Parenting Superfeelers During Uncertain Times

Image courtesy of Unsplash: Agence Olloweb @olloweb

During the current mandated staycation full of quality parent-child interaction, I know I am leaning on my training to manage working from home, short-term homeschooling, and parenting a couple Superfeelers during anxious times. The clients I have spoke with over the past week, have put most of their regular treatment goals on hold for now, and are instead focusing on family functioning and resilience to manage the same demands. I am so grateful to be able to support families through this with Emotion Focused Family Therapy. Since I’m drawing on this daily in my own parenting and when supporting my clients, I thought a brief blog might be helpful to others at this time too.

For Superfeelers- people who are sensitive to emotions, change, and perceived threat- empowering them in productive and healthy coping is vital to help them navigate uncertain times. Many kids who are neurodiverse or have underlying anxiety could be considered Superfeelers. How we do this in our family may look differently than it does in yours, but hopefully some of the strategies below are adaptable to your family culture.

A key part of Emotion Focused Family Therapy is helping parents and kids to communicate about emotions effectively. Helping kids to harness the power of language to name their emotions, then to help them regulate by validating their experience, and coming alongside to collaborate and problem-solve. In order to do this, parents generally need a crash course in Validation because our society is really good at Minimization- saying: “At least…” or “It’s not as bad as…” and all the other ways that we do this in our culture. And while perspective taking can be helpful eventually, it’s not so helpful when folks are the most dysregulated. At that moment, validation is much more helpful— especially for Superfeelers.

To validate effectively, the first step then is to name the emotion you notice in your child and imagine all the reasons WHY they may be feeling that, whether or not you think they SHOULD have the feeling- the feeling just is, so you take their perspective on it. You do this using empathy and BECAUSE statements. (Check this out for a little more about EMPATHY- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw#action=share)

For example, a conversation that may have been had in my house this morning…

“You are so mad because you want to watch TV and Mom said its homework time. You really want to watch tv because you love that show, because you weren’t done yet, and because you just want to relax. You’re also really mad because it’s march break and you just want a break from school. This feels so unfair to you right now!”

Even though you express understanding of your child’s experience and how they feel, does not mean that homework time isn’t happening. You’re just showing them that you get it. This is followed by the Magic Phrase. A magic phrase is our house is:

“That makes sense.” ~ Your feelings make sense from your perspective.

Another way of saying that could be “That’s understandable.” or “Of course…”

Finally you move alongside the child to problem solve the situation- which could mean collaborating, brainstorming, or limit setting/holding depending on the situation.

“We’re going to pause the show for now and work on homework, and you can finish watching it 20 minutes before we go outside.”

An important thing to note is that if you mislabel the emotion initially, the kid will correct you and you can just go with it. You validate that emotion, sometimes with the same reasoning you imagined for the other emotion, or with other reasons that are understandable. Having the child correct the emotion under the dysregulation might help you to really understand why they are so upset by the limit you’re setting. Also, you may need to dig deep to really resonate with what is going on for your child. At times, this may mean noticing your own emotional state and setting it aside to really connect with your child.

For example, your kid was super excited to go outside for a walk earlier, but when you finally get a moment to take them, they are invested in their current activity, and now they don’t want to go. As a parent that can feel frustrating. Using emotion labeling can help you to talk with your child about what they are feeling, where you are coming from, and options.

“You really wanted to go outside earlier and I had to finish my work. Mom has a break now, if you want to go for a walk before afternoon snack, we need to go now. I see that you are really enjoying colouring now. You want to keep colouring because you are having fun and because your picture isn’t done yet. That makes sense. Let’s make a plan together. Let’s press pause on this now and come back to it after a quick walk around the block. If we don’t go now, Mommy won’t have time until much later. If we pause and come back, then we can do both.”

For my kids helping them to understand WHY things are happening the way they are, the reasons, helps them to regulate. Also, collaborating and adjusting expectations alongside your child can also model that skill for them, so they can respond with it when you may need them to have some flexibility. In our house, “a quick walk around the block,” generally turns into a walk around several blocks and we go with it. To build trust I always reorient them to the activity they had paused once we do return. “You really wanted to colour more, now that we’re home, do you want to finish your picture while I make snack?”

I also find it helpful to collaborate in setting the daily and weekly agenda with the kids. I give them choices in the areas that are flexible, while holding the boundary on the items that are not. They like to know what is happening and when. It makes transitions easier. We also have scheduled days (like today) when Mommy has to get more work done and therefore kiddos get to watch more tv. Other days they get to do more things with Mom or Dad like boardgames, crafts, baking and building. Each day we collaborate picking the Movie of the Day, Topic of the Day, and Meal Planning. We are making calendars together and journaling each morning as part of their homeschooling. We are taking frequent and regular movement breaks, inside and outside, doing both favourite activities and learning new ones. And we are reading funny stories and playing games that make us laugh. We are making music and art a part of each day. Each of these things gives kids agency and an outlet for intense emotions. During times of uncertainty the more you can empower your child with language, expression, choice, and reason the more they can settle into each day. 

For more supports in implementing this approach, including videos, check out:

https://www.mentalhealthfoundations.ca/resources

Other parenting resources I love are:

Superfeeler Digital Handout: https://e78f226b-636a-4b6d-b774-75ca09eb3c0c.usrfiles.com/ugd/c390c7_5b5a60bc8ea84558a4620f980d6b4f92.pdf

Book: The Whole Brain Child by Dr. Dan Siegel

Audio Book: The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting by Brene Brown

Emotional Literacy Toolkit & Blog: https://genmindful.com/blogs/mindful-moments/tagged/emotional-intelligence