« He’s provoking me! »: Welcoming their feelings

“He’s provoking me!” contains a part dedicated to welcoming the emotions.

Can we ever insist enough on this point?

Faber and Mazlish were already doing this in How to Talk so kids…, in Liberated Parents, Liberated Children, in Siblings without Rivalry, and Isabelle Filliozat does too Understanding children’s emotions, and I’m still skipping some… Welcoming the emotions is key in all conversations, in fact, just as much with children as with adults!

It’s probably on this point that non violent communication connects the most with ideas from positive parenting.

I really think that giving this example to children is contributing to a better society, in which people listen to each other, developing a certain empathy…

In that part, all this isn’t re-exposed, but some ideas are given for the expression of these emotions on a more physical level:

• Inviting to “shake” the emotion, through moving your arms, dancing…
• For us: accepting the tears of the child by imaging a container that I hold in front of myself (so I don’t take everything to the heart). It’s the sort of idea that seems a little ridiculous in theory, but I still decided to try it out, and I indeed stayed very relaxed in front of the crying.
• Hitting a pillow with rage, with wide moves and an open plexus
• Helping the child control his respiration by getting behind him and wrapping him with your arms.
• Faced with a situation that scares him repetitively: playing the scary situation with him, to teach him to dominate it.
• Decreasing sugar quantity!