Kids Should Know and Recognize Their Emotions

 

Depressed Kid

When I was a kid, I used to have difficulties to express my feelings and emotions to people around me. For example, when I felt scared or sad when my parents left for work, or when I was disappointed because I didn't get a toy, I usually drew my self and kept my feelings inside my heart.

What's more, my parents were both workers who worked outside the home. My father was an employee in a private company that departed early in the morning and came home at night. My mother, though she was only a kindergarten teacher, used all of her energy teaching at her school and got home too tired to play with me or keep me company.

I remember when I was small I was known as a child with a closed and shy personality. I tended to withdraw from interactions with my friends in class. I also rarely showed interest to join with my cousins and relatives when there were family gatherings. I'd rather be alone, reading a book, or played with my own imagination. Now, after I married and had children, I realize that there were important moments that I had missed in my childhood, namely time to show and pour out my feelings to my parents.

Apparently, there are many negative consequences that may result from kids who can not express their feelings to others. Among them is the child will tend to be a closed person, pessimistic, less confident, or the opposites: difficult to manage and even destructive.

This is because they are forced to keep their feelings for themselves. They fear to be underestimated by anyone else if they show their feelings. Nevertheless, kids need to be able to express their feelings to others, especially their parents!

They should be able to express the feelings of pleasure, fear, happiness, doubt, anger, and so on. However, they must first be able to identify themselves and the various feelings and emotions they have.

In this case, the adults around them can help identify those feelings. When a kid doesn't know the vocabulary of a human feeling (emotion), they can help him identify it.

For example, when seeing a kid who remain silent when her mother left to work, an adult may ask her, "Why do you remain silent like that? Are you sad because your mother go to work?"

He can do so and help the kid recognize her feelings of sadness and disappointment, or her anger being left alone. Once she recognizes the feelings in her heart, the adult can then explain her that her mother has to go work to earn money and that she will soon come home after work.

Kids who are given the opportunity to recognize their feelings and emotions will feel valued and more receptive to positive input from outside themselves. Such is one example of the importance of kids to recognize their own feelings and emotions.