Educating Kids Part 2

B”H

How is everybody doing? I’m exhausted. I’ve had a wedding, a gala, my daughter’s birthday party my son’s basketball game, and a writing deadline for The Jewish Herald Voice… all in the last week and I’m just ready to collapse! And it’s still three days before Shabbat!  Anyways, let’s get to today’s post on kids’ education or chinuch. If you missed last weeks post, you can catch it here.  A big thank you and welcome to Mijal and Jael from TimE Emotional Guidance Center who will share with us 5 steps to understand and connect with your child’s emotions.

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Hi! Today we want to share with you 5 steps to understand and connect with your child’s emotions.

1. Be aware of your child’s emotions (hunger and tiredness can be expressed through sadness, anger, frustration). If your child is experiencing any of those emotions, delay the teaching moment until after nap, or meal time. If they are hungry or tired they are probably not up for learning.
2. Recognize the expressed emotion as an opportunity for learning and connecting. (Girl: Mommy you don’t love me, you love my brothers more. Mom: I hear you are upset, how can I help you?”) Instead of disciplining the child for complaining, you can help the child recognize that what she really wants is love or attention from mommy. Thus, you can say: “How about every time you feel this way you say ‘mommy I need some love?’”
3. Listen empathetically, validating the child’s feelings: “I know how hard is not to get that toy;” “It must be difficult not to be with daddy right now;” “What can I do to help?”
4. Help the child find words to label the emotion he is experiencing. Labeling emotions properly will in turn help them express them properly. Anger might be different than frustration. Exhaustion might look different than anger. Being annoyed might be different than being upset.
5. Set limits. All emotions and feelings are acceptable but some behaviors are not.

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Can I add to number 1 that if I (Mom) am tired or hungry, I’m probably not up for teaching much haha? So, on days like today, I give myself permission to forego the teaching moment because hey I’m probably not going to do a very good job. Often the same things we’re implementing with our kids, we have to implement on ourselves! I told you parenting was about us and our personal growth as well, didn’t I? :-) These five tips are great. Thank You, Mijal and Jael.

Anyone out there struggles with these, or has other tips inside their tool box that you can share with us? We’d love to chat. And if you found these helpful, hit the share button and share them with someone else who could benefit!

Have a great rest of your week.