It is good for kids to be able to express their emotions...and most kids seem to have no difficulty doing so at all. The difficulty is usually training kids to be centered and rational.
What we see in popular media and trendy-trendy parenting advice is an over emphasis on emotional expression with almost nothing to balance it in terms of manners, boundaries, self-discipline, and rationality.
Kids do not need to have unchecked emotional expression in order to be healthy. They do not need to have standardless fits in order to be well-adjusted.
A lot of trendy-trendy advice seems to verge on emotional obsession. Parents are essentially encouraged to be emotional helicopters. Corners of the home are dedicated to feelings posters and stacks of comfort materials. Education, critical thinking skills and manners go to the wayside. Encouraging self-control is apparently taboo. The irony is that most trendy-trendy advice ends up creating little emotional monsters.
Kids can learn from early on to view and control their emotions in much healthier ways. Children are resilient and often far more self-aware and capable than we give them credit for.
Example is key. From the beginning, we can model solid emotional life for them. We can show them that emotions can be experienced while not consuming us. We can show them that we always possess control over our behavior and that we can be respectful no matter what we feel. We can show them how to be rational and centered through anything. From there, we can set rules and standards for their conduct that line up with our example.
When our children get older, we can expose them to a wide variety of literature and experiences to give substance and context to their emotional lives.
Again, it is good to encourage emotional expression, but we should not be obsessed with it. We should also make sure kids are taught rationality, boundaries, critical thinking, and expose them to a wide variety of education and experience.
It is good for kids to be able to express their emotions...and most kids seem to have no difficulty doing so at all. The difficulty is usually training kids to be centered and rational.
What we see in popular media and trendy-trendy parenting advice is an over emphasis on emotional expression with almost nothing to balance it in terms of manners, boundaries, self-discipline, and rationality.
Kids do not need to have unchecked emotional expression in order to be healthy. They do not need to have standardless fits in order to be well-adjusted.
A lot of trendy-trendy advice seems to verge on emotional obsession. Parents are essentially encouraged to be emotional helicopters. Corners of the home are dedicated to feelings posters and stacks of comfort materials. Education, critical thinking skills and manners go to the wayside. Encouraging self-control is apparently taboo. The irony is that most trendy-trendy advice ends up creating little emotional monsters.
Kids can learn from early on to view and control their emotions in much healthier ways. Children are resilient and often far more self-aware and capable than we give them credit for.
Example is key. From the beginning, we can model solid emotional life for them. We can show them that emotions can be experienced while not consuming us. We can show them that we always possess control over our behavior and that we can be respectful no matter what we feel. We can show them how to be rational and centered through anything. From there, we can set rules and standards for their conduct that line up with our example.
When our children get older, we can expose them to a wide variety of literature and experiences to give substance and context to their emotional lives.
Again, it is good to encourage emotional expression, but we should not be obsessed with it. We should also make sure kids are taught rationality, boundaries, critical thinking, and expose them to a wide variety of education and experience.
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This is unapologetic parenting podcast dedicated to candidly and unapologetically discussing parenting, divorce and co parenting. We take on the topics most people don't want to talk about and offer support and solutions to help you be a better parent, co parent and human being. Now without further ado, let's get right to it. Welcome back to unapologetic parenting. I am your host Carl Knickerbocker. And this evening we are talking about emotions, we are talking about our kids emotional lives, or more specifically, kind of the trendy current obsession that everyone has with kids and their emotions. were everywhere we seem to look everywhere we seem to turn, there's some sort of trendy, trendy advice that says we have to be constantly obsessed with what our kids are feeling. We have to be constantly obsessed with how are they expressing their emotions? Are they expressing their sadness and expressing their anger? Are they allowed to have free range of all their feelings? are we setting up little corners in the house to make sure that we have these dedicated shrines to their emotions and their feelings? Are we constantly monitoring them? And it turns us into these new brands of helicopter parents that are just constantly hovering around our kids emotional states to just make sure they're not emotionally constipated, or I don't know what is supposed to happen. What is lacking. And what's so many of these trendy sources are not bringing in is a balanced approach that has things like boundaries, standards, rules, education, and emphasis on academic performance, and emphasis on mentorship and modeling just what it means to be a solid, solid, emotional person to our children. And then calling them up to that standard that says yes, you can have emotions, and you can feel everything you want. But you are still going to live and behave in certain ways that are expected of this family because guess what kid that is life. And if you are at work, or if you are in a romantic relationship, if you are out there in the wild, and you're just spouting off your emotions and allowed free range, to just feel everything all over the place, you're going to be one unemployed and lonely person, because nobody's going to put up with that. That's usually a sign that there's something wrong with somebody and we all know that but yet, we seem to be teaching our kids the exact opposite of good life skills by overindulging, their emotionalism What do I think is behind a lot of this emotional obsession and this call to be emotional helicopter parents, it is bringing up the next generation of therapy patients. To me that's really it when you look at the people who are advancing these ideas. When you look at the people who are saying let's fixate on emotions, to the exclusion of so many other things, and be constantly talking about emotions and talking about emotions. And when your kids are two and four and six and 10 and 12. We should be talking about their emotions, and all focused on what they're feeling. Well guess what that is what the psychotherapists, one and the counselors and family therapists and all these people, they want to train up people who are going to be comfortable talking about their emotions, because that's going to ensure future business for them. Is it good for the kids? I don't think so. So from personal experience, we have worked with dozens and dozens and dozens of kids. We have gone to a number of schools, specifically Montessori schools that incorporate all of these emotion based and emotion hyper conscious teachings into their everyday practices. And the kids that are there are train wrecks. They are incredibly poorly behaved. They are incredibly spoiled. They are hyper fixated and kind of narcissistic about their emotional states and emotional lives. They just seemed like entitled little overemotional out of control animals because they are being brought up on these teachings that place their emotional expression on some higher plane of importance above everything else. When we look at kids just like anyone else, there's an emotional component Sure, and we should have control over that. We should have expression of it, but at the same time, it should be balanced with education critical thinking rationality, rules, standards, etiquette manners. proper treatment of other people, we should be teaching all of these things and modeling all of these things as a package deal, so that the child grows up to be a well rounded, complete adult, not somebody who's having emotions, and is a complete Dumb Bunny, because they haven't read any books. One of the things that's driving me nuts during the whole pandemic thing, and the remote education situation that we're in, is this constant message of emotional well being being placed on some higher plane than education. And they will say, well, kids who have healthier emotional lives, they do better in school. Well, yes, kids who are happy, as opposed to depressed and anxious and do tend to be able to focus better and do better in school. But then, at the same time, the kids who are doing better in school and actually have accomplishments and have been pushed to be self disciplined, and they are learning and excelling and getting good grades, guess what, they have higher self esteem, and they are happier, and they are more confident, which gives them the emotional state, they need to in turn, do better in the future. So you can't just divorced one from the other. You can't say, oh, let's go sit in a corner and just be happy, happy all the time, without actually putting any knowledge in the kid's head or holding them to any kind of standards. Both can coexist. It's not an either or situation. It's a both and that, yes, we should be aware of emotional issues. And we should encourage emotional health and healthy, regulated emotional expression that is actually aware of house rules and social standards and proper etiquette and not just being all over the map emotionally. And we should also be focused on literacy, and exposure to all sorts of other life experiences that will contextualize the emotional experience. We should help kids be able to be rational and think critically, we should train them that we have a choice, a conscious choice, over the emotions that we choose, we should teach them basic meditation and mindfulness skills to show them that hey, look, emotions, they come. They go, that's it. They're temporary. Now what do you choose, you are not subservient to or a slave to your emotions. Emotions are not these big feelings or whatever nonsense bs they call them. They are not these intimidating, large things that are bigger than you. They're just clouds that float by and that's it. And now we get to choose which clouds we focus focus on. And then we get to go read a book and we get to be well behaved and we get to have a good time and we get to grow up and be successful adults. That is the way to incorporate emotional teaching as our kids are going through school as they're growing up. Yes, again, it is important for us to focus on their emotions, but do not do not focus on that exclusively, to the detriment and to the exclusion of all the other rich areas of life that will build their self esteem and help them grow into well rounded, functioning stable, secure, happy, healthy adults.