Teaching Children What to Do With Big Feelings

Growing up, most of us learned something about what to do with our feelings, often without realizing we were learning it. Some of us may have been told directly: don't cry, don't be angry, be nice. But all of us learned by watching how the people around us handled their own emotions — in ordinary moments and in times of crisis.

As we grew older, we began to understand that feeling something and deciding what to do with that feeling were not necessarily the same thing.

Not long ago, I was scrolling through Instagram when I heard part of an interview. The person being interviewed said something that stayed with me: "All feelings are welcome. All behaviors are not."

It made me think about the volume dial on my car radio. Most of the time, the music plays quietly in the background. But sometimes a song comes on that I enjoy, and I turn it up. Other times, I'm in the middle of a conversation and the music becomes a distraction, so I turn it down. The song hasn't changed. What has changed is how much of it the moment can hold. I wonder if our emotions work in much the same way.

Some feelings may invite us to turn the dial up. Others may need to be turned down. But perhaps it isn't the feeling itself that determines the volume. The same emotion might call for a different response depending on where we are, who we're with, and what the moment requires.

The ability to choose is the discipline. We recognize what we're feeling, read the moment, and decide how to respond. Sometimes the dial may need to go up. Sometimes it may need to come down. The work is learning the difference.

Think of a child who is so excited they want to run through the house shouting. We don't want to diminish the excitement. We simply help them learn that there are places to run and places to walk, times to shout and times to lower their voice.

It's a small turn of the dial, but the lesson is larger. The feeling is welcome. How we express it can be adjusted to fit the moment.

And perhaps that's what we're practicing in all those small moments. A child who learns to adjust the volume of excitement is beginning to develop the same awareness they will need when the feelings become more complicated and the consequences of their response matter more.

The emotion may change. The practice remains the same: notice what we're feeling, read the moment, and choose what we do next.

So how do we teach it? Perhaps first by practicing it ourselves. Children learn a great deal about emotions by watching us. They notice what we do with frustration, disappointment, excitement, and hurt. They see when we react quickly, and they see when we give ourselves enough room to choose a response.

In that sense, we are teaching them how to use their own dial every time they watch us use ours. And perhaps that is part of our own growing up as well. We don't stop having strong emotions simply because we become adults. We keep learning how to recognize them, make room for them, and decide what they should look like when they enter the world. We feel. We notice. We choose.

"All feelings are welcome. All behaviors are not."