When Validating Emotions isn’t Enough

Do you feel like no matter what you say to acknowledge your child’s feelings, it doesn’t help? You say sympathetically, "You're feeling angry right now" or “You wish you could watch another episode” and instead of calming down, they scream, cry harder, lash out or run away. 

When all the positive parenting guidance is telling you to name feelings and hold space, it can be confusing when it backfires. Many parents lose motivation to offer empathy when it’s repeatedly rejected.

My clients say they assume it’s not suitable for their child or they must be doing it wrong. One mother came to coaching because she was so worried about saying the wrong thing during a meltdown, she would end up frozen in self doubt.

This is where generic advice can be problematic. I’ve done it myself. If I post ideas on my page for scripts to use and a parent tries them unsuccessfully, they could end up feeling worse than they already do. (Probably why I stick to more coaching, less posting).

It might be helpful to know that there isn’t one way to hold space for feelings.

We can build our child’s emotional intelligence in ways that honour their age, development and personality. Some kids just do not like having their feelings named in the heat of the moment. Others will appreciate feeling heard. Sometimes the same child will respond differently to the same gesture depending on the situation.

Muster the Unfluster

It’s hard to remember this when you’re being kicked away after reaching for a cuddle, but your child’s resistance and rejections are way more about them than you. When a child is struggling to contain unacceptable feelings like shame and hurt, it’s normal to want to expel them by punishing someone else. 

The good news is we can avoid being our child’s punch-bag and teach them better ways of handling their emotions without punishing them or ourselves. It’s a learning process but the key is to help your child be less afraid of their feelings by showing them you’re not. 

In short, muster the unfluster. It’s my way of coaching myself to stay calm in the moment, even if I’m having to pretend the behaviour isn’t upsetting and alarming.

Emergency Self-Empathy

The thing about meltdowns is they tend to catch us off guard, so no wonder we often respond on autopilot.

When I remember to, I like to give myself a dose of emergency self-empathy. Accepting how angry I feel is like pouring water on my triggers before they catch alight. Sometimes it’s all I need to get to a place of understanding what’s going on for my kid.

Create Trust

I’ve yet to hear from a parent that their child’s emotions bubbled up at a convenient time. There is always our own agenda in those moments - getting out the door, talking to a friend, focusing on a million other things - that directly clash with being responsive to their needs. 

Whatever you decide to offer in the moment, make it about creating trust.

As leaders, our kids are appealing to us all the time for messages of safety. Never more so than when they’re dysregulated - even sneaky forms like whining and rudeness. Instead of getting sucked into conflict, try to remind yourself that when children feel confident in you they’re more likely to calm down and accept gestures of connection. 

I used to think I was building trust by enthusiastically ‘applying’ lots of empathy statements. A lot of us love to use words to soothe - for me, it’s my way of coping with my child’s distress. But many children need us to be quietly accepting of what they’re going through until they’re ready to hear anything.

Building your empathy muscle takes time. Real empathy asks us to be present, patient and flexible when many of us are nowhere near that headspace. We’re in a rush, we’re in public, we’re fed up of listening to their complaining tone, there are siblings to attend to, meals to make, etc. All of this propels us into our own fight/flight so we often react in ways we’d rather not.

I absolutely love supporting clients in their journey to becoming less reactive to the calm leader they want to be. Book a discovery call to get a sense of how parent coaching works.