Cultivating toddler emotional health (and ours)

How many weeks has it been already? 6? 7? I don't even know anymore. There has been a definite shift this week in the trajectory of the quarantine. While we may have been managing just fine before in previous weeks, many friends I have talked to this week, and myself included, have been feeling discouraged, drained, restless of being sheltered at home, and perhaps even a little hopeless--when will this be over? The new normal has felt like it has been normal for a very long time now. On Monday our governor announced the re-opening plan for our state, only to say that the hows and the whens can't be defined right now. The end does not look like it is in sight anytime soon. So alas, we are braving yet another week, together but apart.

This week more than ever, though, I have felt the invitation to press into the cultivating that I shared in my last post. Managing and developing our mental and emotional health is probably on the forefronts of our minds as we all try to cope, adults and kids alike. I thought it would be fun to share about cultivating emotional health, Silly Bean/toddler style, especially since this is our every-day regardless of quarantine. They call this the "terrible twos," but honestly I don't think it's that terrible; it's just that they're at the very beginning of their journey in uncovering and managing their emotions so everything is new.  At the same time, it means it's a ripe time to help shape their emotional health... even if it means mustering the patience in the midst of some seriously crazy (!?!?!) tantrums. Now is the time to cultivate and sow the seeds!

Identifying Emotions
Since Silly Bean was about 1 or so, we have been looking at lots of pictures of people and explicitly describing their faces (ie. "Her eyes are looking down and she has some tears in her eyes." "This boy has his eyes open and he is smiling.") and what the person might be feeling. Here's something I made for our fridge--again, reusing some random cardboard at home ftw!

I also got this book from Usborne Books that we look at often, which I absolutely LOVE. It shows lots of ethnically-diverse people of all ages (an important value to me in the children's books we read) displaying various emotions, and addresses things like how our body messages give us clues about how we're feeling, how are you feeling?, why are we feeling the way we are feeling, changing feelings throughout the day, jumbled up feelings, how to talk about feelings, and making choices about your emotions. The drawings and colors are also aesthetically pleasing. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for young toddlers, as there are so many words and not for short attention spans, but I think this is a book we can continue to look at the pictures and grow into. It's a great book for us adults too!

It's difficult to manage our emotions if we don't know what they are. So, first step, grow in awareness of feelings and cultivate the practice of naming/talking about/sharing emotions. I think this goes for toddlers as well as us adults, who may be feeling a myriad of things in the midst of this quarantine!

Managing Emotions

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day for us on the toddler front. Prior to naptime, Silly Bean had meltdown after meltdown starting right when we woke up @_@ It was really tempting to give into discouragement, but instead I decided it was really time to lean in even more into cultivating emotional health for my kid and practicing the strategies we have been working on together.

I read in an article somewhere (sorry, can't remember where it was from and don't have a link to it, #mombrain) that talked about emotional health in kids 0-5, and it mentioned that between the ages of 3 and 5 is when you can really teach strategies/coping mechanisms to children to manage big emotions. Silly Bean isn't 3 yet but I thought, well, I'll try them and if they work now that's even better for us :) So we came up with making an "ideas wall" since Silly Bean absolutely looooves ideas--coming up with ideas, affirming others' or his own ideas, saying "I have an idea!" and having (or not having) an idea to share.

I noticed that Silly Bean would get very worked up when he was upset and unable to be reasoned with (haha! as if "toddler" is synonymous with "reasonable"! ;P) so we came up with 2 strategies of what he can do when he gets upset.  Well, I think so far it has been working! Sometimes we'll ask in the midst of a situation before the meltdown point happens, "Do you want to practice one of your strategies?" Silly Bean usually does both of them and afterward says, "I feel better now!" After that, we are able to discuss what happened more calmly ("Oh, so you felt upset because you wanted to keep playing but Mama said it was time to clean up before your bath? And that mad you feel sad and then you cried a lot?"). Not sure if the actual strategies are calming him down, or if he's just feeling proud of himself that he's able to do them, but we'll take it!

I also noticed meltdowns happening whenever Silly Bean needed to wait for something he asked for, whether I or my husband was busy with something at the moment or unable to fulfill a request immediately. This in particular happens when I'm preparing food or doing dishes, and Silly Bean wants me to play with him. We added a new idea category of "What can I do while I'm waiting?" and we brainstormed ideas together of some strategies. Silly Bean was particularly proud of #4 that he came up with all on his own. He even very happily practiced all of those strategies today!

writing on his drawing board

I'm feeling hopeful that these strategies and our discussions will develop into habits that will give Silly Bean both the tools and language to feel his emotions, acknowledge what they are, and be able to talk about them!

To the #toddlerparents out there... 

If you're a toddler parent reading this, I want to fully acknowledge that THIS IS HARD. Especially in quarantine. But my encouragement is that in the moment our kids are screaming and throwing themselves on the floor for the umpteenth time today, we can practice managing our own big emotions and take a few deep breaths, slow down, and help our kid learn to help themselves by teaching them a tool. Take heart--we can do this! It might not look like it is doing anything probably the first 10000 times we try it, but eventually, it'll make a huge difference!

What's been working with your kids (or yourselves) in cultivating emotional health? Or what hasn't? Would love to hear your stories!