Help your child process big emotions

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Welcome back to another episode of Mama Thrive :-)

We received a question after we posted another episode of MamaThrive on the topic of Holding Space (which is HERE). We were asked for tips on what to do after you have held space for your child to express what they need to express and allowed their emotions to move through them.

 

We were asked, ‘what happens when there needs to be more than just holding space? What happens when more active healing, solution creating, discussion or action needs to take place?

 

We mentioned that holding loving space for your child, letting them know you can hold them in whatever they are feeling and that their feelings are valid is quite often all that they need. Once they’ve expressed and they’ve had space held for them, their whole energy can shift and the situation can feel resolved and complete.

 

There are also times when it isn’t complete and the emotions linger on and your child continues to express them in various ways. That is what we’re going to explore in this episode, what to do, in those situations.

 

We’re going to talk about two different approaches, and the first one which often naturally happens between me (Lisa) and my son because he’s quite an energetic and physical person is PLAY.

 

Play is an appealing and naturally occurring therapy that can naturally unfold and be shared between you and your child.

 

So often the younger the child the more inclined they are to play, to seek out solutions, practice different ideas and role play stressful experiences in life all through play.

 

I (Lisa) remember when my daughter was little, we used finger puppets and we had a lot of games and role playing with dolls and with the finger puppets based on what was going on for her at the time.

 

With my son, we share much bigger, more physical play in the way that we role play dynamics and solutions. We role play characters and add humour and take it over the top. We might explore different realities. We played a game once where we had different pretend portals that we would go through and different scenarios would act out depending on which portal we would jump through. So it would be a whole game where we would actually be role playing and exploring possible courses of action and ways that might play out and giving them an experience of processing challenging situations and exploring them out of the moment in a way that they could really relate to and that felt fun.

 

The intention of playing these kinds of games with your children is not necessarily to recreate the situation and teach your children particular ways to work with it. It’s not to try and create a certain outcome. When you Hold Space through listening you create the container for them to express themselves. That is the same with play. You can strengthen that container by being open to a healing game unfolding and being an active participant in it, being willing to play a character in their processing, in a fun and creative way.

 

You’re not directing the play or solution. You’re following the lead of your child, and they will naturally play out the dynamic they want to explore. Often play is used to come back to a place of empowerment, strength and control when your child has been feeling disempowered and out of control.

 

I (Kaya) find that often when my son has reacted strongly to a social dynamic and feels triggered, hurt, betrayed or embarrassed, holding space just through listening isn’t enough because he still has sooo much energy swirling around inside him that needs to move.

 

He might still have some anger or resentment or feelings of disempowerment that are moving through him, and sometimes, if I’m there... receptive and holding that space for him, letting him know that his energy and emotions are valid... He will initiate play himself.

 

I’ll then go with it and let him take the lead, knowing that this is kind of a ‘sacred playtime’, it’s healing for him. It’s often an exploration of power where he wants to feel in control again because he felt out of control. He’ll try on different roles and have me play other roles, to re-enact situations and recreate ways to be empowered.

 

He did this funny thing recently where, whenever he was embarrassed, he wanted to wedgee me (pull my underwear up and pretend he’s hanging me by them). At one point, he just kept doing it over and over again and I could tell it felt really healing for him. He made sure not to really do me harm, we both knew it was a game and he knew I was willing to play it with him.

 

That wedgee game became a little ritual that he could anchor to, to help him process intense feelings. When we’re out in social situations now and he’s starting to feel out of control, he can come to me and initiate the game with me rather than lose it at someone else who might be annoying him.

 

So the games can be anchoring, healing tools to come back to, safe and empowering ways to work on their emotions.

 

Another area where play is also applicable—and this happens more so with my (Kaya’s) daughter who’s a bit older and less physically active than my son—is play can create safe places to bring up topics that they might feel a bit funny about, ashamed of or unsure of how to discuss.

 

They’ll bring the uncomfortable topics up in games and jokes themselves and we end up role playing games or exaggerating scenarios and making up stories that work through something in themselves that they might not feel that comfortable with and don’t want to be explicit about.  

 

So not directing the play is a really important point, instead, notice when they are initiating it, notice the need for healing in their play follow the threads, go with the flow of their games and play the parts they need you to play wherever you can.

 

When play is not where the energy is going (and you can tell because your child isn't initiating it), they may really want to talk with you and receive your guidance and feedback on how to proceed or how they could tackle a similar challenge in the future.

 

They may want to have a healing conversation with you.

 

If you have held a lot of space for them (see this post) then that does create connection, trust and safety for them and between you both. Holding space can then, quite naturally flow into the space for an explorative and very authentic conversation to occur.

 

There are so many ways to go about having supportive conversations with your children who are processing big emotions. There is no one way to go about it and the energy of support, love and connection underlying it is the most important thing.

 

Soon we’ll share some of many tools you can use to have conversations like that but remember that there are so many more. You may also choose to share experiences that you’ve had yourself that relate to their experience and share what you did and what you found helpful, what you learned about yourself, what you learned about the situation and what served you moving forward. That can also be a powerful technique.

 

Another tool we have found very powerful is to ask empowering questions. This is a lot like coaching them. Instead of following your own agenda and thinking of ways you can help them change or do things differently, get really, really curious about them and hold the intention to support them to come to their own realizations and to use their own knowing to have their own shifts within themselves. Ask them questions that draw out their own inner knowing.

 

In these conversations you are being a companion and a guide along the journey of their own self-realization rather than being the master who has the answers to give them.

 

So it’s about connecting them back to their own truth, to what’s truth for them, to where they want to go, to what fits with their vision and their values. You’re aiming to connect them to their own truth in their own way.

Before we give you some examples of questions (which we get a bit stuck on because it’s quite an intuitive process and obviously extremely context-sensitive), we want to emphasise that something you are imparting to your child, underneath all the exploration... is that within them they do know their own truth, they are wise and they do have their own answers.

 

You want to bring their own truth to the surface and remind them that their wisdom is within them and that they can always keep learning to really tap into that part of themselves.

 

Now, some questions you could ask them~

 

From this aware space you’re in now... if you went back to that situation how might you do it differently?

 

What did you learn from that? and what do you now know to bring forward when it comes up again?

 

Now that you’ve had that experience, have you ever witnessed a person you admire have a similar experience to what you went through and what did they do that you really admired?

 

All these questions, and so many more, are about tapping them back into their truth. Inviting them to tune in to what they felt was truth, what they’ve learned, and helping them come back to really owning and claiming their path forwards.

 

And that’s where change comes from. It comes from their own self awareness and their own initiative that comes from having an insight into themselves, not from any external information or advice that gets placed on them. So there’s a lot of power in ‘coaching’ our children that way.\

 

To recap, when more than just holding space is needed, what we’re suggesting is to continue to hold the space... but hold the space for more exploration and more conversation, more drawing out to happen.

 

That’s either through play, through holding the space and being an active participant in healing intuitive play, or also having those deeper conversations where you are asking questions to bring that awareness and that insight to your children. You’re empowering them and inspiring them to change and to become aware of different dynamics. There are many ways to do that, but the one way we shared today was asking those empowering questions.

 

Give any of that a go and let us know how it works :-)
Please don’t hesitate to email us ([email protected]) and share any stories or ask any further questions. It is all welcome.