Name That Emotion

From very early on children demonstrate and recognize six basic emotions: sadness, joy, disgust, anger, surprise, and fear.

However, children need a much bigger range of emotions in their tool box in order safely navigate the world. Appropriate actions and reactions require appropriate emotions. Wrong emotions illicit wrong choices.

Teaching emotions does not come with a lesson plan. There isn’t a top twenty list of emotions to teach your child that can be checked off one-by-one. Most children learn emotions they need in their environment. They learn emotions from interacting with friends and family. Here are some quick guidelines to remember:

Use your words: Young children are frequently reminded to use their words. Be sure your children know the words. When a child experiences an emotion, identify the emotion with one or two emotion words used in full sentences. Our brains use emotions to link to new learning so this is a great teaching technique.

Don’t prevent the emotion: As adults we can often see an emotionally charged situation before it happens. Resist the temptation to prevent these events. Let children feel sad, frustrated, confused, or hurt. These experiences are a part of life and learning how to survive them is an important skill.

Find emotions: Look for emotions in the world around you. Help your child to connect emotion words to the actions  of others. This works especially well when you a reading a story, telling a story from your childhood, or reading a Bible story. This helps children to see emotions in different contexts.

Turn off the virtual emotions: Young children do not learn emotions  from screens and for older children too much screen time eats into time  they could be  spending with real people. While there is no need to ban TV, computer, or game use, for most of us the time spent on these activities could be cut back.

God has blessed our world with many fascinating technologies. However, it is good to remember that He created us to be in fellowship with each other. That means we live, work, play, and worship together. When you put people together you get emotions – good and bad. Let God help you to teach your child to use those emotions for good.

Here is a Mind/Shift article on this topic.

Building Emotional Strength

Your child comes home from playing with friends and says she was bullied. Naturally, you are concerned and want to do something about it. But, before you go calling parents or teachers it would be wise to talk with your child and collect a bit more information.

When children are learning social skills they are faced with many upsetting and confusing situations. One or two lessons on bullying will not equip most children to deal effectively with upsetting behaviors.

Children need a strong sense of emotional literacy. They need to be able to read a situation and respond in the most effective way. And they need to know when to tell an adult and when to handle it child-to-child. The best way to help your child develop emotional literacy is conversation. The best time to have these conversations is after your child has had a negative experience with another child.

The first step is to help your child discern between rude, mean, and bully behavior.

RUDE

Rude behavior hurts but is typically inadvertent. It can be poor manners, bragging, or unwelcome rough play. The best response to rudeness is “I don’t like that, please stop.”  Then turn away. Don’t expect an apology, don’t make a big deal of it, and don’t tattle. This is not an easy reaction but is one that shows emotional strength. Sometimes potential bullies and manipulators try rudeness first to check for a reaction. The child who cries or runs for help gives the message that he or she is a potential victim.

MEAN

Mean behavior is a step up from rudeness because it carries intent and sometimes planning. Mean people are typically trying to elevate themselves by putting someone else down. The tricky issue for children is determining if someone did something “on purpose.” Most children who have been hurt assume that the other child performed the action on purpose; they also think their own actions are “an accident.”  The correct response to mean behavior is the same as for rude behavior with the additional encouragement to bring this behavior to your attention.  Spend time talking about what happened before the mean action and be sure that your child is not participating in mean behavior. If mean behavior occurs repetitively and is two-sided it may indicate an ongoing conflict.

BULLYING

Bully behavior is repetitive, one-sided, and involves an imbalance of power. Bullying usually requires some adult intervention. By maintaining conversations with your child with the goal of strengthening emotional literacy you will collect information regarding a bully situation that will be useful to the teacher or other adult supervising the situation. You and your child will have already eliminated simple behaviors that can be handled without adult help. 

Children do not become confident if we solve problems for them or if we inadvertently teach them they always need adult help. Talking, planning, and praying together will build a strong parent child relationship and also a strong child.

Baby Eyebrows and the Image of Grace

This clip, besides being giggle worthy, is an example of image self-awareness. Before about age 15-18 months babies looking in a mirror are unaware that the baby they see is themselves. Scientists check for this by putting a spot of red make-up on a baby’s forehead. If the baby points she does not know who she is looking at. If she touches the red spot on her own face she has made this connection. When this young man giggles at his own eyebrows we can be assured he knows who is the baby he sees in the mirror. It marks the beginning of his self-image.

At this age toddlers are aware that other people can have an image of them. This kind of awareness can be a blessing or a problem. This awareness is part of what shapes a child’s personality and identity. Who am I? How good am I? What do other people think of me? This can open up a whole new can of worms.

Perhaps a certain amount of ignorance IS bliss.

Think for a minute about what the world wants to teach your children about their image. They need to be strong, beautiful, thin, ripped, smart, cool, athletic, talented, adorable, and sexy. The messages of who they should be and how they should act come fast and furious. They can never measure up.

More importantly, we don’t want them to measure up to those false standards.

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him. Genesis 1:27

It is never too early to teach your children about God’s love for them. They are not made in the image of media or social expectations. They do not compete with pictures and clips seen on Instagram or Facebook.  They will never be a perfect Pinterest baby. They are made in God’s image and this knowledge is both powerful and comforting. 

It is powerful because they belong to God – from even before their birth. He is their creator and He loves and protects them – no matter what happens.

It is comforting because God already has a plan for how we do not measure up. He already sent His Son to die for us and wipe away our sins. Through Christ we stand perfect before God.

Let your child know he or she belongs to God, was made by God, is treasured by God and is redeemed through the work of God’s Son.This is a lesson that can never be started too early, or taught too often.

It is self-image in the mirror of grace.