By Marie Nebel-Schwalm, PhD
Parenting is not easy, and parenting a child who struggles to regulate his or her emotions can be one of the more significant challenges for parents. Parents can become understandably frustrated and impatient when their child seems unable to control his or her emotions. Similarly, even if they cannot articulate it, the children themselves are often also just as upset at their inability to stay calm. They want to stay in control, but they may not have effective ways to manage their emotions. Parents have many options to choose from, including parenting books, websites, support groups, and professional help.
The good news is that there are many helpful techniques to teach children how to have better emotional control. Giving children accurate information about how their bodies work is a great way to teach them steps toward control. It can really help a child to understand how his or her brain is involved in emotional expression and making choices (good and bad). Two steps that can help children and parents in these situations include educating children about their bodies and techniques that teach how to reduce the intensity of a negative emotion.
The brain is an integral part of our emotional selves, and yet it can feel like a topic that is too complex to teach children. By keeping the information limited to directly relevant aspects, and by using metaphors and simple visuals, we can help increase a child’s comprehension of how this organ is working when we are feeling overwhelmed by our emotions. One metaphor that is discussed in the book called Parenting the Whole-Brain Child, by Daniel Siegal, MD and Tina Payne Bryson PhD, is thinking of our brain as a two-story house. The downstairs, which represents our sub-cortical limbic system, is the part of the house that is involved in our big emotions, especially negative feelings like fear, anxiety, and anger. The upstairs, which represents our pre-frontal cortex, is involved in our more sophisticated thinking processes including making decisions, planning things out, putting things in order, and considering consequences. Also, in this particular house, the upstairs is still under construction, so children do not yet have full control over their upstairs abilities.
Ideally, our upstairs and downstairs will have good communication, like a staircase between the two floors. When this is happening, we can experience negative emotions, but still make good choices because our upstairs brain is involved in making decisions. When our emotions become overwhelming, it is like putting a baby-gate across the stairs that blocks communication. When this happens, our upstairs cannot help us and we experience an emotional surge. In therapy, we work with children and parents to teach these concepts as one part of helping them make better decisions and how to learn to prevent their emotions from getting as intense in the future.
Once children have a better understanding of how their brains work, we can teach them specific skills to reduce the intensity of emotions. Next month’s article will discuss some of these skills and how to introduce them to children.
Dr. Marie Nebel-Schwalm is a licensed clinical psychologist and staff member at The ABLE Center. She provides psychoeducational assessments and therapy for children, adolescents, and young adults. The ABLE Center in Bloomington, IL uses an integrated team approach to offer comprehensive evaluations and intervention services. For more information about our neuropsychological or interventions services please visit their website at www.TheABLECenter.com or contact them at 309-661-8046.