How Can Parents/Teachers Teach Their Children To Manage Their Emotions?

I was inspired to respond to an article I read today in the Guardian Professional entitled 'We Must Get Serious About Tackling Mental Illness Among The Young.' This piece of writing talks about how parents and governments across the world need to understand the importance of the mental health of children. A view which I totally support of course. In the first paragraph the writer states;  'we must seriously re-evaluate how we raise our children, care for them, teach them to take up supportive and loving relationships, and protect them,' and it is this sentence  that I would like to take issue with.


In order for parents/teachers to help children 'manage their emotions' they really need to be able to manage their own. I have spent many years as a counsellor and often receive phone calls from parents who wish send their children to me for Emotional Therapy. As I run a private practice, parents have to pay for their children's therapy, but they often choose to come to me as the waiting list may be as long as 6 months for a child to see a therapist on the NHS.


The parents come to see me first without the child in order for me to fully understand the situation  from their perspective. After a short while of talking to the parents I can usually begin to understand why the child  may be behaving in the way he/she does. More often than not the situation has come about because the parent/s are having trouble handling their own emotions and the child is reacting to the parents' behaviour. Of course this is a very delicate situation and I have to be very sensitive how I approach this. It is often the norm, that parents send their child to 'therapists' in order for the child's behaviour to change not thinking that they themselves might be the reason for the behaviour in the first place. After suggesting that a solution might be that we work as a team, giving the parents, siblings and the child in question, some different ways of understanding and managing their emotions, I am often met with resistance. As parents we really need to acknowledge our responsibility for our own inept emotional aptitude in terms of the way we deal with our emotions before we can expect any lasting change in the way our children handle their emotions.


There have been times when I have agreed to work with a child when the parents have declined my offer for them to be involved in the therapy. My heart sinks when this scenario plays out, as the child usually responds well to the therapy and then goes back into a negative environment, only to slip back into his/her old pattern of behaviour. Then the parents believe the therapy is is not working because the child's behaviour shows little improvement.


I can't say strongly enough that there needs to be an 'Emotional Revolution' in the way we think about our emotions and how we 'react' to them. I believe this has to happen in order for there to be any real lasting progress made in helping to reduce mental health issues in children.

A New Way Of Thinking About Our Emotions

A new way of thinking about our emotions is essential if we are ever to have an Emotional Revolution. It is about time the rules about emotions were changed, after all they have been left unchallenged for many, many years. We are beginning to see that the way we deal with our emotions is essential to our mental, physical and spiritual health. I am very enthusiastic about helping people to learn about our emotions in a totally different way to the way society and religion have always taught us. Society and Religion have made us believe that there are 'positive' and 'negative' emotions and that we must do our utmost to try and stay in the lovely, comfortable no problem emotions. So  what do we do with the other uncomfortable, painful, emotions? Repress, or avoid them of course! However, just look at the impossible task Society and Religion has set us.

Here is the list of  Positive Emotions
Happiness
Joy
Peace
Contentment
Love

Here is a list of the other Emotions
Anger         Depression
Hate           Anxiety
Rage          Apathy
Fear           Frustration
Jealousy     Despair
Grief          Guilt
Sadness     Shame
Envy        

It is hopefully obvious to you that there are far more uncomfortable emotions compared to the comfortable ones. So how on earth are we supposed to keep feeling the five 'positive' emotions when we are running from the other 15? It is impossible!

Most of us were born with the ability to feel all of the emotions, painful and comfortable ones, this is because all of the emotions have a function for us. It is my opinion that the dark uncomfortable emotions are our greatest teachers. Each of them has its own special message for us and if we would only listen to the message  or even just part of the message then they will have done their job and they will flow through us. You see the uncomfortable emotions (I refuse to call them negative as they are not, it is our reaction to them which is negative) don't want to stay with us, they just want us to acknowledge them and then they will leave, but will return again when we need them. We have learnt to repress them, to avoid them by taking anti-depressants, over working, taking drugs, drinking alcohol, gambling, over eating etc. This is mainly because other people can't deal with their own emotional pain and so can not deal with being with other people who are also in pain. So, from childhood many of us have learnt not to have them. 'You mustn't be jealous of your sister,' a parent might say, or 'You can't get angry at me, I'm an adult!' 'Don't cry' 'Its wrong to hate people.' The list goes on.

It is almost as though society and religion want us to remain in a constant state of repression. By stitching up the emotions as 'positive' an 'negative' we do not learn how to deal with the negative but only repress them. The ironic thing is, while we continue to do this, we will never experience those lovely emotions we crave to feel. 'Happiness flows when all the emotions flow' - Karla McClaren, Language of Emotions.