The Antidote for Too Little or Too Many Emotions
I Love You So Big! Blog – Lynne Namka, © 2011-13
“It’s a feeling. It’s just a feeling. Feelings are meant to be felt. That’s why they are called feelings. So feel your feeling for a while and then do a release technique on it!” – Lynne Namka, Parents Fight, Parents Make Up: Take Good Care of Yourself
There is a continuum from having too little to too much emotion. Yes, we can have too much or too little and the middle ground is the place to strive for. Successful living is learning to express feelings when appropriate but not go overboard. Learning about ways to deal with feelings can be taught just like anything else. Feelings can be studied and understood just like any academic subject. Here are some ideas for you to become a “Feelings Family!”

Many children do not have positive communication skills or a vocabulary for their feelings (other than angry) so they act them out in negative ways. Children learn from the verbal behaviors they see modeled in their parents. Refer to your feelings and emotions often and your child will learn the feeling words automatically.
1. Develop a Language for Feelings
People who can express their feelings have healthier behavior. The psychological research shows that getting feelings out in appropriate ways helps prevent acting out behavior (anger outbursts, alcohol and drugs) and acting in behavior (depression and withdrawal.)
Many children do not have positive communication skills or a vocabulary for their feelings (other than angry) so they act them out in negative ways. If you refer to your feelings often, chances are your child will learn the feeling words automatically. During frustrating situations say, “I’m feeling upset/irritated/annoyed right now.” Children learn from the verbal behaviors they see modeled in their parents.
2. Developing Awareness of the Feeling
Awareness of the feeling is a necessary step. A simple formula for getting in touch with feelings is “Feelings are sad, mad, glad, bad and scad. Scad is a made up word for scared. Disappointed, frustrated, frightened, upset, stubborn and pissed are all feelings words.” Help your child learn to distinguish thoughts from feelings. For example, “I feel like going home.” and “I feel like I am a failure.” are not feelings. They are thoughts with “I feel…” added to the first of the sentence. Feelings are connected to an event and a physiological state in the body.
So after expressing your own feeling, turn it around and ask your child what he is feeling. Or play guess the feeling: “I’m scared right now and guess that you might be feeling scared too.” Don’t worry about being wrong on this one. Most children love to correct their parents about how they feel.
3. Label and Expressing the Feeling
Help your child catch the negative feeling in the moment and deal with it. For example, say “You are angry. You look like you are feeling mad right now. Tell me when you feel angry. I can hear you if say it without yelling. We can give words to our feelings in our family”
This statement gives the child a label for what is going on internally so that he can learn to express his feelings verbally with positive communication skills instead of acting it out with meltdowns. Children need permission to be angry as well as cues, which will put limits on their acting out behavior. Cues from adults prompt a child to make good choices.
How do you feel right now?
What do you need to say to help yourself feel better inside?
Write a story or a poem about it.
Take care of yourself by talking it out.
Make a good choice to share your feelings of anger and hurt.
We can’t hurt others, but we can talk about how you feel.
Add these cues to your repertoire gradually by practicing one cue for several days until you hear yourself saying it automatically in response to specific children’s behavior. Post several cues around your room for yourself to assist your learning.
4. Learn to Allow Some Internal Feelings of Discomfort
This is the necessary skill for young people who have excessive emotions that they discharge by talking and talking and talking about them. Feelings are only feelings. They are meant to be felt. Learn to sit with uncomfortable feelings to watch them and see them through.
Teach your child that he does not have to fall apart just because he is upset or anxious. All he has to do is breathe deeply down into the belly and watch what happens. Other stress management techniques, which help release feelings, are The Emotional Freedom Technique, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and the Tapas Acupressure Technique. There are many other stress management techniques that help decrease strong emotions. We all need several of these tools in our mental health box to pull out and use when feelings become overwhelming.
Talk to your child about the purpose of feelings. Feelings are only a symptom which indicates that needs some attention. They are a goldmine for you to dig deeply in to find treasure in finding out something important about yourself. When you are visibly upset, demonstrate to your child how you can smooth your feelings out by taking a time out and doing deep breathing. You can model belly breathing when you are agitated to show your family members how to calm down.
The children in my anger management group used to call me “The Lady who Knows About Mads.” My book, Parents Fight, Parents Make Up: Take Good Care of Yourself helps children deal with their overwhelming feelings that come up during family arguments. See www.angriesout.com for more about this book and working with angry feeling.