings. It is also difficult to find a resource to start reacting differently. You will find support from a specialist if you cannot deal with problems alone.
1 Preventing suicide: a global imperative. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2014 (In Russian).
2 According to Talentsmart.