7 Steps To Handle Your Toddler’s Big Feelings
Toddlerhood. The amazing stage of our tiny little humans discovering their personalities. The infamous tantrums, meltdowns, and the stage where you sitting down and breathing is somehow an unforgivable sin. Where they want your help with wearing their shoes yet you’re not allowed to touch their shoes. And the list goes on.
Most of us parents/caregivers are often caught off guard by our little one’s outbursts of emotions, and we may unintentionally drive them to develop unhealthy coping mechanisms with their emotions. And to help us parents on how to deal with these trying times, here are the step-by-step on how to teach our kids to navigate their big feelings:
1. Label their emotions.
Remember that our kids’ brains are still developing, and their capability of regulating their emotions are very limited. Oftentimes, even non-existent in trying times. The most basic step for our kids to navigate their big feelings is to be capable of labeling their own emotions. Normalize ALL feelings, sadness, frustrations, annoyance, anger, every feeling should be welcomed.
Once we teach them about how to label their emotions, they’ll become aware of whatever is happening inside their body. Awareness allows one to come up with tools to prevent unwanted behavior or actions. We will eventually get into that, but coping healthily to anything begins with first and foremost, labeling something.
2. Empathize with them.
Once we’re able to help our kids to label their emotions, we need to make them feel seen and validated with their emotions. This can be as simple as acknowledging that you know that they’re upset/experiencing whatever it is they’re feeling. Simply saying the lines of “it’s ok to be upset. I hear you and I feel you. It’s ok to feel the feelings.”
Don’t downplay their feelings, saying things like “It’s no big deal, it’s just a simple fall”, or any of those dismissive lines. Because in their own little world, they are experiencing a big deal. And even us adults get very triggered by people who downplay our rants or simply tell us to calm down when we’re in the thick of voicing our complaints. Our kids are humans too, with feelings that need to be validated.
3. State your boundary.
Although it’s okay for our kids to feel all the feelings, it’s not okay for them to react to their uncontrollable body impulses. Although it’s perfectly normal for them to act that way, we need to gently but firmly let them know that we won’t allow them to hurt others or themselves while they’re in the thick of their emotional wave.
Repeat it to them and calmly say your boundaries in a matter-of-fact manner. Boundaries are non-negotiables that we always need to stick to. So be mindful of what boundaries we set for our kids, as our kid’s job is always to test the limits of it. It’s recommended to stick only to a few ground rules that your family sticks to, rather than a lot of rules that you can’t commit to.
4. Keep calm, and keep you and your kid safe.
When the emotions are running high, remember that your job in the moment of chaos, tantrums, and meltdowns is to keep calm (or at least look like it). More benefits about keeping calm can be read in my IG post here. Another job you have to do is to calmly and gently keep you and your kid safe from harm.
Remember that our boundaries are NOT simply saying ‘No’, but us (the adults) swiftly doing something about what our child is doing to enforce the boundaries. Like when they climb on the table, we state our boundary “Table is not for standing,”, then physically removing them from the table and putting them somewhere they can actually stand on, such as the sofa.
5. Offer them choices (when you can).
Our tiny humans’ brains are obsessed with getting some form of control or grabbing any opportunity to exercise their independence. This is developmentally NORMAL. It just means that they’re developing their personalities, as humans. Hence, testing boundaries? Check. Pushbacks and power struggles? Standard.
One way to switch their mode from pushback to cooperating with us is to give them age-appropriate choices. It allows them to exercise their independence, give them some form of control back to themselves (after a day where we direct orders at them non-stop), and it makes them happy. We’re happy either way whatever they decide as well. Everyone wins.
6. Teach when the emotional wave is over.
In times when our kids are screaming their lungs out about a chicken nugget that wasn’t cut properly, our only focus is to keep calm and ride that emotional wave with them. But we often forget that we need to also teach them the right coping tools after that emotional wave. Once they’re in the middle of their tantrums, they won’t be able to respond to any form of logic.
So when they’re much much calmer, you can prep ahead! Redirect them that when they’re angry, they can either scream at the pillow, bite a chewing toy, or practice letting out a lion’s breathe. So having these methods in their toolset early on would help build emotional resiliency in your kids as they grow up to adulthood.
7. Repair the relationship (with your kid/with yourself).
Dear parent, if you skipped the above steps and went to the normal route of losing your mind on them and went directly to screaming town, no judgment was placed on you. Sending you positive vibes instead. We’re all humans, and we are allowed to feel big feelings as well. And the parenting guilt that comes after we lose it? Soo heavy.
Hence, an important step in dealing with our child’s emotions is to address them and apologize to our own child. This models genuine apology, reminds them that they’re loved, and normalizes big feelings as well. And do what you can to repair yourself by taking care of yourself. One reason why we lose control of our emotions is due to parent burnout, so don’t forget that you matter too!
There you have it! The five steps to help you navigate your toddler’s big feelings. Hope these steps would help you as a parent build emotional resiliency in your child. Cheering for you always in your respective journeys!
Kristine
