January's Support Group topic

Emotions

The development of emotional intelligence and awareness are pivotal skills to develop in our children as they grow. In order to teach emotions, we must first understand our own! The following resources will deepen your understanding of your own emotions, self-regulatory process and give you the tools to encourage this in your child. 

Doctor examining child's throat in clinic

Brené Brown on Empathy

Brené Brown is a research professor, accomplish author, speaker, and podcaster. The following video gives an insightful take on the difference between empathy and sympathy.

After watching this video consider meeting our kids (or even your spouse, friends, or foster parent peers) in the “hole”. When other’s feel lonely or overwhelmed, we need to be willing to connect with our own emotions to truly connect in empathy.

Emotional Awareness

One major step towards emotional self-awareness is increasing our vocabulary to express these feelings.

The part of the brain that is responsible for emotions is called the limbic brain and funny enough your limbic brain is not responsible for language! That means we can feel strongly about a decision or circumstance, but we are not always as capable of articulating that “gut feeling” with words.

As we seek to help our kids learn to “use their words” we too need to learn our own emotive words. Below are 87 Human Emotions & Experiences which provide a helpful breakdown of emotive vocabulary words that dive deeper into feelings we all experience.

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Empower Your Child Towards Emotional Self-Regulation

You may have a strong grasp on emotions and the importance of identifying specific emotions in your own experience. But how do we help kids process and regulate these big feelings?

These articles focus on effective self-regulating strategies that help us work through our emotions (as adults) and as we assist our children.

  • Regulation IS connection. A “how-to” article on modeling self-regulatory activities as parents or caregivers. It’s important to remember why validating, recognizing, and experiencing our emotions leads to healthier communication and higher emotional intelligence levels.
  • How to Support Self-Regulation Difficulties in children ages 0-18 years old. A specified resource that covers development stages with respect to emotional regulation.