What’s Your Emotional Style? How Your Responses Can Help Children Navigate This Crisis

Most families are going through the full gamut of emotions right now. Gratitude, worry, fear, love, compassion, frustration, restlessness and so on – a fragile kaleidoscope of emotions. A fluctuating pattern of colours that changes radically with the slightest nudge.

How do we help children deal with the emotions of something that we can’t wrap our heads around ourselves?

Research shows the resilience children have is influenced not only by the adversity itself but also by the emotional responses of the parents. Studies have found that parents generally fall into one of two categories when it comes to the way they deal with their children’s emotions: emotional coaches or emotional dismissers. Often, your style was passed on to you by your own parents and has a lot to do with their beliefs about whether emotions are best avoided or embraced.

Some among us were raised by parents who saw talking about emotions as a waste of time, self-indulgent, a sign of weakness, or shameful – this is the emotionally dismissive response. Others had parents who understood the importance of expressing one’s emotions for good mental health, for bonding, for learning and for building resilience – these are emotional coaches. Regardless of what you inherited, your emotional style is something that can be changed.

Psychologists and neuroscientists have found that children who grow up with parents who use emotional coaching have a calmer central nervous system, a lower resting heart rate, a healthier emotional brain circuitry and better coping skills. These are the kids who stay cool under pressure. Exactly the kind of coping skills our kids need right now.

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Use the power of music

Music is a great way to help connect children with their emotions. Music taps into our emotions in a way that words alone cannot. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin’s research shows that when we listen to music almost every region and neural subsystem in our brain is activated. Music helps with emotion and with brain development too which is a bonus while we are all home-schooling.

A fun music lesson to have your kids do during family lockdown is create a positive playlist of songs that boost your mood. Include songs about resilience, triumph and overcoming negative events. Build on this assignment by having your children write an essay about singers who have shown resilience and grit in their career.

You can then use the playlist to create a new positive family ritual by pumping the music and dancing like crazy each night after dinner. This can be turned into a physical education lesson that will release the pent-up energy of your kids and boost their endorphins and dopamine – all while you are showing them a technique they can use for the rest of their lives to manage their emotions.

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Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The Guardian