Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You

upset, she will say (between sobs) that she wants to stop crying, but she just can’t and that she will never be able to; that is a pretty scary belief on the part of a child. “Feel good, feel bad” reminds her that, in fact, as bad as she is feeling at the moment, those feelings will pass, and she will feel better. And usually within minutes, she is happy again and her upset is a distant memory.
    Rita and Sam’s daughter, Emmy, has been an emotional little being since birth; she can throw a tantrum with the best of them. Rita and Sam attempt to strike a balance between being empathic toward the intense feelings Emmy is experiencing and setting limits on what is an appropriate way to express her strong emotions. They believe it’s okay to be sad, frustrated, or angry, and to express those feelings openly (and even loudly), but Emmy isn’t allowed to be disrespectful or hurtful. Rita created a little jingle that became their catchphrase: “No yelling, no hitting, no kicking, no biting, no scratching, no pushing.” Whenever Emmy loses it, Rita or Sam will recite this little ditty in a singsong voice. Though Emmy may still continue to blow off steam, she has learned to express herself within the limits set by her parents. Rita and Sam believe that Emmy’s small step toward controlling her emotions is an important step toward emotional mastery.
    Rose has a similar, though slightly different, take on setting limits with her son, Mickey. One thing that constantly frustrates her is that her most common catchphrase seems to be “NO!” It seems as if she is always telling Mickey what he can’t do rather than what he can do. So Rose created an emotional catchphrase that had a positive slant to it: “Be loving, be kind, be gentle.” This litany tells Mickey what he can do when he is upset, which Rose can then reinforce with love and praise.
    Frank and Lila are both very emotional people who see no problem with expressing their emotions in an uninhibited way; they fight hard and they love hard. They believe that experiencing emotions fully and intensely is what life is all about. They figure that without being able to express powerful negative emotions, people can’t express powerful positive emotions. Frank and Lila also believe that such intense emotional experiences provide their three children with more opportunities to learn about and gain control of their emotions.
    Their catchphrase is “Feelin’ it big time!,” which is intended to convey to their children that if they are going to feel an emotion, they should experience it as completely and deeply as they can.Admittedly, their house can be a boiling emotional cauldron at times, but Frank and Lila have found that allowing their children the opportunity to feel their emotions so fully has resulted in a natural moderation of those emotions as they have gained experience in their emotional lives.
    Martha has always found that her daughter Amanda’s emotions burn hot, and at the same time, that Amanda is unusually sensitive to her mother’s emotional state. The downside to this is that when Martha is stressed out or upset, then Amanda’s emotional “furnace” burns even hotter. The upside is that when Martha is relaxed and centered, that furnace cools down quickly. So to help both Amanda and herself settle down, Martha created the catchphrase “cool and calm.” When either (or both) of them are upset, she says in a soothing voice, “cool and calm,” and she notices that the emotional temperature in the room drops considerably. What really makes Martha smile on those tough days that all parents have is when Amanda sees her mother’s tension, and applying the catch-phrase to her, says, “cool and calm.” It’s difficult for Martha to continue to feel bad when she hears those words of wisdom from her young daughter.
    Mark has been a big fan of Dr. Seuss’s
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
since he was a child. As a boy, he loved the characters and the story, but as the father of three children, he came to see a powerful message about emotions in the narrative. Mark and his wife, Rachel, introduced their children to this classic tale at an early age.
    As every parent knows, there are a lot of negative emotions flying around families, particularly those with young children; it’s just part of experiencing and learning about their emotional lives. At the same time, Mark and Rachel really wanted their kids to see that there are a lot of wonderfully