Big Emotions, Little People
From the moment I met April, I knew she was a kindred spirit. She has been a regular voice of love and encouragement on my parenting journey, and I’m honored to welcome her to Every Breath I Take as a regular contributor. I’m certain you’ll find her as inspiring as I do! (You can read more about April in the Voices section here.)
By: April Campbell
I was (and am) completely flattered and honored that Jen asked me to be a regular contributor here at Every Breath I Take. I am a homeschooling momma to my brilliant (yes, I am completely biased!!) girls, Sydney (8) and Rylee (6). I have been home with them for the past 8 years….and it has been the most amazing and challenging job I have ever had. I’m so grateful to my husband for his support and giving me the opportunity to live out my dream.
Do you let your kids see you cry? Do you let them see you fight or disagree with your spouse? Do you let your kids see you make mistakes? Do you let them watch you walk through any of those hard and difficult things in life?
Often we want to shelter our kids. To let them live carefree and happy lives. To not experience the stresses that life can present. But what happens when they grow up and have to process through those things on their own?
When they are little, we spend time teaching our kids all sorts of things:
How to dress themselves.
How to use the bathroom.
How to feed themselves.
And then when they get older:
How to cook.
How to do laundry.
How to drive a car.
But often we forget that we need to teach them how to cope and manage their emotions. Or we just avoid it because……face it, it’s hard. Who wants to face the difficulties of their emotions with their little ones by their side. Or launch into the ugly-cry….the kind of crying that uses up an entire box of tissues in a single sitting.
I don’t know about you but I prefer to process my emotions on my own. Sometimes, I keep things so close when I am processing through them that even my husband doesn’t know that I am feeling so stressed about them. While it’s probably not a great coping method, it’s what I do…..but it doesn’t help my kids learn how to manage all their emotions. And if your kids are anything like mine….then their emotions bubble to the surface a lot. Often in ugly displays of body flailing, yelling, stomping…..and we’ve even started seeing some eye rolling in our house.
A year ago our family experienced some unexpected changes. The circumstances were traumatic and resulted in my husband getting a new job…….across the country. Literally. Good-bye Virginia. Hello Oregon! Good-bye friends and support system. Hello isolation. Loneliness. Grief.
April and her beautiful family on their cross-country road trip
It’s been a hard year, to say the least. But from the very beginning, I realized that it was going to be just as hard on my kids as it was going to be for my husband and myself. So we walked through our pain and sadness together. When I felt sad, I let them see me be sad. When I felt pained or angry or alone, I let them in on it. And when they felt those things, I reminded them of the times that I felt the same way. We spent many days crying together. Missing friends together. Learning our new home and our new town together.
It would have been so much easier for me to just process it all by myself…..but in the long run, it was better for us to do it together. I hope that I was able to show them that it’s okay to feel all those things. Feelings are not bad. And I hope that I was able to model for them how to navigate a difficult time in our family. Thankfully, they have adjusted beautifully to our new surroundings. They are amazing like that. I think I still have more work to do….perhaps I should take a lesson or two from them.
It’s been a tough journey and we all sometimes still feel a little sadness. We are forever marked by the things that happen in our lives. They change us. I hope that the things we went through together will impact how they process their lives. In togetherness.
I absolutely agree with you! My daughter is not the best sleeper. It can take me 2 hours to get her to sleep at times. Obviously, I would be frustrated. But, I struggled with how to deal with these emotions as I didn’t want her to think she was being punished or the cause of them (the cause is the situation, not her…) But, I’ve finally accepted that for my sanity and to model for her, I need to say, “Honey, I am very frustrated right now. I need to take a break and take some deep breathes.” At 13 months, she can’t understand me, but hopefully my modeling will eventually pay off in that she can recognize her feelings and learn how to work through them.
Amy, I remember well similar feelings when my oldest was about 12 months old. The 2 hour bedtime can be so exasperating. Good for you for knowing you need a minute to breathe.
Amy, do you have a secret spy camera in my house? Cause that exact scenario played out in my home. I was beating myself up for the longest time thinking there was something wrong with me that I was feeling frustrated about our LONG sleeping routine. And, if I was a good mama, truly capable of positive parenting, I wouldn’t feel the frustration. Then, one day a light went off – my emotion isn’t bad, but how I process it can be. That’s why April’s words here just spoke such truth to me. And, I love that you say how you feel and then you tell your daughter what you are going to do to deal with it! So powerful! I’ll be thinking of you both each time I bravely share my honest feelings and a mature way to handle them!
This is so good, April.
I grew up in a home where there were a LOT of Big Feelings, but we weren’t taught how to manage or respond to our own feelings. It’s probably my biggest struggle in parenting – both managing my feelings about a situation and teaching my girls how to manage theirs. Honestly, sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back, but we just keep working on it.
Thanks for writing on such a hugely important part of parenting little ones!
Oh Megan, I know the one step forward, two steps back oh so well. I’m beginning to think that this hard work of processing emotions is a life long process – like exercising is for our muscles. But, I just keep reminding myself that there is a lesson for our kids in our perseverance in spite of setbacks.
This is a critical lesson for kids: that it is okay to be in pain sometimes, and that we don’t have to try to avoid, repair, reject, or otherwise refuse to be with that pain. And that it will pass. And welcome to Oregon!
So true, Visty! But also hard to do!
Megan, it is so challenging to walk my girls though this stuff sometimes. There are days when I just want to lay down and throw a toddler sized tantrum! It’s so good for them to see us struggle and to see us work out our emotions in healthy ways.
Thanks, Visty! We really like Oregon. Your words are so true. Hard, but true. Emotions and feelings are real and we can’t negate what our kids are feeling.