I remember watching a movie with a girl and she started describing the emotions that the actors were demonstrating: “She’s really annoyed”; “That guy really likes her but doesn’t want to show it”; “You watch: he’s about to blow his stack!” I was amazed: she was watching a completely different movie from me! And I was impressed that she had such a sophisticated ability to read people and interpret their emotions. (She could obviously interpret my emotions and intentions and I never got to watch another movie with her but that’s by-the-by. She talked during movies, anyway, so perhaps it is just as well.)
A recent study showed that children who could understand emotions and label them correctly went on to have far fewer behavioural problems*. I could imagine why that would be: sometimes I have mislabelled my emotions and, because of that, acted inappropriately. I remember my girl when she was a toddler: she pulled away from me and ran onto a busy street. I caught her and I felt so angry… actually what I was feeling was a strong emotion that was actually probably fear but I labelled it anger and expressed it as anger.
The study showed that you could teach toddlers about emotions. Mothers and children would look at pictures in a book and say something like, “That little boy looks sad.” Then the mother would give it a context: “He is sad because he lost his toy.” And then they would remind the child of when they had felt that emotion. “Do you remember when you felt sad when Tom didn’t want to play with you? That’s how this boy in the picture is feeling.” The study showed children who were taught these skills could express their emotions and desires with words instead of acting out or being aggressive.
Little chats in the car, at bed time, while going for walks – it might set your child up for a whole life-time of handling their emotions in a better way.
* Holly E. Brophy-Herb et al.,Toddlers with Early Behavioral Problems at Higher Family Demographic Risk Benefit the Most from Maternal Emotion Talk. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 2015; 1 DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000000196
Raywyne - 9 years ago
Thought this was grownups- Should be called kidsup!