Erica Wiles 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
To Understand Your Child's Distress and Emotional Reactions, First Listen
Samantha (00:00):
In today's video, we have Erica Wiles, Erica Wiles, a licensed therapist offers several tips to help parents navigate dealing with highly emotional children. Let's see what Erica has to say about helping children manage emotions.
Erica Wiles (00:14):
Hi, learning success. My name is Erica Wiles. I'm an LPC. And I am going to just talk with you briefly about how to deal with an emotional or an overly emotional child. So some things that I found helpful in my practice and some things I like to remind parents is the first thing is to listen to your child, you want to understand your child's distress and emotional reactions. So sometimes kids can become overly emotional or reactive when they feel like they're not being heard. So with adults, it's like, yeah, I hear you or go do this anyway, but you want to just take the time to stop what you're doing. Sit down with your child and really listen to what they need to say. When you do that, you can hear the meaning underneath what they're saying. So, I mean, they could be tantruming over or not even a tantrum, just getting really upset over something like wanting a piece of food.
Erica Wiles (01:09):
But it might not be about that food at all. It might be about them not feeling heard and validated. When you listen, you don't always want to offer suggestions, directions or redirections, you really want to listen to the child. The second thing that I find helpful is modeling appropriate behavior. So children play off of us and how we react because they're looking to adults for direction. So if, when you're asking with your child, you become overly emotional or reactive, that's just going to add fuel to the fire and also teaching them. That's how you're supposed to respond. You want to be patient, keep your voice calm and level. Keep a tone that keeps all kinds of criticism out of it. Just be really open and inviting and again, patient. Another thing that I've found helpful is collaborate with your child.
Tantrums might not be about what they seem to be about
Erica Wiles (02:05):
So allow your child to actively process and problem solve when it comes to creating coping skills or creating strategies to handle the situation or the stress it allows your child to have ownership of the problem ownership of the decision. And they buy into the solution a little bit better. When they're told you need to do this, or you need to do that, or you can't react that way or you're being silly. It, again, it makes them want to be upset, but if you've taken the time to sit with them and help them talk things out and you have a better understanding of their perspective and they have a better understanding of yours then you can come to the table together. The next thing I found that's really helpful is just being consistent and patient. You want to approach emotional outburst, the same way, calm, cool collected.
Erica Wiles (03:03):
You need to remember that change does not occur overnight. It doesn't occur overnight for adults, and it definitely doesn't occur overnight for kids. It is a situation that needs a lot of practice and patience. You need to be able to remind your kid throughout this process that learning takes time and that it's okay if we make mistakes and don't become upset. If they experienced another outbursts, you don't want to make that a negative thing you want to actively problem solve again with that. Uthe last thing is, you know, if your parents,useek further support if needed, so it may be that,uyour child might need to talk to a third person, the therapist, we're not all therapists. We don't always have all the skills and answers,uin dealing with this. So just try not to see it as a failure because you're not a failure. It's okay to get help. It's okay to say, I'm not really sure what's going on. We've tried a, B and C. It's not working. UI need help. That's okay. And,uagain, be upfront with your child and,uinvite them into the conversation and let them know that that's the plan,uand just be supportive throughout. All right. Hope these help. Thanks.
Make sure to watch the full documentary on childhood emotions. You'll learn how to help your child manage their own emotions. You'll learn about your own emotions and how they affect your child. And you'll learn simple ways of helping children improve behavior.
Get more info at
Key Takeaways:
Do You Need help with a Learning Difficulty?
Our simple online analysis will help you get to the core of the problem and find the right solution for you.
Understanding how to help someone with a learning difficulty starts with understanding which micro-skills are affected. When you learn which of the micro-skills is the problem, you will then be on your way to solving it.
You'll also learn how to:
- Build confidence
- Enhance Learning ability
- Eliminate avoidance
- Build grit
You can get this analysis for free by filling out this simple form. This will help you get to the bottom of a learning difficulty and provide you with a solution. If you are ready to put this problem behind you click the button below and fill out the form.
