BIG emotions plus kids equal tears & tantrums, right? Very often yes. But when we know how to deal with those big emotions so that our kids feel seen, heard and understood, there are a whole lot more emotional intelligence and less overwhelm. So if you’re still struggling to cope with helping your kids handle their emotions, you’re in the right place. Today I’m chatting with parenting coach Joanna Stawska, and she’s sharing her best tips to deal with emotions like anger without turning the situation into a battle.

I had an insightful discussion with parenting coach, Joanna from JoannaStawska.com and you can get all the great tips by watching the video.

As seen in the video, Joanna suggests we implement the following 3 strategies to help us cope with big emotions without the tears and overwhelm

three times yes

This strategy involves asking our kids 3 questions to which we know the answer will be yes. It turns a potentially volatile situation into a more positive one and helps our kids recognize their emotions. But at the same time, it helps them feel seen, heard and understood without having to yell, cry, or tantrum to get their message across. Joanna gives a great example of this technique in the video.

change the buts to at-the-same-times

To validate our kids’ feelings, Joanna recommends we try and avoid the word ‘but’ rather use ‘at the same time’. And I believe her when she says that we’ll be quite surprised, when we start paying attention, to how many times we use the word but. Give it a try and start using a more positive communication language with your kids.

share a round of gratitude

I love this strategy Joanna offers. It’s all about spending a couple of minutes once a day, to sit together as a family, and thank everyone for something they did that day. We all know the benefits of practicing gratitude and this takes it one step further, or maybe two steps since it can improve sibling relationships and boost our self-esteem! It even helps us focus on what our kids are doing right and less so on the negative things.

Helping our kids learn to recognize and handle big emotions is an integral part of parenting. And learning powerful strategies, like the ones shared by Joanna, makes our parenting life a whole lot easier. I challenge you to go and watch the video and implement these 3 tips. You will instantly help your kids feel heard, no matter what their age. And when you need even more help mastering motherhood, check out this free course:

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Do you have any tips to deal with big emotions? Leave a comment and help inspire other moms to also take back control and stop feeling overwhelmed dealing with big emotions.