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The end of the year is usually a time of reflection. And there can be stress that comes up that highlights your growth over the course of the year. Here are 3 signs you’ve grown this year. Choosing to accept or move on Sometimes we …
It’s only recently that emotional maturity has been the focus of attention and this is great news. Emotional immaturity has been the cause of so much distress in our lives and relationships and now we are learning to do better. The operative word is learning! …
It’s never too early to begin laying the foundation for emotional maturity. Kids will take on what you, as the parent, create as the norm. I recently witnessed a two year old take a full body breath after she started whining, when her mom guided her to take a breath. It was clear she fully understood what it meant to take a breath and relax her body. If she can do it, we all can do it. So let’s talk about how to help kids develop emotional maturity.
When kids experience something that is uncomfortable, it can throw them for a loop. They don’t really know what to do with the feelings they are experiencing. Start with teaching them to breathe with things from a young age. Model doing this yourself. This can become second nature if you consistently use breathing techniques yourself and redirect them to use them when they are struggling. You can do this using meditation apps to teach and practice breathing.
Here are some examples to use this in everyday life:
Affirm that it’s okay to have feelings that are uncomfortable or make them upset and guide them through a positive way to cope with what they are feeling. They need to understand that the feeling is not the problem, the negative reaction is. Let them see you make a choice to deal with your feelings in a positive way through modeling.
When I was growing up, apologies weren’t a thing. Maybe because apologies were seen as compromising authority or power. As we evolve, we are seeing that authority or power are not compromised by taking responsibility, instead an apology can enhance power: what bends doesn’t break.
Taking responsibility produces trust and respect. If a kid sees the adults in their life take responsibility or tell someone they are sorry when they are wrong, it will relieve some of the pressure they feel to be perfect because they will see that even adults mess up sometimes. It shows them you are human and this creates an opportunity for them to connect with you and see that no one is perfect.
“Always Say the Words “I’m Sorry”. Sometimes wrong-doers try to repent in other ways. They’ll perform acts of kindness and bestow gifts.” But hearing the words ‘I’m sorry’ feels the most sincere. “Saying you’re sorry concisely and sincerely shows kids that no one is perfect.” (Parents.com | How to Apologize to Your Kids the Right Way—And Why It’s Important , Holly Rizzuto Palker | March 25, 2021)
This doesn’t mean over apologizing or always taking the blame, but modeling appropriate self responsibility. This also builds empathy and communication skills which are crucial for emotional maturity.
Repair communication is an important part of successful relationships that can weather inevitable conflict. This means coming to the table with each person taking responsibility for their own part in the conflict.
It always takes two to tango. Simplify this with younger kids or start by modeling this kind of communication with others in the house. A good guideline or question can be when you are repairing: what did we learn about ourselves in that interaction?
This teaches self reflection, self responsibility, and conflict resolution skills. This also teaches that conflict can be a source of growth and doesn’t have to be avoided at all costs. Finally, it’s a way to get out of the blame game. Most people point fingers during conflict rather than take responsibility or become more aware of themselves.
Imagine the kind of world we would have if we all handled conflict this way.
Being curious about feelings vs reactive toward feelings can make a big difference when it comes to the development of emotional maturity. This can start early! Instead of framing feelings as a problem, encourage your kids to embrace them. Accepting them with a sense of curiosity builds self awareness and empathy.
“Talk openly about emotions rather than dismissing or burying them…Never punish a child for feeling sad or angry. Make it clear that all emotions are welcome, and learn to manage them in a healthy way through discussion and reflection.” (Biglifejournal.com | Key Strategies to Teach Children Empathy (Sorted by Age) | By Ashley Cullins, October 22)
Being curious about their feelings doesn’t mean they do not express them, it means they work to understand them and make positive choices about how they will handle them.
When you encourage your kids to be curious and seek to understand their emotions you are creating opportunities for meaningful discussions where you can guide them to create positive coping skills.
Developing emotional maturity early means your kids will be better equipped to handle some of the hard seasons of life that they will encounter as they grow up.
If they become more comfortable with feeling their emotions at a young age they will more than likely feel more stable and confident when they have to work through a social, or personal, challenge.
Not everyone is convinced that feelings are important. I get that. If you are one of those people who is not totally convinced that feelings are that big a deal, this is for you. I explain it this way often to my clients… How hard …
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We talk a lot in sessions about what kids hear and witness when there is stress going on inside a family.
If a parent cries or parents argue, on some level, kids are going to know. They might directly see or hear. Or they simply might feel that something is going on. Emotional currents run through a family and through households. There is no hiding that.
Also, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come out of my office and bumped into a kid listening at the door of one of the other therapists that work in our office suite. Kids are nosy!
You have to remember that picking up on these things, to some degree consciously or unconsciously, is partly a survival mechanism. Kids rely on their parent(s) to get needs met and they need to know what is going on in the family system so they can estimate how or when those needs can be met. This “thought process” about getting needs met can be largely unconscious. That information is required nonetheless.
To what degree? It really depends on the child or teen, their age, their level of emotional awareness, sensitivity and the family dynamics.
As with most things, it depends. However, I would say that it is likely that some acknowledgement of what is happening will be helpful.
Most of the time, you want to acknowledge that there is some kind of stress or there was a tough moment because they are going to find a way to make sense of it whether you share with them or not. Consider that most kids/teens (and some people in general) will tend to explain things to themselves putting themselves at the center of the story. This way, there is a sense of control.
If parents are fighting over parenting, for example, a child might decide they are the problem and if they are more well behaved or easy, the fighting will stop. Or, if they need less, their parents won’t be so stressed about money. They want to fix it. Just like we all want to solve problems and stop pain.
So, if you don’t acknowledge what is happening and provide some kind of explanation, you risk a young mind trying to make sense of bigger scale problems without support.
So, if parents are fighting over screen time, you might say to your young child: “we are having some trouble agreeing about how much screen time is healthy. So, we are going to try and find a way to agree, even though we have not found it yet.”
Keep it short and sweet.
Yes, they need to see that adults have feelings too. And that adults also have to figure out how to get along and grow through challenges.
If you try to keep everything away from your child, you are not allowing them the opportunity to see how a healthy adult or healthy couple works through challenges.
The key is not flooding them with your feelings.
Let’s say you are grieving. It is OK for your child to see you cry or need time for yourself. You can say “I’m feeling sad about ____ and I need to cry a little” or “I need to take some space for my feelings right now. I’m OK and this is just a wave that needs to pass through”.
With any challenge, you can say “I know that this is a challenge and challenges are here to help me learn and grow. I’m figuring out how to do that right now and it’s a little messy!”
Talk to them how you would want them to talk to themselves, you or others through a challenge. Kids pick up these things fast.
They are going to handle things in they way you show them to handle things. Whether you are intentional about it or not.
No matter what you say, make sure you add that you are OK, they are OK or things will be OK. You want them to understand that they are safe and do not need to worry, that you are handling it.
Even if you don’t know how you are going to handle it yet! You are an adult and you will figure it out. If it is too big to do on your own, you know you can get support to figure it out. One of the ways you can do that is by finding a therapist who can guide you through.
I would expect that you will get a minimizing or distracted response from most kids. Their response is not the important part.
They have ears that hear.
Your acknowledgement is the important part so that can do what they need to do with that information internally.
Consider how you think of things that happened in your own childhood. It didn’t feel important until you saw the impact later. Just like a sunburn. You really don’t know how bad it’s going to be until later. That’s why they minimize it. They haven’t gotten to the sunburn part yet. You have.
Here are some reasons they might not respond to what you say:
If they do respond or have questions, great!
Did your parents acknowledge things that happened in your home? If they did or didn’t, what was that like?
Defenses are kind of tricky because they are usually employed without your conscious consent. They are part of the workings of the unconscious mind to protect you. That doesn’t mean you can’t see them. It just means they can be sneaky! I wanted to write …
Whether it feels like one thing after another or it feels like big things are not going your way, there is a helpful way to look at it. We all know that there is no “there” to get to where everything is perfect, when we …
-Mavis Mazhura
So, how are you supposed to tell the difference?
Are they getting in the way? Or getting you on the way?
–> We have emotions that are current.
[Hint: these help you get on your way]
–> We have emotions that come from the past. They might not have been fully resolved, which means current circumstances can bring them to the surface.
[Hint: these can get in the way or get you on the way]
–> We have emotions that are based on misinformation (assumptions that are not true, misunderstanding the meaning of someone’s communication, unhelpful or untrue thoughts).
[Hint: these get in the way]
Here’s the GOAL: The picture of emotional health and well being is to be able to allow and tolerate any emotion in the entire range of human emotion and allow it to process through your body and consciousness.
You do this by simply allowing it, acknowledging it, downloading any messages being given and acting on that guidance.
Easier to say than do. For sure.
These feelings are lighter, they don’t have a lot of strings. They are clear and likely easy to identify. These emotions usually will not cause a lot of chaos or upset. They resolve easily.
These emotions are here mostly to guide you in the present moment toward what you want or away from what you don’t want. They are here to show you your boundaries or maybe here to help you move through a certain stage of your life onto the next stage.
They arise, like a wave in the ocean and they are meant just to break (find expression) and resolve.
You can support this process by simply allowing any feelingto arise (that doesn’t mean you act on it, it just means you allow it to be present), acknowledging it(could be just inside yourself) and getting any informationfrom it that you need.
If the current emotions are leading you into a change that needs to be made in your life, it’s important to understand that this is likely a set of emotions that will come in waves over time. They will prepare you by potentially being unpleasant so that you find yourself wondering what changes you need to make.
The unpleasant feelings also motivate you and give you the energy to act on them because you want to resolve them.
That doesn’t happen in one day.
So, if you find yourself repeatedly being frustrated, angry or disappointed, that is a clue that it is a set of emotions that is likely asking you for a change. Understanding that these waves are coming through will help you resist spiraling into places you don’t need to go.
They usually feel more intense than the situation warrants.
It can feel like a flood of intense emotion or lots of tears.
Or, it can be a total shutdown. Like, you refuse to talk about it with anyone, do not want to think about it and want to hide it in 100 miles inside the earth.
If you catch yourself in this intense emotion and you suspect this might be bringing up some feelings from the past, you are already ahead of the game. Just your awareness of what is happening is a massive step and offers some relief.
Get some perspective by taking some space from the situation. Walk your dog, work out, go watch a movie, catch up with a friend and don’t talk about it, just….take your mind somewhere else.
When you’ve gotten some space from the feelings: Reflect, write or talk about the issue.
Ask yourself: When have you felt this way before? How is this situation the same or different? Is there anything here for me to learn?
If it is the same as other situations and it is repeatedly coming up, that is because your emotional system wants to resolve whatever is not healed.
Don’t ignore it. Resolving it may be something that needs to happen for you to take the next steps towards your goals.
I have had many situations where I have had goals and there was an unresolved issue (tangle of trapped emotions) blocking the way. Once it resolved, I was able to get where I wanted to go.
In growing my business, I had to address a lot of self worth issues. Layers of them. Not exactly fun.
But paying attention to my feelings when they came up and addressing these issues (processing unresolved emotions) is a big part of why I was able to break through and reach some of my important business goals.
If stuff from the past keeps coming up and stopping you from living as you wish, a therapist can definitely help.
If you have done a fair amount of personal growth work and you want to really get to the stuff that you are holding onto on an unconscious level, I can HIGHLY recommend working with an Emotion Code practitioner. I have personally done this work and I have gotten underneath things years of therapy has not. It’s amazing.
It might feel very chaotic and like your mind is all over the place. You might feel like you can’t organize your thoughts. You might be in a zone of blame and judgement.
Again, your reaction may seem bigger than the situation warrants. That usually means that you are not seeing things clearly. There might be an assumption that is not true, you might be misunderstanding the meaning of someone’s communication/actions or you might be experiencing unhelpful or untrue thoughts.
You want to check if there might be an assumption that is not true, a misunderstanding of the meaning of someone’s communication/actions or unhelpful/untrue thoughts.
If you are not sure, that’s a good time to ask a level headed friend, mentor or counselor.
There are times when I ask “can I borrow your brain for a second? What do you see here?”
Usually the person I ask sees things differently and seeing from their perspective helps me see where I have misinterpreted something.
This is where you want to ask yourself if you might have a pattern of taking things personally or maybe have adopted a critical mindset.
If this keeps coming up, it’s a good time to talk to a therapist or ask a close friend for reflections. It could be a phenomenal growth opportunity.
Trapped emotions from the past and emotions based on misinformation are part of what give emotions a bad reputation. The truth is we were designed very well and emotions are meant to be a resource, not a hinderance.
Consider that we probably would not have that many trapped emotions if we learned early on in our lives about how to use our human emotional system properly.
That’s a great motivation to work through this stuff if you are a parent or plan to be one! Set your kids up for emotional health by getting yours on track.
Even if you are the picture of emotional health today, there are probably some emotions in the past that will be triggered by what is happening now.
Current circumstances will bring up feelings from the past because it is an opportunity for that trapped emotion to get processed. If you know about that, it helps so you can just let those guys through.
Once emotions get processed through, you have more and more clarity and ease in life. There is more space for enjoying things. You have energy for your purpose instead of emotions getting in the way.
It’s a thing: being too accountable. The concept of being responsible for your actions is a positive and empowering message communicated by good parents, respectable organizations, teachers, mental health professionals, leaders with integrity and many others. And it should be. It is an important skill: …