Emotional education in boys and girls is essential for their correct development so that they grow up healthy and with solid values regarding how human relationships and people’s feelings work.
emotional validation It is one of the most important elements in this aspect. It is something that must be put into practice when raising our children and it will be essential learning in the future so that as adults they know how to successfully manage their emotions.
By practicing daily habits of emotional validation in raising both boys and girls, we will be able to communicate with them on a more complex and deeper level, training social skills such as empathy and emotional management, and accompanying them in the process of understanding themselves without judge oneself in dysfunctional ways.
Validating an emotion in both adults and children means legitimizing it from the beginning, accepting its validity and do not judge it a priori, regardless of whether it generates discomfort, well-being, or if it is neutral On the other hand, it also implies accepting that emotions and feelings are complex (for example, sometimes we can experience how being happy in a certain situation makes us feel guilty). It is, in short, a key aspect when educating boys and girls in the process of becoming familiar with the nuances of their most emotional side.
By validating an emotion we are making the other person understand that we understand what they feel and that it is perfectly normal to feel it, and that we are not going to judge at any time those feelings that overwhelm them at a given moment.
Validating the emotions of those people around us allows us to communicate much better with them and is an exercise in empathy that will provide us, in the long run, the opportunity to establish more meaningful and deeper relationships
In the field of children, validation is essential in their education, as mentioned above, and constitutes learning and training in empathy, since we are teaching the child that people can put themselves in the place of others and Validate your emotions.
How can we validate emotions in boys and girls?
These are the main tips, guidelines and strategies that we can follow to validate emotions in boys and girls in the context of parenting at home.
1. Manage your own emotions and set an example
To validate our children’s emotions we must first learn to manage our own, since It is useless to try to teach another to control emotions and we lack that ability
Putting into practice self-control over the most intense emotions that overwhelm us, learning to control what we feel at all times and being able to identify our own emotions are some of the most basic skills of emotional intelligence.
These skills can be learned through all types of courses or training, or they can be trained by a qualified psychology professional.
2. Speak from a position of equality
To achieve effective and truthful communication, it is necessary to speak to the child from a position of equality so that he or she sees that our objective is to share with us what you feel ; We do not want to scold or admonish you in any way.
To achieve this position of equality we can crouch down and talk to the boy or girl, looking him or her in the eyes, this way we will be able to calm him or her and give him the opportunity to express himself with us as equals.
Helping the child to describe what he or she feels is of great importance, especially for younger children who have not yet fully developed language.
It is in these cases when we must help you identify little by little what you feel at all times: if he feels sad, angry or furious, interacting with him so that he can explain to us what is happening to him at all times.
In the case of older boys and girls, it is important to let them express themselves freely and tell us what exactly they feel and how their emotions affect them.
4. Help you explain what you feel
Once we have identified what the child is feeling, it is important that we start a process of explaining what happens to them. trying to explain together why you feel that way, even if you don’t understand it
This section is important in younger children, since when we explain to them why they may feel a certain way, we are helping them to form a series of important social skills such as empathy and emotional management.
For example, if a child feels angry because his brother is playing the video game console and starts breaking objects in the house, we should explore together the idea of whether he feels this way because he also wants to play and his brother won’t let him.
At the same time, we can provide you with a series of tips or guidelines so that you can solve your problem and stop feeling that way, telling you, for example, to play something else or to wait your turn to play.
Validating emotions also means not judging at any time what the child may be feeling, since when we judge the way they feel we can make them feel that their feelings are not important or that they are not valid.
If, for example, our child falls and hurts himself because he is playing irresponsibly, we must avoid any reproach or negative judgment and not blame him, but rather explain why he feels that way and what he should do next time to avoid an accident.
For a child to grow up healthy and with positive self-esteem we must avoid making any moral judgments about your emotions during the process of validating them
6. Provide tools to manage your emotions
Like adults, children can also learn emotional management tools that we can teach them and progressively educate themselves.
Some strategies that can be put into practice are channeling emotions, relaxation techniques and offering other alternative options that can help the child overcome their negative emotion.
By explaining to the child that playtime is over and that he must go take a shower, so that we make him understand that there are times for everything, we will help him overcome his anger more successfully.
7. Respect above all
Respect is essential in any interpersonal relationship and educating children by putting into practice a respectful modality will ensure that that they grow up feeling wanted, loved and feeling that both they and their feelings matter
A family environment where respect for the other person’s feelings prevails is important for children to grow up surrounded by affection and also for them to learn to respect others themselves.
Are you looking for professional psychological assistance?
If you are interested in psychotherapeutic assistance, contact me.
My name is Carolina Marin I am a psychologist federated by the FEAP, and I serve adolescents, adults and families, either in person in Seville or online by video call.
