By Jane Pinel

It is important for children to learn to deal with their feelings. They watch how their parents and others react to situations and may follow those examples.

Anger, passion, fear, compassion are feelings that rule the world. 
The war between Russia and Ukraine is all the proof we need. 
Putin’s longing to regain the feeling of power and pride in the Soviet empire.
The West’s anger and fear of losing their freedom to autocracy.

Compassion as we struggle to support the Ukrainians in their deadly war against Russia.
Anger as we watch Russia killing and torturing Ukrainians.
Passion as the Ukrainians fight to the death to save their country and their love of freedom.
Our fear of a nuclear holocaust preventing us from fully supporting Ukraine.

Sometimes, if children have never talked about their feelings or been asked about their motivation for striking their brother or hugging their little sister, they grow up without awareness or understanding of their emotions. If we don’t talk to our children early on about what they are feeling and how to deal with their feelings, they may grow up expressing their anger through forms of aggression like with fists or guns.

Children need words to express their feelings. It helps if parents share their own feelings and even talk about how they are going to deal with specific emotions. For example, “I’m sad that your friend Joe can’t come to your birthday party because he’s sick. Let’s write him a note together to tell him to get better soon.”

It is important for your child to be able to identify and express his feelings rather than internalize them. Most of all it’s important for him to learn the appropriate way to express them. That takes practice. Using the right words is not always simple even when one is an adult.

One suggestion is to open a discussion at the dinner table without electronic interruptions. Ask your child what’s the best thing that happened to you today? How does that make you feel? What will you do? Then again what is the worst thing that happened to you today? How are you feeling about it? Is there something you can do? Depending on the age of your child he may need help dealing with comments made on social media or the response that he might have made on social media.

Fear, anger and shame are probably the hardest feelings to deal with. In a conversation, ask  your child how he would deal with a situation. Point out the possible consequences and perhaps suggest alternative action. In the case of positive experiences with appropriate actions, celebrate in some small way together to reinforce the successful handling of the situation or solving an issue. 

By Jane Pinel

Know that your little one has succeeded in the awesome challenges of learning to roll over, sit up, and walk — learning to get up and try again when he falls down. Now he has, perhaps the most challenging task of all, learning words and how to use them. Most likely his first words will be mama and dada and maybe a treasured version of grandma or grandpa. As he learns to walk and climb and reach for things, he will need to know the meaning of the word ‘no’ for his own safety or the safety of the objects he is trying to get.

Teaching the meaning of the word ‘no’ can be difficult for both child and parent. At times it can cause both frustration and anger, on both sides. Like any other word it takes time and repetition to fully understand its’ meaning. I have seen parents who say ‘no’ for the first time and expect their child to understand it from that moment on. Punishment should not be part of this learning experience. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence and should be encouraged always. If your child is about to touch something dangerous you can teach another word along with the word ‘no’. Say ‘no’ firmly plus the word ‘hurt’, which he may know from falling down and bumping himself. It’s an opportunity to introduce other new words — such as ‘break’ or ‘hot/cold’ — apply to your reason for saying ‘no’.

The object here is to help your child build his confidence in learning about the world, while keeping him safe. Be sure to share your joy and pleasure with him when he succeeds challenges which may seem small to you but are huge for him.

By Jane Pinel

As your little one explores his new world, he will necessarily fall down sometimes, or bump his head or hurt his hand. Of course if it is serious you will attend to it right away. But very often you will notice as soon as the bump happens, even while he is still on the floor, he will look at you before he starts to cry. This is to identify whether he should be really worried about what happened or not. If it’s not serious it is important that you answer his look with smiling reassurance, in the words of encouragement as you stand him on his feet again. Your reaction is teaching him how to respond.

As your toddler gets a little older he will find things he wants to accomplish, such as throwing and catching a ball, or trying a new ride on the playground. Once again, he will look to you for the confidence and belief in himself that he needs to keep trying if he doesn’t first succeed. An attitude by his parent of blame or punishment when he is trying to learn a new skill, can be devastating. However, there is a little wiggle room for you if you have had a bad day at work or you haven’t eaten for the last eight hours, but you must be positive, supportive, and let him know that you believe in him and his abilities whenever possible. For small child, their sense of confidence depends on who is caring for them and their experiences with success.