Mindfulness for Your Minis
MINDFULNESS, EMOTIONAL AWARENESS AND SELF-REGULATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
From our earliest moments, mindfulness can help minimize anxiety and increase happiness.
At every developmental stage, mindfulness can be a great tool and coping mechanism to decrease anxiety and promote happiness, especially in moments when we are faced with adversity. Every age group faces adversity of some sort. With infants, it may be hunger or fatigue. In older children and teenagers, peer pressure and decision-making becomes increasingly more present. And we are all familiar with toddlers and their struggles with language, emotions, and self-control. Today, we will focus more on the toddler stage and using mindfulness to promote emotional awareness and self-regulation.
Simply put, mindfulness is the practice of being present in the moment - being accepting and non-judgemental of the circumstances around us. This practice can be especially useful for small children and toddlers who are spending a lot of their time developing their prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain responsible for skills such as self-regulation, judgement, and patience. We, as Parents, can help our toddlers acquire these skills early in life which will promote healthy coping mechanisms for stress and adversity for the rest of their lives. But how?
Mindfulness and emotional self-regulation is not a skill we are born with. Here are some useful tips and tricks to help promote mindfulness.
We are all too familiar with toddlers’ ever changing emotions. Although it is difficult - we understand, we’ve been there - try to resist the urge to punish, ignore, or shut the emotion down. Stay in the moment with them. Try to help them pinpoint whether the big emotions they are feeling are from an internal feeling or an external environmental trigger. “I see you are feeling frustrated with that toy.” (External Trigger) OR “It looks like you are feeling sad”. (Internal Emotion) Validate their emotions. “It’s okay to feel frustrated / sad.” Offer tools to remain in the moment, but calm their big feelings. “Do you want to take a few big breaths with me?” “How about we count to ten and see if you are feeling better.” The most important part of mindfulness, emotional awareness and self-regulation is to acknowledge the feeling, put a name on it, and find a constructive way to deal with it in the moment. “It’s okay not to feel okay, but let’s work together on expressing our feelings in a healthier way.”
As the child grows and matures, waiting until they calm and encouraging them to talk about their emotions can be beneficial. Many children - and adults for that matter - have a very limited descriptive vocabulary for their emotions. Name it. Instead of using the typical ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘happy’, ‘sad’, ‘angry’ - try adding ‘curious’, ‘frustrated’, ‘confused’, ‘excited’, ‘worried’, ‘anxious’, ‘overwhelmed’. Eventually, your child will learn to acknowledge, name, and work through the emotion independently and if they are struggling, you have developed an excellent foundation of a relationship where your child will feel comfortable coming to you for help or guidance.
We, at Kidnasium, are parents. We get it. It’s all well and good to say we are going to do these things, but in the moment, it’s a whole different story. It’s okay to slip up, to get angry, to feel frustrated that the difficult toddler stage is lasting just a little bit too long. Remember to be mindful of your own emotions. Breathe. Count. Take a moment to yourself. And if you are lost in your emotions and frustrations, remember: you are not alone. Your child is loved, safe, and happy (for the most part).
Give yourself some grace and NEVER EVER FORGET …
YOU ARE DOING AN AMAZING JOB!