How to react when you’re child is in an emotional tornado?

Emotions are always a big struggle for children (and for adults too by the way). That’s why I wanted to create a simple tool to help them navigate and understand the “main” emotions.

My first observation is that it can be so frustrating for a child to feel all these big emotions without being able to understand or put words on them. So they explode in their way, it can be shouting, crying, hurting, kicking everything… And as adults, as we don’t react like that anymore (just sometimes) we are always surprised by the intensity of this volcano of emotions. We have a giant fire in front of us, so our first reaction is simple, we want to through water on top of it, and we want to stop this fire.

So we ask a lot of questions to understand, and we even say “Stop!” or other reactions that feel natural for us. But you know what, I think you already know that it’s not helping. It even does the opposite.

So what should we do? My answer is super hyper-simple: Nothing!

Yes, nothing. For at least 15 to 30 seconds, do nothing. Just be there, with your child if you are allowed to. And breathe. Stay calm, it will not last. I said if you are allowed because some kids need their own space such as my youngest who prefers going into her bedroom to calm down when she’s upset)

After that, your child is still in this big emotional tornado but it’s slowly cooling down, and now she/he can hear you. That was not the case before.

Now, you can help him/her to understand the emotion by

• putting words on it. “I can see that you are… upset/sad”
• asking the child to show you the emotion on the poster
• drawing the emotion

By doing these simple things, you are helping your children to understand what they feel and to know that it’s normal. So the next time, they will already have the experience and slowly they will know better what they feel and what they need (it’s another step).

You can also talk about the different emotions in your everyday life when you read a story by example. You can ask your children what kind of emotions the character feels. Sometimes, it’s much easier, as it’s another character and not their feelings.

My Emotions Guide Poster is in a plastic frame so my daughter can easily manipulate it and we use it daily. I wanted to give it a special touch, so it’s painted in watercolor and ink pen. With these soft colors, it’s much easier to concentrate on the main subject. That’s also why I’ve decided to pain the same character, so the child will not be confused by seeing different characters. I wanted to express that we have all these emotions inside, and of course, it’s okay.

You can find my Emotions Poster guide in my shop in English and French. It is painted with ink and watercolors.

You can also download the Emotions coloring pages for free. And if you like what I do, you can always support my creative journey here.