You’re a dad and an incredibly proud one at that.
Being a father and looking after your child is your priority in life. However, there may be times that you struggle. Perhaps there’s a lot of stress at work, or you may get frustrated and angry. Yet, it’s important for you to be a role model for your child.
Have you ever considered how emotional regulation skills play a role in this?
Most likely you learned, like many men, to keep up a positive front and let your emotions show. But that doesn’t teach your child how to handle emotionally difficult situations. It just shows them how to keep a stiff lip and shut off their emotions.
Is there a healthier way to teach emotional regulation?
Here’s why it’s important for fathers to model good emotional regulation and how to do it.
What Is Emotional Regulation?
Emotional regulation is a nuanced term. On the surface, it’s about staying in control of your emotions. But when you dig deeper, there is so much more.
The reality is that emotional regulation is being in touch with your emotions. In other words, you understand what you are feeling and why. This allows you to use emotional regulation skills to manage your feelings appropriately.
For instance, let’s say that you are using a hammer on a project and accidentally hit your thumb. A classic mistake. Of course, you yell out in anger and frustration. But what keeps you from punching a hole in the wall? It’s exactly that ability to regulate emotions which is so important for children to learn.
Typical Emotional Regulation Skills
There are so many emotional regulation skills that are useful for anyone. For example:
- Using breathing techniques to prevent yourself from getting anxious or upset
- Reminding yourself what keeps you grounded
- Counting to a set number either out loud or quietly when angry
- Repeating something affirming to yourself
- Engaging in physical activity to burn off energy
These are skills that anyone can learn to stay in control, even your kids!
The Danger of Keeping Up a Positive Front
One thing to watch out for that is often mistaken as an emotional regulation tool is keeping up a positive front. This mode of thinking requires that you hide what you are feeling. Nobody is supposed to know what you truly feel inside.
But that’s a problem because you are lying to yourself and to everyone else around you. You might believe the lie, but they likely won’t. Especially kids. They have an uncanny ability to know when someone isn’t telling them the truth.
Role Modeling Emotional Regulation Skills—How?
The best way for kids to learn emotional regulation skills is by watching you! They see how you handle stressful situations or how you react when something bothers you.
Typically, kids will take those behaviors and try to mimic them. Oftentimes this is positive. Yet, if they see you keeping up a front when you’re actually torn up inside, then they will only learn that expressing difficult emotions is bad.
That’s very dangerous because, in the long run, it’s impossible to maintain that emotional front. The feelings lying below the surface will come out one way or another. And when they finally do, it may not be pretty.
A Better Way Through Conversations
A better way to teach your child healthy emotional regulation is by having honest and age-appropriate conversations with them.
Let them speak about what they are experiencing in their lives. Summarize and repeat back to them so they know you were listening (kids pay attention to these things!). Then, use an example from your life that is age-appropriate and conveys how you would handle a similar situation.
You don’t have to give all the details, and you shouldn’t be emotionally unloading on them. Instead, you are both connecting about a common issue. And your child can learn from you how to better handle those situations in the future.
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It takes time to develop the “muscle memory” for emotional regulation skills. However, you can give your kids a jump-start by role modeling healthy emotional regulation. But if you find yourself keeping up a positive front or are having trouble with emotional regulation yourself, ask for help.
Please feel free to contact me to discuss how anxiety treatment can help you.
