I Got a Feeling: 4 Ways to Help Kids Understand Their Emotion

In my house, we’ve got a lot of big feels. (My husband has dubbed our house’s pet sin “self-control”.)

So we work a lot with managing emotion–so emotion doesn’t manage the whole house, m’kay?

I’ve written about my daughter’s struggles with anxiety, my son’s grappling with failure. But maybe you’re wondering if that means we’re raising a houseful of kids gazing at their own belly buttons.

If we were sharing a latte, I’d counter that rather than the disease, emotion is a symptom of what’s going on in our kids’ hearts and minds. Problems tend to leak until addressed.

What if helping kids with emotion is a way of applying God’s Word–and helping them love better? 

“If I give too much attention to feelings, won’t they run my house?”

Great point. We’re not allowing our kids’ emotion to steer the boat. But we are using emotion to help explore what’s swimming beneath the surface.

Kids’ awareness of emotion helps them deal in healthy ways—hopefully surrendered to God—rather than their emotions backhandedly managing them.

Ready to get practical? Today I’m writing over at FamilyLife.com again, wrassling four ideas to help you explore what’s going on under the hood.

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