Do you feel you lack the tools to help your child talk about feelings? I know all of you want a friendly, happy child with a good relationship with you and your friends, but how much effort do you place on this in your child’s life? Do you put more emphasis on your child’s educational success?
Are you worried that you will make your child feel even angrier or distressed if you talk about feelings? Do you think it will result in being labelled a permissive parent if you accept or empathise with your child’s feelings? I want to inform you on how to be a “Mind-Minded” parent and how you can help your child talk about emotions to prevent distress now and later in life.
Two psychologists, Elizabeth Meins and Charles Fernyhough introduced Mind-Minded Parenting. ” mind-minded ” parents treat their children as individuals with minds, drives, needs, feelings, and thoughts, which is not easy. It can mean that our children sometimes have different ideas (reasons for us) Meins and colleagues watched 6-month-old babies play with their mothers, and recorded the incidence of mind-related talk (Meins et al. 2001). The researchers were particularly interested in appropriate comments, i.e., talk that revealed an accurate understanding of the baby’s feelings.
The researchers found that appropriate mind-minded comments predicted secure attachments. Moms who made more frequent, relevant comments at six months were more likely to be securely attached at 12 months. This is an essential piece of research that if you treat your child separately from you and try to help them with their feelings, they will feel safe and secure. When children feel safe and secure, they can regulate themselves emotionally. When this occurs, they will experience essential connections in their higher brain, so the stress hormone cortisol is more effectively managed.
So what does this mean for you?
It means trying to think about what your baby/child is feeling and needing and talking to them about it. During a parenting talk, a parent” commented.
“ I never thought to speak the feeling; most of the time, I have focussed on the” behaviour.”
Hold in mind that because you accept a feeling, it does not mean you have to admit the behaviour! So it says:
- It’s ok to be angry with your brother, but not to hit him
- It’s OK to be fruitful, but speaking unkindly is not alright.
- Ok, you can feel cross, but I still expect you to do it.
Here are my tools to help you:
- Listen with your full attention.
- Encourage a home where all feelings are validated and liked. Notice positive and negative feelings in others and talk about them.
- Acknowledge their feelings with words like- “oh”…Mmm…..I see
- Give their feel NGS a name. So examples of feeling words are:
- Happy/proud/confident
- Frustrated
- Pleased/excited
- Sad/ disappointment
- Worried
- Mad
- Embarrassed
- Ashamed
- Scared/frightened
- Try to wonder what the feeling may be; it can help your child understand themselves optionally. Even if you get it wrong, they will set you right. If you are trying to model a feeling, try using words such as sometimes avoid using language such as you always….all the time, you……If your child is directing anger at you, use phrases such as:
- I can see that you are angry at me, or I am sorry you are mad at me; what can we do to improve this? Words like this can be very limiting if your child is out of control.
- When they need to find the words, for them, you could say, Do you feel……..when …. …happens. e.g., Do you feel angry when your brother takes the lego you wanted?
- Are you feeling frustrated because you want to stay up late? Do you feel sad because your sister is angry with you?
I hope these help; let me know what you do help to talk about feelings.
Be the best parent you can be and try to take one action today to make your child feel safe, secure, and loved. If you think this is too difficult, contact me for a consultation.
With love Catherine
