Why Kids Are So Hard

"Parenting kids is so challenging because kids have big feelings, and they express these big feelings with big (i.e., challenging) behaviors. These feelings are usually complex. For example, your child is not just mad, but also jealous, sad, and a little guilty that their brother, who is sick, is getting lots of attention."

"The solution is both simple and very difficult. It boils down to understanding the nuances of your child's feelings, which are rarely obvious. If you can decipher what your child is feeling, then all their crazy behavior starts to make sense. Because young kids can't tell us how they feel, they show us through their behavior. The challenge is deciphering this behavior to understand their complex and nuanced feelings."

"While we can't change how kids feel, we can change how we respond to their feelings, rather than their behavior. In other words, rather than saying, "Stop nagging me to play with you [reacting to behavior]. You know your brother is sick, and I have to make him some toast!" we can say, "I know it's hard seeing your brother getting so much attention. I know you're mad, and maybe sad, too [responding to feelings].""

Parenting is difficult because children feel intense, complex emotions they cannot express in words. Young children show feelings through behavior, so challenging actions are communications about internal states. Complex blends of emotion—anger, jealousy, sadness, guilt—can underlie seemingly random misbehavior, and these behaviors often trigger parental frustration, which then provokes shame and fear in the child and leads to further acting out. Deciphering the nuanced emotions behind behaviors helps make those behaviors understandable. Feelings cannot be directly changed, but parental responses can be changed by naming and validating the child's emotions, prioritizing feeling-focused responses rather than immediate behavior correction.

Read at Psychology Today