It is hard to believe it is already the end of October! We thought we might continue the theme of helping our kids at home with their executive function. As we know, schoolwork, emotional regulation, mental health, and physical health are largely dependent upon our executive functioning.
If our brain’s operations manager is offline, the brain struggles with regulating anything else. The body reflects dysfunction in a variety of ways, including sleep loss, body aches and pains, headaches, stomachaches, vertigo, sore throats, earaches, and more. This is not to suggest there are no legitimate reasons for pain; it is simply to remind us all to be curious about what else might be happening beyond typical physical ailments.
Worry is convincing and can often persuade us to believe there is a physical illness. If we focus first on executive functioning, what do we notice about the health of our child? Building skills means not rescuing and hoping our children remember how we solved a problem for them. Building skills requires a willingness to allow our child to sit in discomfort, practice skills when they are regulated, scaffold support, and eventually back away to foster independence. This can be hard as a parent when your child is crying over hurt feelings or perceived injustice. However, building skills lasts a lifetime, encourages perspective-taking, builds empathy, and fosters independence.
This month, we will take a closer look at emotional control and stress tolerance.
Understanding and regulating emotions is important
How many of you have heard the phrase “name it to tame it”? What does this mean?
Learning how to identify your feelings is an important first step in regulating emotions. Where do they show up in your body? How do they feel? What is their intensity (0–10, with 0 being not noticeable and 10 being unmanageable)? When we shift to these questions instead of asking why, we help our child build body awareness.
Feelings are not facts. Hurt feelings do not mean someone else intended to cause harm. Sadness does not mean someone intended to be unkind. Feelings are chemical responses in the brain. There are times when they show up in response to an interaction or a physical experience, and there are times when they show up just because. They are a personal response to our surroundings or our thoughts. They are not an objective truth about reality. Our brains use shortcuts to justify or explain an emotion. For example, “I feel sad and hurt because a friend ignored me.” The brain filled in the “because” part. It is possible that the friend ignored you, and it is possible that you interpreted an action as being ignored when the friend did not hear you speak, was distracted, or was talking to someone else.
The brain interprets emotions through experience. It quickly pulls together past experiences, feelings, and physical responses, and it is impacted by fatigue, physical health, stress, and surroundings.
So, how can we help build skills?
- Encourage our child to pause and observe.
- Look around and gather objective facts. What do I notice? What is happening? How is my body feeling?
- What can I try? For example, ask my friend if they heard me. Speak louder. Ask them for feedback using “I feel” and “I notice” statements: “I feel hurt because I asked you a question, and I noticed you did not answer. Did you hear me?”
- As a parent, conduct an investigation and become an emotion detective with your child once they are regulated. “I know you feel sad about your friend. Let’s explore: Did your friend play with you at any point today? How did you feel when you got to school? What went well during the day? Who else were you talking to today? Which lesson went the best today? Which lesson was the hardest? What did you have to eat today? Did you feel full? When did you notice that you were feeling sad? What helped when you were feeling sad? Where did you notice it in your body? How are you feeling now?”
- Work through a breathing exercise or a progressive body relaxation exercise.
- Validate their work. Normalize the fact that feelings come up and can be difficult and that we can be in charge of our bodies and thoughts.
- Practice! Model this for your child. “Today, I was feeling overwhelmed and sad. I started thinking I was not doing a good job. Then I told myself to stop. I looked at the job I was doing and realized I was doing some good work. I realized I am a good worker. I told myself I am a good worker. I still felt sad, but the feeling was smaller than it had been. I know that if I keep practising, I can be in charge of my feelings.”
This is a process. It takes time, and our own protective parts come out and want to solve the problem. Ultimately, we want our children to feel safe and secure. Living life is also about managing our distress. The sooner our children learn skills to regulate their distress, the better.
This leads me to stress tolerance: enduring pressure, stress, and uncertainty and sitting in discomfort.
In our modern world, we have many quick fixes for discomfort. We watch a show, listen to music, doomscroll, message friends to “vent,” increase our activities, recruit people to agree with us, and more. Is being bored so bad? Is sitting with ourselves and our feelings and being curious harmful?
No.
Being bored, uncomfortable, or stressed is not a bad thing. Boredom allows our brains to drift and curiosity to flourish. We can stretch our imaginations and see things around us in a new or different way. We can scan our bodies to build connections between how we are feeling and where these feelings live.
How can we help?
- Remember that our children are doing the best they can. They will make choices we do not like, and that is part of learning and growing.
- We want to keep the bar achievably high.
- Follow their lead in sports, music, dance, and other interests. We have already lived our lives. If they are passionate about something, support it. They don’t need us to be their coaches or judges. They need us to cheerlead, support, and reflect. If they think they are not training enough, we can support them by being curious, stating facts, and wondering about how they are balancing their passions with sleep, friends, food, health, and emotional wellness. Teaching our kids how to lose, take perspective, and view events, exams, games, and performances as moments in time instead of monumental, life-changing, or defining events builds resilience, commitment, and learning.
- Celebrate the moments, always. What went well? What did you learn? What do you want to try differently next time, if anything? Let’s celebrate what went well.
- Distress tolerance is important, and we can increase our ability to tolerate distress. Did you not do well on an exam? Okay. What might you want to change in your preparation next time? How can I support you with that? Does it make sense for you to book time with your teacher to practise some of the questions you did not get? You felt uncomfortable in class, with a friend, or during a meeting. Where did you feel it? What did you try? Practise skip-counting backwards by whatever number your child can manage, as well as breathing. What happens to your discomfort when you relax?
- Practise boredom. Everyone can sit in a room without talking, television, phones, or stimulation and practise sitting for two minutes and then five minutes. Debrief afterward. How did it feel? What did you notice? What were you looking at? What thoughts went through your head?
We do not need to be entertained all the time. It is good to sit and observe. Practise noticing your surroundings. Ask your child to tell you what they can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. This is also an important skill for regulating emotions. We talk about 5-4-3-2-1 for anxiety—tell me five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two things you can hear, and one thing you can taste—as a way of settling the system. This also works for boredom, stress, and emotional regulation.
Additional Resources
Counselling Services and Wraparound Support
If you have any questions or concerns regarding any aspect of your child’s learning journey, please reach out to our Head of Student Supports, Paige McDonald.
Serena Braun, Registered Psychologist, provides short-term (6–8-session) counselling to students in Grades 3–12.
Demetra Mylonas, Student Wellbeing Specialist, continues to provide SEL and wellness support to staff and small groups of students.