Parents quite frequently come into my office wondering how they can best help their child face an obstacle in life. Whether a child is struggling with anxiety, being bullied at school, wrestling with depression, or facing some other difficult experience, my answer is typically the same: validate the emotions. Children want to be heard, and they want to know that what they feel matters.
Every person feels several different emotions on a daily basis. Children experience similar emotions to adults such as anger, sadness, fear, and frustration, but unlike adults, children have a hard time articulating and understanding their emotions. When this happens, they often express emotions physically or in other inappropriate ways. This means that strong emotions typically evoke strong responses in children. For example, when six-year-old Abigail gets frustrated riding her bike, she gets off and pushes it over into the grass and stomps off, or when nine-year-old Nate struggles with a math problem, he throws the pencil on the floor and slams the door to his room.
