Anger, sadness, grief, jealousy, fear. Kids are people too and they feel all of these things. But all too often we ask them to tamp down their feelings because the emotions are socially unacceptable and they make other people uncomfortable. Plus, temper tantrums are annoying. But ignoring these feelings can cause a lot of lifelong issues. Instead of trying to force children to ignore their feelings, we need to help them deal with and express their emotions in healthy ways. Below are a few suggestions for helping your child develop healthy emotional habits. It starts by reframing how we as adults think about feelings.

There are no negative emotions. They don’t exist. All feelings are normal and healthy and serve a purpose. I have started referring to emotions as either fun feelings or not fun feelings because…

Feelings are symptoms. Just like strong muscles are a symptom of a healthy body and a cough or a fever is a symptom of a problem, a person’s feelings signal that something is working or not working in their world.

With that in mind, here are a few steps that I find work in my classroom and with most of the little people (and some of the grown up people) I love.

Have the Feeling: Let your child know it is alright to feel this way. Don’t try and lock it up or push it down. Feelings manifest physically so if they need to cry it’s OK. Hitting or yelling are not OK reactions, and if your child goes there then separate them from others and help them work through the feeling privately and away from anyone they might hurt.

Verbalize The Feeling: Once they have “ridden the wave” of their feeling and can talk about it, ask your child to identify it. Very young children may need a feelings chart, and one can be found with a quick online search. Print it out and keep one on the fridge and one in their backpack.

Diagnose the Feeling: What caused them to feel that way? Young kids will generally have a pretty simple but specific inciting incident. “He took my toy” or “I wanted ice cream and you wouldn’t let me.” Older kids may need help diving deeper. “I kept trying to explain but no one would listen to me” is a pretty common explanation from pre-teens. Once they identify and diagnose their feelings it’s pretty common to find the feeling dissipates. A note: Avoid the temptation to do the identifying and diagnosing for them. The point of this exercise is to teach children to work with their own feelings effectively, and if you do it for them they won’t get the most out of it. If they are stuck, guide them toward answers. For example:  “What happened right before you felt angry?”

Correct and Plan to Modify Behavior:  If your child didn’t handle the feeling in a productive way (if they resorted to hitting, for example) then help them plan for how they can deal with a similar situation in the future.

–The next time someone takes my toy and I feel angry I will say, “I don’t like that. Please give it back!”

–If that doesn’t work I will go and get a teacher.

–If I am still angry I will take three big, deep breaths and say, “It’s ok to be angry but I need to walk away now.”

As always these are extremely basic steps meant for everyday situations (it’s a blog post, not a medical article!). Children who have been through serious trauma or have ongoing issues may need professional help from a therapist or psychologist, and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that a situation might be more than you can handle alone.

Got any other healthy emotional habit builders to share? Please leave them in the comments section!

KEEP READING: What Is PBL and Why Is It in My Camp?

Photo: Unsplash

Minecraft made sense last spring, in the midst of exile from our Beijing home, while we stayed in temporary housing with no end in sight. Our family found ourselves stuck in a life we’d left, now living out of suitcases, and it made sense that building a world brought peace. Even the blocky nature of Minecraft helped remove the worlds we built from the turbulence and uncertainty outside. It supplemented our LEGO brick builds beautifully, those times when our phones were face down we could just escape and build a place where we’d like to spend our time.

The video gaming cut down once we could return and have in-person playdates again, but they occasionally serve that very same purpose: to block out the stresses of life and only concern yourself with those friends allowed to play on your server.

Then came the new game Among Us. You are an alien, sharing some kind of ship with 4-10 other aliens, and 1-2 of you are told in private that you are: The Impostor! Everyone else (called Crewmates) gets tasks to perform aboard the ship, but The Impostor’s job is to sneak around the ship and kill all the Crewmates before they can perform their tasks. If a Crewmate suspects or sees The Impostor in the act, they can call an emergency meeting and vote them out to win!

Now, we’re very careful as parents not to glorify killing. When we slowly ventured into Roblox so our kids could stay in touch with their friends around the world, the second rule was “no killing games.” But after a number of their favorite YouTube gamers kept coming back with Among Us videos, and the more we watched it, we decided it was not the kind of violence that was bad or complicated enough to be introduced to their still developing minds. Plus, you need at least four people to play a private game, and we could play as a family.

It turns out that it’s a very fun game! Part of the fun is that you have to be sneaky, but it’s also satisfying to just be a Crewmate and complete your tasks. The kids also created a version of it “in real life” where we have tasks around the house to finish while we try to outrun The Impostor.

I find being a Crewmate to be very zen.

The killing part is so cartoony that it’s less violent than Looney Tunes or some Transformers cartoons. And as we play it more and more, and get into the sub cultures of fan-made music videos that become earworms, I see the appeal for anyone who’s been through the year 2020 and feeling reminiscent as we enter 2021. Just like zombies, Halloween, and scary movies — Among Us lets us run away from death, still try to do mundane tasks while it chases us, and sometimes even be the one in control of if (if we are The Impostor).

Yeah. I get why my kids would dig this game after last year.

I remember when my oldest had separation anxiety for the first time in his life, and a counselor told me that we need to not avoid it. We need to face it head on so he can understand how to embrace and handle his fears. Falling down in a dramatic death scene while waiting for someone to find your dead body might not lie in the “peaceful parenting” category, but it sure is satisfying when you spend your days masked, disinfecting surfaces, and your hands feel immune to sanitizer.

Taking control of death and danger in entertaining ways can be wonderful ways to work through some anxiety and stress around it. Young as they are, they know the action of “killing” someone in Among Us is play acting, and the deaths of our little aliens are nothing close to what we mean when we bring out our book about death, or discuss real life consequences. But it’s nice to pretend you have more control over it than you really do, and “game over” means you can try again next time.

KEEP READING: Roblox: Use Parental Controls to Connect Safely With Friends Around the World

Photos: Cindy Marie Jenkins

The reality of the emotional roller coaster associated with pregnancy is of course widely researched and accepted as part of the joys and challenges of impending motherhood. From sleepless nights worrying about the health of their babies, to dealing with uncertainties related to the changes in their bodies, to the angst some might feel about becoming mothers, the stream of consciousness that can berate women from all backgrounds can seem endless.

It turns out that the emotional changes associated with pregnancy are largely neurological.  A lot of course changes, but for new mothers in particular some of the starkest differences are also the most intimate and life reorienting. Even before giving birth, pregnancy begins to transform the very structure of a woman’s brain. Behavioral changes in new mothers have definitively been connected to what is happening in her amygdala, prefrontal cortex, parietal lobes, midbrain and elsewhere.

Regions that control a woman’s social exchanges, anxiety, empathy and compassion all begin to increase in activity. Offset by a number of hormones that begin to shape the perceived and lived new worlds women begin to exist in during pregnancy and the postpartum period, all coincide to create that fierce bond between mother and child. If you want to witness science fiction’s take on how distinct and powerful a mother and baby bond is, check out A Quiet Place, and see the limitless tenacity of a mother in an apocalyptic world.

However, it’s not just the seemingly unbreakable bond between mother and child that is fostered during this period of heightened brain activity and transformation; a woman’s emotional responses to the world around them is also forever changed. I just can’t stop weeping. I weep when watching commercials, I weep when watching the news, I weep when watching one of those atrociously over-stylized “talent” shows, and the other day I caught myself welling up when watching an overwhelmed contestant on the British Master Chef receive good feedback!

This, apparently (and thankfully), is all very normal and I’m not alone. The almond-shaped neuron cluster known as the amygdala, which supports memory processes and is the main driver for emotional reactions, such as fear, sadness, anxiety, and happiness, increases in activity and the amygdala grows quite substantially in the weeks and months after giving birth. This expertly explains why I have become the emotional glug of goo that stands before my child, husband, family and friends. Researchers believe that this growth correlates with how a new mother behaves – an enhanced amygdala can make a new mother hypersensitive. Phew! I’m not going stir crazy and neither are you.

Remember that there are also other reasons why new mothers cry. Complete elation is of course one of them, but sleep deprivation, feeding issues, sleep training issues and hormonal imbalances that can lead to postpartum depression can also co-exist alongside the more positive attributes of increased hypersensitivity.

New and seasoned mothers slay even when they think they’re not. Perfectly sane mothers weep, rejoice and feel anxiety. We give birth to life, nurture, and love, affirm and deeply surrender ourselves to the little people in our lives. There is no love or sacrifice like that of mothers. Yes, motherhood does make you more emotional and we should embrace this season of emotional highs and lows, which for some can last longer than others.

My compassion and empathy for others has become heightened and I also grieve for losses and pains that an individual who has no connection to me might be experiencing, but perhaps these emotional reactions have created a hybrid sense of self. In this unknown territory and season I can grow as a person and so can other new mothers. Weeping at the drop of hat? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Photo: Pixabay

According to RAINN, the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the US, one out of every six women have been the victim of sexual assault, fifty-four percent of sexual assault victims are under 34, and every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted.

The office for National Statistics reports that one in five of all women in England and Wales will have been the victims of sexual assault since the age of 16. This is the equivalent to an estimated 3.4 million female victims and 631,000 male victims. A shocking eighty-three percent (5 in 6 victims) of adult victims do not report experiences of sexual assault to the police. These statistics do not take into account the estimated 2.0 million adults aged 16 to 59 who experience domestic abuse each year.

According to UK Children’s Charity, NSPCC, one in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused, one in three children are sexually abused by an adult and did not report it, and 2,800 children were identified as needing protection from sexual abuse in the years 2016 to 2017.

These numbers are not only extremely shocking but speak of a wider and growing problem with domestic sexual abuse, rape, child sexual abuse, incest, and more, that permeates around the globe. This epidemic creates a number of challenges for local authorities, humanitarian organizations, and the very fabric of society.

The effects of trauma-based experiences, if not dealt with, can last a lifetime and some victims of sexual assault will experience debilitating symptoms that can interfere with daily life. The good news is, there is light at the end of the tunnel should you seek it.

What You Can Do

Recovering emotionally from disaster can be a long journey, but with time and perseverance one can overcome the emotional, physical, and psychological trauma caused by sexual abuse. Understanding the raw emotions and responses that follow traumatic events can help support healing and recovery, and offer coping mechanisms for difficult thoughts and behaviors. Seeking psychological intervention can be effective in preventing and dealing with existing long-term effects, as well as helping you on the path to recovery.

Support Group for Survivors of Sexual Assault and Abuse

Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU) Psychologist Dr. Bojun Hu has initiated a support group for women survivors of rape, sexual assault, and childhood sexual abuse and incest. The small groups of eight to ten people will facilitate therapeutic discussion centered on the following:

• Managing disclosure
• Emotional regulation
• Self-esteem and body image
• Intimacy and sexuality
• Seeking support
• Self-care

This group will be completely confidential and is aimed at supporting women to cope with feelings such as grief, fear, loss, shame, self-blame, and anger. Together survivors of sexual abuse will be given the tools to start healing and issues regarding, power, control, body image, trust, intimacy, and well-being will be tackled using in-depth discussion and yoga practices.

The sessions will be a place for women to strengthen their cognitive and emotional processing, relax, and reconnect the mind and the body. This group will be a source of hope, comfort, and an opportunity for women seeking support to unite with other sexual abuse survivors as they usher in an era for power, autonomy, and wholeness.

To sign up please email fc-rec@ufh.con.cnto express your interest in joining the group or to ask any questions you may have. Female Adults. RMB 600 (per 1.5hr session). RMB 1,200 (mandatory one-hour pre-group interview). March 21 – May 9. Thursdays 6pm-7.30pm. United Family New Hope Clinical Center, 9-11 West Jiangtai Road, Chaoyang District (www.ufh.com.cn/ 5927 7120)

I became obsessed with educational play as soon as I found out I was pregnant. What could I do in and outside of the home to help my baby’s brain and character develop in such a way that he would reach each milestone with success, and of course have the best emotional, physical, and cognitive start to life?

Economist-turned-academic Ron Ferguson has forged a career out of studying the achievement gap. It may be common knowledge that factors such as a child’s race and socioeconomic status will create a wide learning gap between kids, but Ferguson discovered that these gaps could begin to take form and become visible at the tender age of just 2.

Which brings us to: how caregivers can encourage brain development before a child starts any formal learning. Here are five cost-effective, researched, and positive ways that parents and caregivers can help support their baby’s brain development. It’s as simple as interacting with our children and being responsive to them. These five principles have been named by Ferguson as the Boston Basics

1. Maximize love, manage stress

This might seem like an obvious one but can be hard to maintain or overlooked because of its simplicity. I’m a firm believer in moms and dads really looking after their physical and emotional well-being first. A happy parent will always equate to a happy child and according to this principle of Ferguson’s, babies pick up on negative emotion, so looking after oneself and offering unfettered and limitless love and affection will have a lasting influence on a child’s development.

2. Talk, sing, and point

This is a favorite of mine, and one that I try to do daily with my little one at home. Pointing at something helps babies to start associating words with objects. Some babies point before they can talk, and singing offers fun and engaging interaction in addition to helping your baby develop their vocabulary.

3. Count, group, and compare

I was happy to learn that babies love numbers and counting, and so embrace even more the endless counting that goes on in Mandarin with Ayi, and in English with mom and dad at home and playgroups. Ferguson also suggests that parents can introduce their kids to math vocabulary by using sentences that compare things: “Oh look, dad is tall but mom is short, ” or “There are two bananas and three mangos in the fruit basket”.

4. Explore through movement and play

This idea is based on the concept that your child is always learning while playing. In my post about Mommy and Me movement classes, I have written about how moms and dads can stay active and encourage learning and bonding through music and movement, so joining a class like this one can help encourage us to support our kids’ brain development!

5. Read and discuss stories

One of my fondest and earliest memories was having stories read to me, like my childhood favorite Peace At Last by Jill Murphy (and now the chosen night-time read for my little one). There were animal and object noises, the concept of not getting enough sleep, and problem solving, all in one short story about Mr Bear who found peace at last just as the alarm bell rang in the early hours of the morning to wake him up. Ferguson says it’s never too early to start reading aloud to your kids.

Hearing words increases vocabulary and relating objects to sounds, like the noise of the owl at night in the story I was read, starts to create connections in the brain. The Basics also places importance on discussion. If there is a elephant in your story and your little one so happens to have elephant in the toy box, point it out.

Have fun using these simple but key principles to support your baby’s brain development. I know I will!

Photos: Pixabay

Although Catherine O’Regan, preschool teacher at Beijing Collegiate Academy International School (BCAIS), can be considered    fresh in our eyes after only having spent a year in Beijing, when it comes to knowledge of diversity, she is no spring chicken. O’Regan, who is proud of her Irish heritage, had not only taught back home, but also worked at an asylum center, which taught her there is a wider world of diversity she had yet to explore.  Realizing she needed a change, O’Regan looked to China, a country that had always interested her, and ended up in Beijing.

“Catherine O’Regan, preschool teacher at Beijing Collegiate Academy International School (BCAIS)”

What was your favorite subject when you were a student? Why?
Irish (or Gaeilge) had always been my favorite subject because I loved learning the language, history, and culture of my country. I attended an all Irish speaking primary and secondary school, with teachers who have always been very passionate about the Irish language, telling us some of the folklore and piseogs to keep us engaged.

What did you want to be when you were a kid? What other career options did you explore before teaching?
I have always had big dreams of being in a girl band! Spice Girls, B*witched, and Cleopatra were my idols but, unfortunately, I realized I couldn’t sing or dance so I put an end to those fantasies. Before teaching, I spent some years as a nanny and working in retail in small stores and at stadiums for hurling and football matches.

How would you (or your students) describe your teaching style?
I focus mainly on a play-based/child-centered approach, which incorporates inquiry-based and cooperative learning. This means that I lead some activities and lessons, giving the children guidance and direction in specific areas, such as introducing a new topic, physical health, early literacy, and numeracy. They also participate actively in their own learning as individuals and with their peers in the classroom, exploring and expressing their learning in their own unique ways to become competent, independent, and capable learners.

What are some of the topics you cover?
As part of the curriculum, there are thematic units that help children develop in four main strands: independence and interdependence; communication; enquiry; and physical health and well-being. I also supplement the curriculum with addition lessons or activities in literacy and math. Our current unit is This is Me, helping children transition from home into the preschool environment through lessons and activities about their homes, families, looking after themselves and others, and how they are the same or different to others.

What topic was the most challenging to cover with children? Why?
Learning about different countries was challenging. We used images, globes, and maps to show children where China and Ireland are, as a starting point. The children found it difficult to understand that there was more to where they live than just their homes and the school. It is a topic that we’re still working on as part of our unit.

What topic was the most interesting to your students? Why?
Feelings and emotions was a topic that really interested the children. They loved learning about each emotion and getting time to express themselves. They were given time to create emotion puppets, use role-play, song, and dance to express their feelings. The children were very engaged and creative throughout the emotions topic.

How do you encourage your students to be passionate about learning?
I use resources and materials that children can relate to as part of my lessons. For feelings and emotions, I used images and video clips from Inside Out, to introduce each emotion and to help the children understand how each feeling is conveyed. After the initial introduction, children can explore and express the topic in their own ways, which encourages them to be passionate about any topic.

What class project in your teaching career was the most meaningful to you?
In Ireland, I spent time in a center for asylum seekers. One of our main topics was helping the children learn and understand diversity. Each child was able to speak about the differences they saw in the town and its people compared to their hometowns, how the houses and people looked different, and how people dressed, spoke, and acted differently. It made me realize that these children knew more about diversity than I did, and that it’s not enough to understand diversity but to also be more open and accepting of people’s differences.

This article originally appeared on page 37 of the October 2016 Issue of beijingkids magazine. Click here for your free online copy. To find out how you can obtain a hard copy, contact distribution@truerun.com.

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF BEIJING COLLEGIATE ACADEMY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (BCAIS)

As the end of school year draws closer, I find myself caught in the midst of graduation talk everywhere I go. Graduation dinners, graduation ceremonies, graduation traditions (for instance, I hear it is tradition for some kids to stay up all night and watch the sun rise over Tiananmen Square and witness the flag hoisting, on the night of their graduation ceremony). Then there is the elephant in the room, the dreaded day that most parents can’t stop talking about, bidding adieu to their babies who are now more than ready to step into the next phase of their lives.

My husband and I are just two short years away from experiencing this ourselves. At times I catch myself holding back tears, listening to all my friends verbalize their thoughts and emotions. The heartache that accompanies this bittersweet milestone in their own lives, preparing for their kids to take flight, is inevitable.

Conversing with some close friends, I’ve started to pick up on patterns these conversations fall in to. They all typically start with how frustrating it is to get minute details of this event right! A myriad of things could go wrong and ruin the night for them, scarring them for life (read: life in graduate terminology)! My friends impress upon me the long list of potential disasters they’re averting, starting with the dress, the hairdresser, unsupportive friends or an insensitive family member, body image, timing and more.

The venting is usually followed by expressions of emotional distraught that they anticipate will drown them when the time finally comes. However, the conversations invariably drift to funny memories, that switch the emotionally charged mood, to ridiculously funny and eventually uncontrollable laughter.  I asked some of my friends to list what they look forward to, when their children leave the nest and here are some quirky responses.

“I can’t wait to get that phone call from the UK, when she’ll need to have her blood drawn and will need hand holding through that,” said one.

“Oh, I can finally make lasagna for dinner without seeing her pull a face,” another friend chimed in.

“Getting more sleep and not having to stay up late waiting for her to get home safe after a night out. One less person to argue with over picking a movie for family movie night,” she added, making me almost fall over laughing.

One mum is looking forward to finding her clothes and shoes in her own closet, neatly put away, instead of having to rummage through the pile on the floor of her daughter’s room – not to mention having access to additional closet space!

“I can finally sit on her bed…imagine that!” chuckled another mom! She humored me with an explanation, “That’s a big one, she likes to have her covers just so…so, when you get close to her bed, she gives you this, don’t-even-think-about-it, look. Not having to clear empty candy wrappers and biscuit boxes from the cupboards too,” she added. Somehow her daughter had managed to master the art of imbibing the contents, but couldn’t figure out how to accomplish the monumental task of disposing of the empty wrappers and boxes into the trash bin.

The list goes on, but you get the gist.  Grateful for the company and wisdom of these amazing parents, I’m inspired to seek out the humor in life’s unavoidable experiences that will most certainly make us laugh out loud, making the experience ‘bittersweet’.

Photo: Courtesy of Anjana Kainikkara