RECOGNIZING CHILDREN’S EMOTIONS

Certain positive discipline strategies either with children that you work with or with your own children is worth to know and apply in our day to day encounters. How they work well with my children and how they may not work well with your children! Parents always strive to set  a good examples, and perhaps your children will too.

* Recognize signs of stress, anxiety, or

   strong emotions

* Prevent over stimulation, and

* Teach calming techniques and manage

   strong emotions/anger

Like adults, children do experience stress, anxiety, strong emotions or ager, and more often they are misunderstood and judged as misbehaving. Most adults do not recognize signs of stress on children. Today’s children are confronted with a fast growing and challenging environment as we enter the 21^st century. We all, adults and children as well, face and approach challenges differently. Today’s world is different from the one I grew up four decades ago. Our lives have become busier! I think a lot of the difference from the olden days is just how busy our lives have gotten these days especially with the technology- electronics; we can now carry them with us everywhere. Even our kids are busier in school with all the activities, extras curricular programs and goals to get into college. Life is just not as simple anymore. Perhaps if we were to ignore internet or cyber surf,  all those e-mails, cell phone calls, text messages, video games and less karate and piano lessons and just spend quality time as a family unit listening to each other, oh!  What a dream…but just may be…It is our goal as parents to provide all the things we never had when I was growing up but where does it all get us? Stress, anxiety, strong emotions, and or anger, and we all end up miserably struggling to find balances, which is difficult to handle. The good thing is, we adults needs to act and learn as fast as  we can to catch up with this fast changing environment in order to help our children cope as well. Children communicate with behavior. If certain needs are not met, children may express feelings, and signs of stress, and anxiety. They become angry, just as adults do. When a child exhibit behaviors such as excessive fatigue, withdrawing and putting head on the table, excessive fears, hurting others, nervous, bullying,  clumsy or fumbling behavior, etc. he or she is experiencing all- stress, anxiety, and anger. Perhaps his or her friend Jeremy or Emily got them all, and he or she want the same. Tough call for most parents, how to teach children moderation to avoid stress, anxiety or anger. And perhaps ourselves (parents) are caught up on this web of want and want more. And more is good! Then, how can parents, adults and or teachers help children cope with stressful situations? Back to basics-learning what are the “needs” and what are the “wants’, will help us learn to do things in moderation. Let’s go back and provide them with supportive environment which fosters self-control, self-confidence, self-esteem and teach positive and warm social interactions including: developing healthy relationships, good social skills, problem solving skills, and helps them to be able to act independently. Parents, adults, and or teachers should not only be good observers of their children’s behaviors, but also their own behaviors and  carefully and actively listen to their children’s “needs”  rather than “wants” and respond responsibly to help the children who might be experiencing emotional problems because they are unhappy with certain situation. There are different reasons and situations, which cause stress on young children, and children, like all of us, do not always cope effectively with stress-inducing events or situations. Adults should be more sensitive and realistic about the expectations they have for their children as well. For example, hurrying your child beyond his or her developmental ability can cause stress, anxiety, and or strong emotions to him or her.

            All children thrive well in the environment (home or school) that provide routines, consistency, and or structure/schedules. Children have difficulty remaining calm in a hectic and chaotic environment. For example, cluttered home or DIP classroom arrangement or overstocked classroom will create chaos and or over stimulation. Adults and teachers should provide an environment that foster positive behavior, and avoid things, which cause or may influence feelings/behaviors. Clearing the cluttered home or applying DAP in the classroom, e.g. room arrangement, material selection, and schedules of activities will help to avoid over stimulation as well as creating calming environment. Parents should also, refrain from  over stressing things which may cause excessive excitement or over stimulation, for example special occasions (birthdays) or major holidays (Christmas, Valentine, etc) which make many people including children over stimulated.  When a child lose control and had difficulty thinking clearly, parent can help the child calm down. After the child had calmed down the parent can engage the child into conversation respectively to find out what was in the mind of the child. In addition, parents should model good behavior, and teach children how to behave when they are mad, upset, or angry with a friend or with their own parents for any reason. Parents, adults and or teachers can teach children anger management, self-control, and self-respect. If parents, adults and or teachers learn to control themselves and learn anger management, they become good instrument to helping their children control their emotions. By teaching children to take turns or to be calm and patient, while waiting for their turn, helps young children manage their strong emotions, avoid chaos, and cope well with others.