The Biggest Factor in How Children Cope With Their Emotions

Brent Sweitzer is featured in the new documentary, The Overly Emotional Child

This new documentary helps parents gain a deeper understanding of why children may have BIG Emotions.

Learn how you can help your child:

• Eliminate tantrums
• Stop shutting down
• prevent overreacting

Like a complete course to help parents and children gain emotional intelligence together.

Get more info on the documentary at

www.learningsuccesssystem.com/documentary/emotional

Liz Weaver (00:00):

In today's video, we have Brent Sweitzer. Brent uses his experience as a counselor and play therapist to help distant couples reconnect, communicate better, and helps children play their way through difficult emotions. And this video, Brent talks about setting the emotional climate for your children by managing your own emotions. First let's watch.

Brent Sweitzer (00:24):

So let's talk about emotions managing ours so we can help our children and manage theirs. So let's start with ours, how we manage and regulate our own emotions probably is the biggest factor in how our children cope with their own. We as parents set the emotional climate in our home for our children. So, you know what flight attendants say when you're when you're starting a flight secure your own oxygen mask before putting it on someone else? Well, this is especially true in the realm of emotions, the more we can be attuned to our own emotional experience, the better we can support our children. So this includes getting to know our triggers that may be drawn up through interactions with our children. There may be issues and experiences for ourselves that need more processing or even maybe exploration with a mental health professional. So let me give you an example, what I mean.

Brent Sweitzer (01:24):

So for some parents, seeing their child upset can be very triggering for them, such that they feel compelled to do anything they can to calm the child. Now, the downside of this is that this can communicate to the child that,, that, that child can't cope with their own upsetting emotions, which is not something we want them to learn. So for other parents, seeing their child upset may trigger more of a tough enough response, likely maybe because that's how a key caregiver responded to or responded to us. And of course, this can teach kids not to be aware of how they feel or if they are not to share it with their parents. So just becoming more aware of these reactions can in ourselves can make a huge difference in our ability to be present with our children and to support them. So again, let me give you some practical ideas for this at a time when you're calm, you know, questions that you can ask yourself, or, you know, maybe what thoughts go through my head.

Brent Sweitzer (02:21):

When I see my child struggling, what do I feel inside when my child is upset? What did I learn? Maybe from my own upbringing about feelings that may be interfering with my present, chosen values as a parent and what I want my children to feel and what I want them to learn. So on my website, I have a feelings list, just list of different feelings, positive and negative that can help, you know, get more fluency here or just Google feelings list. You'll probably find some, some resources that will help kind of expand your own emotional vocabulary. Okay. So we talked a little about our emotions within ourselves as parents. Now let's talk a little bit about responding to emotions in our kids. So,

Speaker 3 (03:06):

You know, when we're able to manage our own feelings, we'll have a much more time, much easier time supporting our children in theirs. And that leads us to a key principle here, how our children feel about themselves is really the biggest determinant of their behavior. So children feel good about themselves, and this is not just how they feel at any given moment, but in general, a way of relating to themselves, if they feel good and they relate to themselves well, they'll behave in ways that support and enhance that view of themselves. So how to children, how do we help children feel good about themselves? Well, a good start is to help them be in touch with their feelings, help them know what they're feeling, and help them know that we, we understand well, how do we do that? Well, by helping them name and accept their own feelings. So let me give you an example of that. So when you see a child, your own child or another child is stressed about something that happened during the day, you know, instead of trying to maybe reassure them or by saying things like, Oh, it's okay.