How To Not Create Kids Who Are Emotional Monsters

It is good for kids to be able to express their emotions...and most kids seem to have no difficulty doing so at all. The difficulty is usually training kids to be centered and rational.

What we see in popular media and trendy-trendy parenting advice is an over emphasis on emotional expression with almost nothing to balance it in terms of manners, boundaries, self-discipline, and rationality.

Kids do not need to have unchecked emotional expression in order to be healthy. They do not need to have standardless fits in order to be well-adjusted.

A lot of trendy-trendy advice seems to verge on emotional obsession. Parents are essentially encouraged to be emotional helicopters. Corners of the home are dedicated to feelings posters and stacks of comfort materials. Education, critical thinking skills and manners go to the wayside. Encouraging self-control is apparently taboo. The irony is that most trendy-trendy advice ends up creating little emotional monsters.

Kids can learn from early on to view and control their emotions in much healthier ways. Children are resilient and often far more self-aware and capable than we give them credit for.

Example is key. From the beginning, we can model solid emotional life for them. We can show them that emotions can be experienced while not consuming us. We can show them that we always possess control over our behavior and that we can be respectful no matter what we feel. We can show them how to be rational and centered through anything. From there, we can set rules and standards for their conduct that line up with our example.

When our children get older, we can expose them to a wide variety of literature and experiences to give substance and context to their emotional lives.

Again, it is good to encourage emotional expression, but we should not be obsessed with it. We should also make sure kids are taught rationality, boundaries, critical thinking, and expose them to a wide variety of education and experience.