More tips for supporting a toddler's emotional development (taken from Baby Corner)

Tips for Supporting Your Toddler's Emotional Development

by Dr. Clare Albright


1. Label the emotions that your child may be feeling when they go through experiences that could stimulate emotions. For example, if they slip you can say, "That was scary," and when they look angry you can say, "You're feeling angry right now." This will help your child to understand what is happening to them and to be able to make good choices about how to cope with their emotions.

2. Mirror your child when they share negative emotions by repeating back their sentence to them. If your child says, "I'm scared," you can say, "This is scary for you!" This lets your child know that you care about their pain and that you can connect with them on that level. Most parents jump quickly to reassuring or to educational responses, which can leave the child feeling unheard and alone with their negative emotions.

3. Tell your child what you are feeling when their behavior is upsetting to you. By using a direct approach when communicating, you can protect your child from the guilt and shame that they may internalize because of your unspoken, non-verbal behavior.

4. Tell your child, "I am angry right now," instead of the common third person variation, "Mommy is feeling angry right now." This role-models using "I" statements and creates more vulnerability and intimacy in the parent-child relationship.

5. Remember that your toddler's emotional "storms" are only a phase that will soon pass. When your child throws tantrums, prefers one parent over the other, or says 'no' continually it may be wiser to ignore their behavior rather than to 'tangle' with it, 'engage' with it or to try to use discipline. These 'storms' often disappear as children become more confident and secure about being a separate person from their parents and having their own identity - usually by the age of four.

6. Invest extra time to allow your child to try to do things on their own. Toddlers love to experiment with putting on clothing, pouring the juice, housecleaning, etc. This is the developmental stage where your main role is fostering your child's trust in his/her own self.

7. Use feeling words to strengthen your intimacy with your child and their capacity to be intimate with others. An easy way to form strong bonds with others is to share your feelings and reactions with them. Role model this skill for your child.

8. Consider investing in counseling for yourself. Your child is most likely going to become a "clone" of who you are in the area of emotions. If you are irritable, bitter, or anxious, your child is likely to walk in your footsteps and to become stuck in the same emotional pot holes that you are stuck in.

Verbalising feelings

The quote below is taken from the "how to mom" blog http://www.howtomom.info/2012/02/verbalizing-feelings.html. By verbalising feelings we feel calmer - the blog gives a link to a scientific paper explaining from a physical point of view the areas of the brain that are affected.

I was very aware of how a friend ("A") at the weekend was dealing with her daughter who's 2 in a few days time. "A" was helping her daughter verbalise "being cross". She was also giving clear reasons for why she was asking her to do things (eg "Put those [branches of holly berries] down. The berries can make you poorly"). "A" is training to be a psychiatrist and is very calm when dealing with her feisty toddler. I found it very helpful to see these things in practice.

I would like to help J verbalise more - at this stage he doesn't have much vocabulary (though since last Friday he now says a very clear "choc-let" - in exactly the same way as the "Little Britain" Fatfighters character Marjorie Dawes does :-) ) - so it's a question of me giving him the words to help label the frustration etc.

I see other people who deal with toddler outbursts with too much reassurance or criticism - "there's no need for all that" or "what's the matter now?" (these are things I have heard people say to J). I will try and keep a log of how I deal with different things over a few days - it's too easy (especially since we're so busy) to just deal with whatever is happening right now and not reflect on it.

______________________ ___________________ __________________

This link will take you to a research article from the journal of "Psychological Science":  

http://www.scn.ucla.edu/pdf/AL(2007).pdf

In this article, they study the link between affect labeling and certain chemical responses in the brain.  Their findings are pretty interesting.  It basically says that verbalizing our feelings makes our sadness, anger and pain less intense.  They extend verbalizing to mean not only saying aloud, but also writing down on paper... basically labeling it of any sort.


This gist is:  saying that your angry tells your body that you know that you're angry and it's ok to calm down now.


The science is:  When you have an emotional reaction a part of your brain called the "amygdala" turns on.  It's job is to protect the body in times of danger.  Activation of the amygdala can cause increased heart rate and force of each beat ("pounding heart"); increased muscle tension that can even cause tremors; sweaty but cold palms; and even nausea and diarrhea.


When you label your emotion, either by saying it out loud ("I'm angry") or writing it down on paper, you activate another part of the brain called the "right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex".  This part of the brain is in charge of thinking in words about emotional experiences.  When it turns on, it basically tells the amygdala to chill out; that way your body can calm down and you can stop reacting and start thinking again.

How to raise an emotionally intelligent child

I've been googling a bit to see about tantrums and emotions (both toddlers' and parents'!). This article is taken from the website BabyCenter. I would like to read "proper" books about all this and not just google but as a start:

How to raise an emotionally intelligent child

Toddlers bring new meaning to the word "mercurial." One moment your child is king of the world, running around full of glee; the next he's a raging bull, crying in utter frustration and hurling his toys across the room. Like many parents, you may find it hard to know just how to respond during these trying times.

Experts believe that these childhood meltdowns are the best opportunities to teach your child at an early age — when he's making leaps and bounds in his emotional growth — how to manage strong feelings and calm himself down. And the secure circle of the family is the first and best place to teach these life lessons.

In his book Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, psychologist John Gottman says that when you help your child understand and handle overwhelming feelings such as anger, frustration, or confusion, you develop his emotional intelligence quotient, or emotional IQ.

And, says Gottman, a child with a high emotional IQ is better able to cope with his feelings, can bring himself down from emotional high-wire acts, understands and relates well with others, and can form strong friendships more easily than a child with a lower emotional IQ.

Other experts have joined the chorus, touting the role of emotional IQ in helping children become confident, responsible, and successful adults who navigate skillfully through interpersonal relationships.

How can you help raise your child's emotional IQ? Gottman teaches a tactic he calls "emotion coaching," a series of steps you can use to teach your child to analyze feelings and handle conflict. Here's how it works:

Listen with empathy.
Pay close attention to your child when he says how he feels, then mirror what he's shared back to him. If you suspect that your child feels abandoned because you've been spending lots of time with the new baby, for example, ask him if that's what's going on. If he agrees, you can say, "You're right. Mommy's been really busy with the baby."

Then, use examples from your own life to show him you understand what he's said. Tell him about how you felt when your own sibling got to go to the amusement park with your father and you didn't, and how your own mom or dad made you feel better. This tells your child that everyone has these feelings, and that they will pass.

Help your child name his feelings.
With limited vocabulary and rudimentary understanding of cause and effect, toddlers often have trouble describing what they feel. You can encourage your child to build an emotional vocabulary by giving him labels for his feelings. If he's acting disappointed about not being able to go to the park, you might say, "You feel sad about that, don't you?"

You can also let him know that it's normal to have conflicting emotions about something — for instance, he may be both excited and scared during his first week at daycare.

If your child seems sad or upset for no immediate reason, try looking at the big picture and thinking about what might be troubling him. Have you moved recently? Did you and your spouse have an argument in his presence? If you're not sure what's going on, watch and listen to him while he plays. If he makes the Mommy doll shout a lot, you'll have a pretty good idea what's bothering him.

Validate your child's emotions.
Instead of saying, "There's no reason to get so upset" when your child gets mad and throws a tantrum because he's unable to put together a puzzle, acknowledge how natural his reaction is. Say, "It's really frustrating when you can't finish a puzzle, isn't it?" Telling him his reactions are inappropriate or excessive will make him feel as if he should muzzle them.

Turn tantrums into teaching tools.
If your child gets upset when he hears that he has an appointment with the dentist, help him feel in control by preparing for the visit. Talk with him about why he's afraid, what he can expect during the visit, and why he needs to go. Tell him about a time you had stage fright before a recital or were scared to start a new job and one of your friends made you feel better. Talking through emotions works the same way for children as it does for most adults.

Use conflicts to teach problem-solving.
When your toddler goes head-to-head with you or another child, make his limits clear, then guide him toward a solution. For example, you can say, "I know you're upset with your sister for knocking over your block tower, but you can't hit her. What else can you do if you get mad?"

If your child doesn't have any ideas, give him options. Anger management specialist Lynne Namka advises telling your child to first check his tummy, jaw, and fists to see if they're tight, breathe deeply "to blow the mad out," and to feel good about recovering control. Then, Namka says, help your child use a strong voice to talk his anger out, beginning with something like, "I feel mad when you yell like that." Children should know that it's okay to be angry, as long as they don't hurt other people for that reason.

Set an example by staying calm.
You'll also want to check how you react to your child's display of emotions. It's important not to be verbally harsh when you're angry. Try saying, "It upsets me when you do that," rather than "You make me crazy," so your child understands that the problem is his behavior, not him. Be careful to avoid excessive criticism, which tends to chip away at a child's self-confidence.

And above all else, stay in touch with your own feelings. Some parents ignore their own negative emotions, hoping to spare their children discomfort or difficulty. But hiding your real feelings will only confuse your child. By acknowledging that you're displeased without acting upset, for instance, you show your child that even difficult feelings can be managed.