"The key to figuring out and making sense of kids starts with understanding their feelings. This is rarely straightforward, especially when their feelings are complex and based on their own misperceptions of what's going on around them. Because kids often can't tell us how they feel-either because they don't know what they're feeling or they're developmentally unable to describe it with their words-they act out their big feelings with big (i.e., challenging) behaviors."
"Kids deal with big emotions by trying to get rid of them. One of the most common ways they do this is "giving" them to someone else. In therapy, we call it projection when someone "projects" their own feelings, behaviors, thoughts, or unwanted characteristics onto someone or something else. Kids will project their feelings onto virtually anything, from their toys to the family pet. They'll also project their feelings onto you by trying to get you to have the feelings they don't want."
Understanding children requires identifying the emotions that drive their behaviors. Children's feelings are often complex and shaped by misperceptions, and many children cannot name or describe those feelings developmentally. When children cannot express feelings, they often act out with challenging behaviors or attempt to rid themselves of unwanted feelings by projecting them onto people, pets, or objects. Observing the emotions a child elicits in caregivers often reveals the child's true feelings. Naming those feelings for the child typically defuses the behavior. Knowing the source of feelings improves the accuracy and usefulness of emotional labels.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]