Practicing This One Skill Can Help Us Improve Our Ability to Support Children During Upset

Before we can help children learn to manage their feelings, we have to learn how to manage and accept our own feelings. Listen in as Dr. Becky Bailey shares a humorous, but impactful example of this concept.
As she describes, each emotion starts off as bodily sensations, such as butterflies in our stomach or tightness in our throat. These sensations appear unconsciously in our face, body and tone of voice. They hijack our perceptions, and we become the emotion. When an emotion takes over our identity like this, we will act it out instead of regulating it. If we instead allow our emotions to bubble up through conscious acceptance (without judgment), we can claim, name, and tame them.
First, we can claim them becoming aware of them as feelings.
Then, we can give the feelings a name.
Finally, we can tame them by linking them to life events and learning to manage them enough to take our wisest next step.
We can coach children through this natural process or inhibit it with our judgments. Essentially, conscious acceptance is essential for emotional regulation.
Continue learning more about increasing your awareness and acceptance of feelings here: bit.ly/3DWtwDr
Then, register to see Dr. Becky Bailey in person at Anger and Rage: Planning Our Response, a two-day event in Myrtle Beach, SC, in March! Learn more and register here: bit.ly/4jlhyU3