Angry Toddlers: Giving your Toddler Emotional Development Skills

Toddler emotional development can be very frustrating for parents.

Suddenly your baby has grown up a little, have their own feelings and is clearly trying to work out how to manage these. It's a difficult time for all parents-and all children.

There are a few things to remember as you begin to help your child learn to manage their emotions.

First of all, you have a very important role in your toddler's emotional development! You are the parent, the one whom their existence revolves around.

This is a big responsibility and one which you will not regret learning about, or implementing with your child.

Second, your toddler is not going to learn emotional intelligence by a few activities alone.

This involves extended effort, calm teaching and using those 'teachable moments' over time.

Third, you are completely capable of this, (even if you want a little guidance) for these reasons:

You are the parent. You know your child best!
You have the most effective opportunity and reason to give your child emotional intelligence skills.

you can Use these three activities for toddler emotional development, with your child immediately!

1: Discuss sad and happy faces.

Using questions such as 'What does my face look like?' and 'Can you make a sad face for me?' give your child the incentive to actually look at and notice faces.

Many young children may not think about faces, or what they are telling them, in the same way that adults may not notice the way a snail left a silver trail unless it is pointed out.

It's so helpful to talk about faces and even body language as your child gets older!

2: Be honest about your own emotions.

Many parents unintentionally give off a disapproval of emotions, or even try to hide their own emotions from their children. Not only is this actually harmful to our own sense of wellbeing (if it becomes a habit), it can lead to your own toddler emotional development suffering - because they think all adults, in fact all people, should be calm and clear all the time. Not to mention the fact that when we are trying to hide our emotions as parents, we are still holding that same energy in our bodies. This, too, can be as a result of your own upbringing - and even mean you are deepening your own wounds and increasing your emotional burnout…when you thought you were helping your child.

Of course you don't need to be totally emotional in front of your child constantly-this can be unhealthy too! It’s about showing our kids that we can have big emotions, and even though they feel uncomfortable, we can still be capable of feeling a certain way and acting appropriately.

>>If you want to go on a 28-day journey of self-discovery (because, we all need to do this, especially in those times of big emotions), check out the Self Discovery journal on the Resources page!

how will your child understand what emotions even look like, unless we show them how we manage our own - in a clear, practical way?

There are 2 more benefits to being honest about our own emotions:

By being aware of your emotions for your child, you become aware of them yourself (think eating healthier when you had to start feeding your child healthy food!)
Our kids have a real, practical and relevant example in front of them daily, showing how people can live through, process and healthily manage their own emotions (hopefully!).

There is nothing wrong with telling your child that you feel frustrated with the postman delivering the wrong package, for instance. But finish it with 'Now how can I feel a bit happier again? I might read a story with my favourite person!' (your child)

Or 'Oh no, you broke my favourite vase! I know it was an accident, so I'm not angry with you, but I am a bit sad that it's broken. What do you do when you feel sad?'

It's important to make sure you don't make your child feel undue guilt, but they are allowed to understand that their actions have consequences too-even if they are accidents!

If you want some simple training on Toddler Emotional Development, and want to feel like Lisa and John did - “Now we know we haven’t broken our child,’ (Phew!)… then check out my simple e-course The Emotionally Equipped Child here!

3: Teach your child what to do when they don't know what to do.

This is such an important part of helping your child build emotional intelligence. Giving them a couple of easy-to-follow strategies will help them begin to actively understand what to do when they are overwhelmed.

Feeling like they are out of control and don't know what to do, exaggerates the issue for small children.

Throw in a parent who then tells them off for trying to manage their emotion the best way they can-and you have a child who just doesn't know where to turn or what to do!

Follow some of these guidelines to give your toddler some guidance on how to manage those big, overwhelming emotional moments:

Give them a physical strategy-running to the back door and back 3 times, or jumping on the trampoline. Getting physical is key to helping remove the energy from those big emotions so your child can start to be calm.
Give them a 'where to go' strategy- Moving to the calm corner, sitting in a certain chair with certain books and reading for a minute-with you sometimes too
Give them firm but calm verbal encouragement. Let your child know you are here, and you are helping them manage themselves but you are not angry at them (this can be helpful to say, even if you are annoyed!!)

When using these strategies for toddler emotional development, there is one thing that needs to be present beyond all else.

Kindness. (and love, obviously)

Kindness is the bridge between your child 'knowing' you care (like, you look after them regularly and cuddle them sometimes) and that you really care about how they are feeling right now- and you are doing everything you can to help them move through this hard moment.

This shows you are understanding of their struggle and empathetic towards them-but also gives them a feeling of trust and safety towards you.

This is the key to parenting an emotional child with connection-even though that means you will still regularly have 'those' moments with your child!