Dr. Kailyn Bobb 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
Emotional Children Find It Difficult to Self Soothe. Parents Can Help
Liz Weaver (00:00):
In today's video. We have Dr. Kailyn, Bobb. Dr. Kailin Bobb, director of psychotherapy at clarity clinic talks about overly emotional children and what parents can do to ensure that they thrive in a healthy environment that helps them soar. Dr. Bob is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in providing psychological assessments as well as individual and group therapy to children, adolescents, and adults. When one struggles to understand themselves and the world around them. Dr. Bob finds that psychological assessments can help one gain insight about themselves and provide direction. If an impasse occurs in therapy,
Dr Kailyn Bobb (00:35):
It's important to remember that having emotion, that's not a weakness. Emotions are normal responses to situations. It communicates information to us in a way that sight sound touch and smell does. It tells us that something is fun. So we want to do it again, or something is scary. So we want to protect ourselves and not do it again. It tells us that something that there, and we deserve to be treated better, but sometimes how children, adolescent display these emotions. That seems so intense. And we want to just say, calm down, stop freaking out. But dismissing or invalidating, your emotions can lead to thoughts that they don't matter. They're not important. And this could result in long-term consequences to their sense of self worth and how they value themselves, how they may advocate for their needs as an adult. Now, if their internal environment is experiencing some form of distress, like anxiety, sadness, anger, but their external environment, meaning the parent, some adult figure, their peers are saying, no, don't feel that way.
Dr Kailyn Bobb (01:35):
You shouldn't feel that way. It's, it's very confusing. For example, if your child is upset because someone took something from them and you said, it's no big deal, get over it or go demand to get that punchline that they learned. That's what they should do when they get that emotion again. So when they're older and someone takes something from them, like, like maybe a promotion or credit for their work, they don't get that same feeling of perhaps anger and injustice. Then what you taught them on how to respond to such emotion or a situation that's going to be how they will behave. And not only that, it could really damage a relationship because a child or team may feel that they can't share their thoughts and feelings with their parents, because they may feel that they won't be heard. They may get the town or the out of fear that they're going to get yelled at.
Dr Kailyn Bobb (02:25):
So I know that when I can find my thoughts and feelings and someone and need to dismiss me or respond in some less supportive manner, it will be unlikely that I'll go to them again to gain a full understanding. We have to look into how the brain develops the brain develops kind of down and up inside out kind of like a beautiful flower. Now, the last part to develop is the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in decision-making organization, planning problem-solving impulse control, recent studies show that this part to develop well into the twenties. So basically what I'm saying is that the rational part of the brain won't be fully developed until about like age 25 or so neither prefrontal cortex is the limbic system, which is the part of the brain involved in emotional responses and other things. The vast majority of the limbic system development occurs before birth.
Dr Kailyn Bobb (03:20):
So it was pretty understandable why children and adolescents can seem to have these intense emotions because their brain development just isn't there to help them be rational or regulate their emotions and impulses children, adolescents have to learn how to regulate their emotions and self-soothe, and that's where parents, caregivers, or other adult figures come in. So when your child is experiencing or expressing their emotion, help them identify what they're experiencing and validate it, knowledge that what they are feeling makes sense. And you hear that validating doesn't mean that you agree or condone what they're experiencing or how they are behaving, but that you understand like I would be upset too. If my friend didn't invite me to the mall, I would be frustrated to you for getting a C after studying for so hard. I could see that you're super excited about going to six flags.
Dr Kailyn Bobb (04:15):
The parent can let the child know that he may feel his emotions intensely, but it doesn't mean that the emotions control him and he can learn other ways or healthier ways, helpful ways to calm himself down. Now, when their emotions are really intense and really explosive, it's not a time to lecture or yell because they've maybe two into two into their emotions to hear you. They're too caught up in whatever they're feeling. And they will reaction only if they perceive. What you're trying to say is too aggressive or too dismissive. This is a time to help them regulate their emotions and support them. Tell him then stands and kind of neutralize it, soften your tone, relax your face, your body language, maybe ask what they need. Do they need space? Do they want to talk? Do they want to go for a walk? Do they want to be held?
Dr Kailyn Bobb (05:03):
Maintaining their safety is most important though. So if they end up throwing a tantrum, they may, they might just have to let it out, but get rid of any dangerous objects nearby, remove them. Anything that could hurt them, kind of take them out of the area so they can't hurt themselves. Or maybe you have to move them to a safer location. Like if they're very upset and they're a bunch of red on traffic by all means, stop them. Safety comes first. Otherwise take a step back, assess the situation, figure out what your approach should be. If you did need to redirect them, keep your instructions brief, clear, and short. I see that you're super excited about going to six flags. Now, can you please screaming because it's hurting my ears and distracting me from driving? How about we sing us on instead, I see that you're angry that your brother hit you in the head with a gun, take a deep breath, walk away.