Hellobee

Snowy just turned five, and for the last six months, her biggest challenge, as well as our biggest challenge raising her, has been dealing with her emotions.

Snowy is an amazing kid, and I love being her mom.

But, like all kids, Snowy has her unique challenges. She is a very active, hyper child. She is passionate and outgoing, and her biggest problem is she gets riled up very easily, and has a lot of trouble coming back down. When she is in one of these “wild” moods, she also gets upset very easily. She runs, she screams, she sometimes escalates to hitting and kicking and flailing.

I know these moods are frustrating to Snowy too. She can articulate what’s wrong, but despite it, she really struggles with her emotional regulation and coming down from these moods. She escalates quickly, and calms down very slowly, often getting herself in trouble in the process.

As her parents, along with other adults in our village (grandparents, teachers, etc.) that are helping us raise our little girl, helping her navigate these emotions is our biggest challenge. I don’t just want to punish her for the bad behavior that arises from this lack of emotional regulation. While we want to show her that her behavior is unacceptable, we also want to help her deal with the root cause of the behavior in the first place.

Sometimes Snowy can’t even identify what emotion she is feeling, which I know is hard. She gets hyper and has all these different feelings stirring around, and it is hard for her to pull one from another!

We have tried to help her with grounding exercises, which do help a lot. “Find three things that are blue, smell two things, taste one thing.” Quiet time in her room until she calms down, or time outs, work about half of the time. Sometimes she’s too wound up to wind herself down, and really needs our help, but is too upset to have that help. She does eventually calm down, but it takes a lot, and can often be trying on all of us. We are always looking for new ways to help her calm down, identify her emotions, and not get too wound up in the first place.

This post isn’t just about children’s emotions; I wanted to write about my, the mother’s, emotions too, because often child’s and mother’s emotions impact each other in ways we don’t even think of.

Being a calm presence amongst Snowy’s turbulance is often very difficult. Self-differentiation from Snowy’s emotions is something I try to remind myself of. When Snowy is being willfully disobedient, it is easy for me to get frustrated. But I know that my frustration just makes Snowy’s behavior worse, since it is usually her lack of emotional self-regulation that gets her in trouble in the first place.

I try to be aware of my own emotions and keep them distinct from Snowy’s. Am I frustrated because of her or something else? What is an outlet for me to express my frustration while still staying a calm presence for her?

I also try to vocalize my emotions to her so that she is better able to pinpoint her own emotions. “Mommy is not mad, she is frustrated.” “It makes mommy sad when you hit her instead of talking to her.” I also sometimes need to give myself “mommy time outs” where I go in my room or the bathroom to calm down for a bit so I can come out and better engage with her emotions.

How do you stay aware of your own emotions while parenting? How do you attend to your own emotional needs while also helping your child meet theirs?