By Sue Siebens
Parenting is a tough job, even if you love it. Teaching our children all the life skills they need to be successful adults can be overwhelming. There are many details to parse into age-appropriate bites:
· decision-making
· health and hygiene
· time and money management
· maintaining a home
· school and work skills
· goal setting and working towards achievements
And, of course, how to handle an emotional life that is uniquely theirs.
There is no universal formula for parenting. Each child has different needs regarding just the right amount of attention, support, encouragement, and restraint. And those levels change as they move through different stages and sometimes through the day.
We learn how to deal with emotions from our first family and support figures. Emotional regulating solutions are passed down through the generations.
We are content when not experiencing a disruptive emotion; We are in equilibrium with our present environment. We each have a collection of coping mechanisms that help us reacquire calmness. And we try to teach these skills to our kids to help them face their fears, calm themselves down, and cheer themselves up.
· Breathing exercises
· Label the feeling
· Positive self talk
· Physical movement and exercise
· Paying games and other mood boosters
If we are honest, we know from our own experience that these strategies are a temporary relief. When the situational trigger happens again, the same triggered emotion will erupt again. Each repeated instance creates an incrementally larger reaction, making things worse over time.
A Better Understanding
Triggered emotions are unprocessed emotions from some past high-stress event. They are re-expressed when something in our current situation alerts our subconscious to a similarity with an unprocessed emotion. And a triggered emotion blooms up in us.
We may think that kids haven’t had enough experience to have unprocessed memories. But that’s not true. Emotions are present in us from the beginning: in-utero and on. But we don’t develop cognitive abilities to interpret or understand these emotional messages until much later…if ever. Many emotions may not get processed fully during high-stress events and linger in the body as emotional imprints. Observe a newborn or toddler to see their high-stress emotions in action when they are not fed on time, it is nap time or time to share a toy.
To be sure, high-stress emotional and physical events, that create unprocessed emotions can occur throughout our lives. But many are made during the birth process and the first 1000 days [1]. As a result, children have many unprocessedemotions that drive their emotional life.
How can we help them?
Emotional Resolution, EmRes, is a simple, yet powerful protocol that uses the body’s innate ability to process emotion, new or old. We just have to give the body the time and space to do the work.
EmRes sessions access unprocessed emotions through recent triggered situations. Sessions are conducted by EmRes Professionals in a private, safe environment.
EmRes-Self is conducted on oneself in the moment of the emotion, resolving the unprocessed emotion that is currently active.
Children older than 11 can participate in EmRes sessions and learn EmRes-Self as adults do. They can manage their emotional life with a minimum of side coaching/reminders from parents and session work.
Children ages 4-11, depending on their maturity level, can benefit from EmRes sessions and learn EmRes-Self. By working individually with them when they are experiencing an uncomfortable feeling, the child learns how to resolve their unprocessed emotions.
It is not just tantrums.
Kids have a full range of emotional expressions similar to adults, with fear heading the list. There are fears from external sources:
o thunderstorms,
o the dark,
o scary movies,
o being bullied, etc. and
· from internal sources:
o learning disabilities,
o academic expectations,
o test anxiety,
o sports achievement,
o feeling powerless and insecurity,
o power and control issues, etc.
It is challenging to navigate constant change socially and physically as a child. Remember, when a child is stressed and acting out, they are trying to tell us that something is wrong. Resolving emotional pain makes sailing smoother.
EmRes is an invaluable tool for every child to have. As they resolve their emotional difficulties, they eliminate their fears and bring calmness and agency to their life.
Who else needs the work?
More often than not, when a child has an emotional episode, the parent/teacher/coach is also triggered by the behavior. They can experience a matrix of feelings. For example
· loss of control
· anger and frustration
· inadequacy
· worry
· embarrassed
· defensiveness
· guilt
· shame
If the parent has an emotional response, it is impossible to be fully present for the child and their emotional healing.
Answer: The adult needs to EmRes their own fear based emotional reactions before trying to help the child. It only takes 6-60 seconds, and the parent can then remind or assist the child through any EmRes-Self they need.
When a parent/teacher/coach resolves their own emotions, it does two remarkable things: 1. the parent removes their emotional energy from the situation, making them more effective, and 2. the child sees the adult tending to their emotions, modeling a successful self-care strategy.
Modeling good emotional hygiene is so powerful that it surpasses words. Actions always speak louder than words.
What about kids under four years?
We are all reflective of the emotional environment around us. Small children especially so. Remember, they are little emotional beings without the cognitive ability to understand it all. The best game plan is 1. Adults EmRes themselves, then 2. kindly hold the child or be in their space, and continue to EmRes yourself for both child and adult. The child will calm as the adult does.
In fact, this is true of all kids and adults. If we are emotionally balanced by resolving emotions when difficult emotions are provoked in us—no matter how small, then we will not carry an emotional charge that will trigger someone else.
When we uninstall our buttons, others will stop pushing them and vice versa.
Can you imagine going through school, puberty and dating knowing the emotional self-care of EmRes? Our life choices would be far less distracting and confusing every step of the way!
We can help our children with their emotional care and education. And in doing so we get to work on ourselves as well. Modeling emotional self-care is at the core of this work.
Are you ready to provide emotional education and support in your child’s life—and to your own?
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
References
1. Boris Cyrulnik: Des Âmes et des Saisons
About Sue
Sue Siebens uses Emotional Resolution, EmRes, to work at a fundamental level, where the roots of the illness, fear, and pain can be accessed and resolved. Sue teaches and writes to raise awareness about this new technology so that as many people as possible can find relief and peace in their life. Sue is based in Dallas, Tx, USA.