A Loving Space for Kids' Emotions

Photo by Derek Owens

The Greater Good in Action website, as part of their The Science of Happiness podcast series, offers a practice, taking as little as ten minutes, to show love to your children by helping them process their emotions.

A Loving Space for Kids’ Emotions is a quick three-step practice that can be done whenever a parent or caregiver notices a child experience any kind of strong emotion.

The practice has been developed based on attachment research that suggests, rather than trying to distract or redirect children away from their discomfort, parent/child bonds are strengthened by spending time with your children to support their experience with their emotions.

The 3-step practice involves:

1.    Heighten awareness: Show your curiousity about their experience, asking “I’m wondering if you’re upset?” This approach indicates that the parent/caregiver understands the personal nature of emotional experience and a humble openness to understanding what the child is experiencing.

2.    Name It: Encourage the child to talk about what they are feeling, then take a moment to reflect on what they have shared and give a possible name to the emotion (e.g. “It sounds like you’re feeling sad,” or “It sounds like you are feeling frustrated.” By helping them cultivate their emotional vocabulary, they can begin to learn that expressions is one way to regulate difficult feelings.

3.    Explore together: Validate the child’s emotional experience, by reflecting back what they have shared. Help them make sense of any aspects of their experience that are confusing to them, such as mixed emotions (e.g. when they are both happy for something good that has happened for their friend, but simultaneously sad that they haven’t had the same experience). Use non-verbal expressions (e.g. reflecting back a smile, or holding their hand if they are sad/nervous).

The article notes, “Children develop secure attachments when they have benefitted from a caregiver’s enduring love – so much that they ‘have confidence in the possibility of goodness’, believing, based on their own experience, that others will respond to their vulnerability with compassion in the future.”

The article cites The Circle of Security Intervention: Enhancing attachment in early parent-child relationships by B.Powell et alia (2014), a manual exploring concepts used in the Circle of Security intervention, “a program for cultivating secure attachments between parents and children. It provides parents a roadmap to observe, identify, reflect on, and respond to their children’s core needs, including a secure base from which to explore the world and a safe haven to return to for comfort.”

The “Happiness Podcasts” are currently being released at: https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/a_loving_space_for_kids_emotions

Releases so far include topics such as:

·      The Science of Singing Along

·      Happiness Break: A Meditation for Connecting in Polarized Times, with Scott Shigeoka

·      How Holding Yourself Can Reduce Stress

·      5 Minutes of Progressive Muscle Relaxation