You’re having difficulty sleeping after bunion surgery, and you hear soft sobs coming from your child’s bedroom. You make your way into their bedroom and sit at the end of their bed. They explain that they don’t know why they’re feeling sad, but they can’t stop crying.
While your child is still relatively young, it’s still important that you talk to them about their feelings. Here are 4 important reasons to teach your children about feelings.
Teaches Empathy
Empathy is what makes the world go round. While 98% of the population can feel empathy, many struggle with or are confused with the emotions that arise. This is one of the core reasons it’s important to teach your children about feelings. Empathy allows others to connect and understand the feelings of others. The more empathetic and emotionally mature you are, the more you can truly comprehend others’ feelings.
Children may feel sad for another without realizing where this sadness stems from. By teaching them about the varied feelings they experience through empathy, this helps guide them to understanding themselves and others in a healthy manner.
Fosters Compassion
Compassion is the ability to feel or view others without judgment. In turn, a place of love and security are born. Teaching your children about feelings helps them to cultivate compassion for themselves and for others around them.
Feelings are a large part of compassion. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to relate or understand another – or ourselves. Teaching children about the importance of positive feelings and how those feelings affect themselves and other people, can aid them to be more compassionate. It also works with negative feelings towards others. You teach children how those judgments that turn into feelings can harm others and the importance of avoiding that.
Offers Them a Safe Space
Feelings are something that we all live with. How we manage and relate to them makes all the difference. One of the common reasons for mental illness is that people are unable or don’t know how to manage what they feel inside. In turn, they end up in a depressive or anxious state.
Teaching your children about how to observe their feelings allows them to have a safe space within themselves. It lets children know that it’s okay to feel, and it’s a natural part of life. This means they don’t need to run from them, but instead nurture and care for them as a mother would her child. As they get older, they will have this safe space accessible at any time.
Helps with Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is key to a healthy life. Without knowing how we’re feeling or thinking, we run the risk of making life-altering mistakes or decisions. This is where teaching your kids about feelings can help.
Explaining the importance of acknowledging and observing feelings helps children to become more aware of what’s going on inside of them. This is where their self-awareness will be born. It also allows children to be more authentic and emotionally stable later in their lives.