I wrote this post years ago, but held off sharing it to protect my young son’s privacy. But yesterday, the wisdom from this experience resurfaced and I felt compelled to return to my good ‘ol blog and finish out the draft to share with you all. I also got the green light from my son to share it out, so I hope it helps someone on their journey as we figure it out together!
Let your children have their feelings.
I used to think I knew what this meant. If your child is sad, let them be sad. If your child is mad, let them be mad. If your child is disappointed, let them be disappointed. Sounds easy, right?
I have tried to be that empathetic parent who lets their child feel their feelings. I believe in this idea for many reasons:
- If I don’t let them feel negative emotions such as sadness, disappointment, longing, frustration, or embarrassment, then they might eventually learn to channel and present all of their negative emotions simply as anger. Channeling anger can be easier for many reasons (feels less vulnerable, makes you feel in control/more powerful, more socially acceptable, etc.), but I don’t think it’s healthier (also for many reasons). And I don’t want my kids to grow up defaulting to anger whenever they have an unpleasant feeling, when it is more likely a number of complex, nuanced emotions that need to be felt, seen, understood, and processed.
- I want them to feel relief from their unpleasant feelings. Deep relief. Not just stuffing feelings down or burying them away. Letting them actually sit with and feel these feelings is one way to let them vent it out.
- I want them to learn how to process these feelings. Shutting them down and tucking them away is not processing them.
- I don’t want them to be scared of or overwhelmed by their big feelings. If they don’t start learning how to process them now, then they might feel overwhelmed by them and it can be paralyzing and debilitating in life. Someday, their problems will be tween problems, teenage problems and young adult problems, and by the time that comes, I want them to already have the tools and know how it feels to feel the wave of a difficult emotions and then ride it back to shore. (I think I got this analogy from the book Good Inside. I’ve only gotten through the first few chapters of this book but it’s SO MEATY that I made myself stop to reread from the beginning and digest/apply more slowly. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK… even if you just end up reading the first five chapters!).
So here’s the thing: I believe in a lot of this stuff, but I don’t actually know how to do most of it. When the situation presents itself, I can feel my eyebrows furrowing and my brain spinning, trying to find the tools in my toolbox to be the parent I want to be, and I often fall short. I usually start off well, but slowly fall back into the patterns of what I know, which sound a lot more like, “Okay, that’s enough crying,” or “Well, look on the bright side, at least…” and other well-meaning approaches that aren’t terrible, but also aren’t what I am aiming for.
Which is why last week felt like such a profound milestone to me. As I stood there amidst the flashing lights and happy music, patting my tearful son on the back, I thought to myself, So this is what it looks like… sounds like… FEELS like, to let your kid have their emotions! It was a revelation. And I want to share it with you in case it helps you get a sense of what it can actually look like and feel like to be a parent letting your kid have their feelings.
If this were a movie, we’d actually start 24 hours before the climactic moment, when I first told my son about our plans to go to the amusement park the next day. He was not happy. It was a touchy topic, because we both knew he didn’t like rides, and that the other big kids would all want to go on bigger thrill rides, leaving him with the very little ones. Later that night, he had terrible sleep, woke up cranky, got in a big conflict with his sister, and then played in a soccer game where he took a painful ball to the face.
There were already a lot of feelings simmering before we even got to the park.
That afternoon, we hosted friends for a Christmas gathering and then made our way to the amusement park, where we rushed our way into a theater for the ice skating show and found some seats for the whole group. Of course after the stress of finding seats, he had to use the restroom, and as we returned from the restroom to the theater, we were stopped by the usher who would not let us back in. Noooo! The show hadn’t even started yet! We had minutes to spare! This was the one activity we could all do together as a group!
I remember how my little guy gripped my hand tightly as I insisted that we already had seats inside, explaining how we had just stepped outside to go to the restroom.
But the usher simply pursed his lips and said, “Noooo seats available inside, sorry, you’ll have to wait until the next show.”
Then another woman approached him with her child and said the exact same thing. He let them in. I shot him a look accusing him of all the discrimination I was feeling, and he quietly looked to the side and let us through.
But that’s another story about me and my feelings.
The show ended, and the group decided to split. As anticipated, we opted out of the big rides and ended up trekking out with the younger kids, and I could feel my son trying to keep his mood up. He tried to be positive, and offered smiles to show me he was having a good time. One of the other families decided to stop at the arcade, so we paused to wait as well. On a whim, I decided to gift my son $20 worth of arcade play credit. We hadn’t really done arcade games before, so it felt like a splurge, but he was being such a good sport about splitting up with the others that I wanted to give him this surprise and brighten up the evening for him.
His eyes lit up as he walked from machine to machine, deciding where to spend his credit. And then his eyes fell on the Nintendo Switch box inside a claw machine. I tried to shuffle him past.
“Mommy, I want to play the claw machine!!”
My heart sank, “Mmm… you’ve seen Mark Rober’s videos about these games, right? The chances of–“
“I know!! I know!!” he said excitedly, “But I think it’s going to work!”
As I debated how much to intervene, I saw him fold his hands and heard him PRAY that he would win. Oh dear.
“Honey, are you sure–“
“Yes! Yes! Can I try just once?” he begged.
It was his credit, so I let him. I watched as he tried and failed. And then he tried again, and failed again. For his last try, he looked at me and asked, “Mommy, can you do it? You’re better than me at it.”
There were many reasons I didn’t want to do it. Waste of money aside, I didn’t want to be the one to disappoint him. I was also annoyed because I knew he mostly just wanted the two video game controllers within the box, which I had already bought and wrapped under the Christmas tree! This prize was so unnecessary!! But he didn’t know that.
But I did. I tried, because a little part of me likes to play a game too. Of course, we lost. And as the claw came back up and returned empty-handed, I heard the sounds of my son beginning to cry. He was devastated. He was so sure he was going to win this, and he had even prayed about it. I knew this wasn’t the time for a theological lesson on prayer, and also not the right time for any I-told-you-so talks. Part of me wanted to jump in with, “Hey, all of this was extra and a gift. Let’s not make it a sad thing!” or “Ok, that’s enough, you can stop crying.” Mostly because it made me uncomfortable. Part of me was kicking myself for wasting $20 on a 3-minute arcade tragedy, and part of me was annoyed that I let him throw it all away on a claw machine.
But part of me also fought to be heard, and that part whisper-shouted, “LET HIM HAVE HIS FEELINGS. Just let him. Just be there, and let him feel all of it.” I knew it was from a book and I knew I was just supposed to let it be, but I also somehow did not know how to do this. The standing there, the looking empathetic, the offering nothing else but a hug and some words of comfort. It felt foreign to me, but I tried.
And friends, the most unexpected thing happened. I kid you not, my son cried and cried in my arms while I had my own internal processing, pressing my lips shut in an effort not to let the words out. So many words. OK, that’s enough crying… Look on the bright side!… Hey, ten minutes ago you didn’t even have any arcade credit, so this was all extra, right?… Ugh, it would have been better if I had never even bothered to buy this card... Hey, guess what? We actually already have two brand new controllers I got you last week, wrapped up under the Christmas tree!! Yes, really! Ha ha…
But as those words swirled in my head, I reminded myself that disappointment can be good. Sometimes, it’s perfect. Let him feel it all.
And then I heard a sniffly little voice emerge and say, “I’m sorry, Mama. I shouldn’t have wasted it all on the claw machine. Thank you for buying it for me.”
He looked at me with tears dripping down his pudgy cheeks. And I melted. He sniffed away the last of his tears, hugged me a moment longer, and then was ready to move on with the evening.
And that was it.
There was no convincing, reasoning, teaching, or even words of comfort needed. He was okay. There were a lot of feelings building up from the hours leading up: disappointment, frustration, anxiety. And then they came out, and he was okay. He was better than okay. He was content. And all I had to do was let him have his feelings.
We had a lovely evening, and it turned out so much better than I expected. He was able to enjoy the few rides we did, he was kind to the little ones that we walked around with, and he was grateful for anything we gave him. His memories of that night turned out to be positive, and he was happy to just be with me. It was as if, once the storm blew out of him, peace and contentment took its place. No amount of lecturing from me has ever made that happen. It turns out, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all.
Of course this doesn’t always “work” and result in warm feelings and happy endings, but honestly, most of the time when I remember to apply this intentionally, it does. Even if it’s not all warm fuzzies afterwards, I have the satisfaction of knowing his capacity to hold the unpleasant feelings grew stronger, and his capacity to work through it, instead of stuffing it down, also grew stronger. That’s still a win to me.
Sometimes, I still do the other things: I reason, I explain, and then as I am in the middle of trying to convince my child he should feel differently, I remember that his feelings are his and they are real and valid and need to be felt. And I just let him have them.
13 responses to “Let Them Have Their Feelings”
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This is a heartfelt sharing filled with much love <3
<3!!
♥️
<3 :)
Joellen, this was wonderful to read. I’m so glad you came back to your blog to share your reflective wisdom.
Thank you, Stephanie! Thanks for taking the time to comment <3
Thanks for sharing this! My son cried today during piano and it made me feel really Asian dad in a not good way 😆 In that moment I offered some words of comfort but after reading this will consider just letting him have his own feelings without me having to contextualize or define them. Thanks for the wise words!
Oh, I 100% know what you mean. We still have cry days at piano, even when I think I am being gentle and patient. Maybe it’s our kids just feeling safe to have their feelings in front of us?? Haha. Also, I think helping our kids define and understand their emotions is great!! This post was more a story of me realizing I shouldn’t try to shut down/stop their bad feelings or glaze them over with positivity too soon, all things I have been guilty of doing. Doesn’t sound like you were doing that? And, as always, thanks for tuning in– I always appreciate you taking the time to read and comment 😀
Thank you.
This post reminds me to allow my pre-K students the opportunity to work through their emotions rather than “kiss it and feel better”
Aww thank you for sharing that and reading!