Children’s Feelings

2008 January 28 by: Scott

Counselors will share with you that one difficult communication technique that they have to employ to get a child to identify how he or she is feeling about a situation is word identification in selecting a feeling. Feeling posters with pictures of various feelings allow children to point or select a picture that identifies the feeling they are experiencing at that time. It’s common for children to report they are angry when the true feeling is “hurt.” Author, Debra Fox would like parents to consider the following when parenting a child who is expressing his or her true feelings.

Case Studies:

I went on an errand one afternoon, leaving my 11 year old daughter home alone. Twenty minutes later, I returned to find my child sobbing hysterically on the couch. “What happened, what’s the matter?” I frantically asked her. She couldn’t answer, just continued to sob. I panicked. “Did someone hurt you?” She shook her head no. “Did you hurt yourself?” Again, no. Whew! “Briana! What happened?”

Between sobs, I heard, “Ha-ha-mster.” Uh oh. We have a neighbor cat that the kids love to play with. I ran to the room, afraid to look. I peeked in the cage, little milkshake looked up, teeth barred, but alive! “She’s OK!” I yelled, Briana came in the room, still crying, she couldn’t believe it, she said it was laying with it’s leg hanging out of the cage and she was sure that cat had hurt it. She said, “I got so mad at the cat, I picked her up and tossed her outside”, (pretty violent for my normally loving daughter).

She still looked upset. I said, “Did you feel guilty that if the hamster was dead, it would have been your fault for letting the cat in?” Bingo! That was it. She nodded and began to sob again, this time I held her in my arms and let her cry. When she began to calm down, we were able to talk about what had happened and what she would do differently from then on. She was grateful, relieved and had learned a very important lesson about being responsible for keeping the bedroom door shut if she let the cat in.