Category Archives: Expressing Emotion

Post about validating our children’s feelings of emotions and supporting them through big emotion

Learning to Love a Child’s Meltdowns

She sobbed heaving sobs into my chest as I wrapped my arms around her. Her strong emotions spilled out as her tears soaked my shirt. I held her for the longest time; saying nothing, just listening and holding space for her to communicate to me her inner-most thoughts through her upset.

A thought flashed through my mind in that moment about how much I love it when my children have a meltdown. I didn’t always but I have learned over the years that so much good can come from them if I am accepting of the feelings that surface and hear the messages in their screams.

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Supporting a Child Through Rage

Rage is something many of us have experienced on more than one occasion. It is more than just anger, it normally comes from a feeling of gross injustice; a feeling that boils our blood and we literally feeling like inflicting pain on someone or something in order to satisfy that raw emotion that threatens to undermine our normally level-headed composure.

Children experience the same sense of rage that adults do. In fact, their emotional and social immaturity makes them even more susceptible to experiencing this strong emotion as they lose reasoning and logic in their interactions with others. They come from a self-centred view point and therefore genuinely feel great injustices on an almost daily basis.

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5 Reasons to Let Kids Have the Day off School

We have been officially schooling for two weeks now and yesterday I let my daughter have the day off. No, I’m not trying to be rebellious nor do I think school is not a good place for her to be. I love her school and have placed tremendous trust in them to keep my daughter’s love of learning alive. But, I also think that it is important for kids to be allowed a break once in a while.

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The First Day of School: A Lesson in NOT Projecting Fears

Holding tightly to my mother’s hands, I walked nervously into the school yard. I heard my name being introduced to my teacher and an explanation that I was a shy child. I clutched at my mother’s legs as she tried to leave. I begged her to stay with me. I couldn’t be left there on my own. I was scared. I was going to be sick. She prised herself away from me, told me I would be okay and left.

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My Daughter is Not Giving Me a Hard Time, She is Having a Hard Time

My daughter is not giving me a hard time, she is having a hard time. And even if I feel like she IS giving me a hard time, it is important for me to realise that my hard time comes from my own insecurities and triggers from my past. They are my feelings to own and deal with. I am the adult and I must take responsibility for how I handle those feelings.

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Don’t Comfort Me, I Need to Cry

It is difficult as a parent to hear your child in distress, but what’s even harder is when, despite their obvious emotional turmoil, they refuse your comfort. That rejection can instantly make a parent feel like a failure. Comforting pain and hurt is supposed to be part of our parenting role, isn’t it?

So what’s a parent supposed to do if their child doesn’t want their support when they are feeling low? And more importantly, why on earth would they not want their parent to help them when they are so distressed?

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The Power of Music for Children

We are so lucky to be bringing our children up in a world full of some truly amazing and inspiring music. There are so many wonderful forms of music for children that it is not hard to find something that our little ones will enjoy. The thing is though that music is such a powerful tool but many of us simply let it wash over us as we go about our days, never fully appreciating its power to help us through our lives.

We all know that children can benefit greatly from listening to music. For years, studies have been conducted linking exposure to various music genres early in life with increased academic performance through schooling and beyond. But I have witnessed music do considerably more than just increase academic intelligence.

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Supporting an Emotional Child: A Step by Step Guide for Parents

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Supporting an emotional child and helping  them learn to cope with their emotions is a complex task. It is important that in our efforts to provide children with skills and techniques to become more self-regulatory when they are feeling emotional, we do not inadvertently invalidate their emotions or cause our children to feel abnormal simply because they feel things more deeply than others.

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