Parenting From Inside Out
By now, if you are a parent of small children, you have likely either seen or heard of the Pixar movie "Inside Out". This delightful movie gives children, and parents, a wonderful way to talk more about feelings and to understand how they all have a role to play. Each of the portrayed emotions (Joy, Sad, Fear, Anger and Disgust) takes turns running a big control panel in the brain of the child in the movie (Spoiler alert!) In the movie, we see that Sadness has an important function in the grand scheme of things and Joy doesn't have to be in charge all the time.
In our culture, we can sometimes have a strange relationship with emotion. Often, for boys, we expect them to consign themselves to just a few: some range of happy, anger is mostly fine depending upon whom is on the receiving end, and something that expresses what we think is "tough". For girls, anger isn't so hot and maybe there's a need for "tough" but lots of versions of happy and something we think of as "sweet" or "agreeable" is still likely pressured. Mostly, this extends into adulthood and many of us don't learn how to wholly embrace a full range of emotions.
In my office, people sometimes label feelings "good" or "bad" when really they are just on a continuum of more to less comfortable to experience. Let's talk about the ones that are experienced as less comfortable, usually by the person having them and others in the nearby vicinity of them: sad, angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, hurt, and afraid.
Parents sometimes get triggered when their children are full on experiencing those uncomfortable emotions, especially the ones that can lead to an all out meltdown. I'm going to get a tiny bit technical in hopes of opening up some thinking about kids and emotion and parents' response to it. In the most basic terms, our brains have three main parts we can call the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain and the thinking brain (click here for great explanation). The reptilian brain is reactive, survival based. The mammalian brain has emotion and coping, and the thinking brain helps us put it all together in a way that helps us be productive members of society.
Uncomfortable emotions can often begin in the reptilian brain and the behaviors associated with them can be big (think meltdowns in kids). As Drs. Daniel Siegel and Tiny Payne Bryson point out in "No Drama Discipline", the connections between the thinking brain, mammalian brain and the reptilian brain aren't that good when they are young. That means parents are more likely to get reactive behavior to uncomfortable emotions than a reasoned response. Here's the kicker....we parents get triggered to be just as reactive as the kids when they meltdown.
Drs. Siegel and Bryson remind us that parents need to be able to stay calm, connect with the child and THEN have a response to their challenging feelings if we hope to have it all end well. Thankfully, that's where Inside Out can be a fabulous tool for calming down, connecting and having a productive conversation! Tips on how to use it to help manage those challenging emotions:
1) First see the movie, especially with your kids.
2) When you start to feel yourself being reactive to the reacting kids, ask yourself "Who is at the control panel of emotion right now?" Make sure Calm is at the helm, preferably working together with Love and Patience.
3) Given that your kids have seen the movie, you can connect first by offering a hug and second by asking the same question of your child "Who is at the control panel of emotion right now?" (said WITHOUT judgement or "tone").
4) Talk about who your child would like to be controlling the panel and/or how the ruling emotion would like to resolve the problem.
Talking about what emotion is in control helps your child make a connection between all parts of the brain so that the thinking brain has a better chance to get involved. In addition, you are helping train your child's brain to make stronger pathways between the reactive, reptilian brain and the thinking brain which helps how well they can manage tough situations and experiences. Finally, your child feels understood and accepted.....in ALL his or her feeling states. Now isn't that something we all want?