Understanding Children's Emotions

This chapter examines the importance of responding thoughtfully to children's intense emotions, particularly when they express feelings like 'I hate you.' It highlights strategies for parents to validate emotions while guiding children to articulate their feelings more maturely. The discussion also addresses the complexities of parenting dynamics, especially in co-parenting situations, and the need for respectful communication to support children's emotional development.

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Episode notes

In this episode, my guest is Dr. Becky Kennedy, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and founder of Good Inside, an education platform for parents and parents-to-be. We discuss actionable protocols for raising resilient, emotionally healthy kids and effective alternatives to typical forms of reward and punishment that instead teach children valuable skills and strengthen the parent-child bond. These protocols also apply to other types of relationships: professional, romantic, friendships, siblings, etc.

We explain how to respond to emotional outbursts, rudeness, and entitlement, repair fractured relationships, build self-confidence, and improve interpersonal connections with empathy while maintaining healthy boundaries.

We also discuss how to effectively communicate with children and adults with ADHD, anxiety, learning challenges, or with “deeply feeling” individuals.

The conversation is broadly applicable to all types of social interactions and bonds. By the end of the episode, you will have learned simple yet powerful tools to build healthy relationships with kids, teens, adults, and oneself.

For show notes, including referenced articles and additional resources, please visit hubermanlab.com.