Category: Preschool

Hiding Negative Emotions to Protect Children

This morning I broke down. I was feeling really lousy about something and I just couldn’t keep my emotions at bay. When my husband asked what I was thinking about as I stared off into space, I promptly began sobbing and the floodgates were open.

Then my son came back to the table, book in hand, asking me to read to him while he ate his breakfast. Avoiding eye contact with him, I quickly wiped my tears away and began reading with as controlled a voice as I could muster. Z was none the wiser.

I felt good, because I was able to keep our morning going smoothly and he didn’t have to deal with a sobbing mama and the potential awkwardness that might bring along with it.

Then I checked my Twitter feed and saw an article by Six Seconds, basically saying that we need to talk about feelings with our kids in order to develop their sense of empathy. While the focus of the article is mainly on simple activities you can do to help children be aware of their own emotions, the point was driven home: I have to be more open about how I’m feeling if I want Z to be able to recognize and empathize with others’ emotions.

As I did more research, I found some other great reasons to stop shielding my son from my negative feelings.

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How to Encourage Sharing without Forcing It

What is our responsibility as parents when we see another child asking our child for the toy he’s playing with? Do we attempt to force sharing? Do we let them work it out on their own? What will be best in the long run? Is there a right way to go on this?

I’ve seen plenty of defiantly-worded blog posts about why parents don’t make their kids share. While I can understand where they are coming from in a way, I am not fully convinced that we should not at least encourage our children to share. It seems like a fundamental life skill. I’m honestly still sort of on the fence about how hard we should push for sharing, so I think it’s worth exploring.

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Fostering vs. Forcing: Preschool Apologies

 

“Cole told me that my shirt is an ugly color!!”

“Cole, please tell Malia that you’re sorry.”

“But it IS ugly!”

“That’s not nice, and it hurts Malia’s feelings. Please apologize.”

“Sooooooorrrrry, Malia.”

 

Sound familiar? Yeah. This happens so, so often. It happens at home and it happens in the classroom.

In my experience, preschool-aged children tend to say they’re sorry with one foot out the door, tingling with the excitement to get back to whatever they were doing. They apologize as quickly as possible, with a look like, “Okay? Are you happy? Can I go PLAY?”

In elementary school, a lovely eye-roll or some other show of “sorry-not-sorry” might accompany the forced apology, and then the students return to the activity they were previously engaged in. There is no genuine resolution to the issue, no exploration of how the other child felt, and no follow-up.

In both cases, we usually just make the kids say they’re sorry and go about our business.

Because we’re busy.

Because being told your shirt is an ugly color is really not the end of the world.

Because neither the kids nor you wants a lengthy discussion, anyway.

Because we think it helps the accuser feel heard.

Because we are teaching them to be kind to each other.

Because that’s what we’re supposed to do.

But IS that what we’re supposed to do? Is this REALLY teaching kids how to be kind to each other?

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“In His Cortex”: Tantrums and Self-Awareness

“In His Cortex”? What?

When I was an elementary school teacher, I once attended a staff development meeting about… well, I’m not sure what it was about, to be honest. But the speaker was an incredibly animated man with some quirky presentation habits. It’s probably due to these odd behaviors that I never forgot his presentation. Maybe he did it on purpose!

Anyway, this man talked about what our more challenging students were going through when they were having meltdowns. He described the very front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, as the place that was shutting down when the students were so emotionally charged. Because the prefrontal cortex deals with self-control, the shutting down of that portion of the brain leads to a shutting down of self-control. His point was, basically, that we needed to be patient with these students and not attempt to reason with them in that moment. Continue reading ““In His Cortex”: Tantrums and Self-Awareness”