Six Steps for Sharing Your Feelings With Your Children | Conflict Resolution Strategies for Parents

Parents often wish they knew how their children feel before situations get out of control, yet many parents don’t know how to communicate with their children about feelings effectively and sometimes worsen the situation. This is where one of my favorite conflict resolution strategies for parents comes into play: and it’s all about sharing these feelings.

Parents need to share their feelings with their children for several reasons. 

First, it helps parents get in touch with their feelings. If you are not aware of your feelings, you will not be able to recognize or appreciate what your children are feeling. Next, sharing feelings is how parents model safe and appropriate ways to express feelings. It is your opportunity to live a helpful life hack: you have the right to how you feel and responsibility about how you express it. Last, it helps families build the skill of perspective-taking, which is essential to relational safety and conflict resolution.  

Now that you know why you must start sharing your feelings with your children, how do you start?

A significant aspect of being a Mindful-ish™ parent is effectively communicating your feelings to your children without shaming or blaming them. Genuinely sharing your feelings with your children takes practice. Here are six specific steps you can take to develop this ability.

If you apply these Mindful-ish^™ conflict resolution strategies for parents, you’ll be telling your children how you feel with assertiveness while maintaining your integrity and offering respect:

1. Recognize what you’re feeling and put a label on it. 

Examining your own set of emotions is much different than noticing how your children are behaving. Avoid focusing on your children, at least initially in a situation. Stay inside yourself to determine how you feel. 

• Getting in touch with your feelings is a significant first step toward expressing yourself to your children and them to you. When labeling your emotions, consider the full range of human feelings. According to medicinenet.com, research conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, identified 27 distinct categories of emotions.
  
• Once you’ve labeled how you feel, you’re better prepared to share your feelings with your children. Use an I-message to share rather than a U-message. For example:

• “I feel angry,” rather than, “You are making me angry.”
•  “When there’s yelling in the backseat, I feel distracted,” rather than, “You guys are distracting me.” 
• “I thought you did your homework earlier. I feel disappointed.” Rather than, “I’m disappointed in you.”
  

2. Ask yourself if the time, place, and situation are appropriate to sharing feelings. 

If you want your children to hear you, they must be able to focus on your words. To be heard, it helps to think about time, place, and situation.

• Telling your child, you are upset about how they keep their bedroom while driving to school reflects an ill-timed effort. On the other hand, talking to your child after school and sharing your sentiments when they can focus on you and the conversation shows a better choice of time, place, and situation. 
• Bringing up your teen’s poor attitude at a
  
• When time, place, and situation are right, go ahead and share how you feel.
  

3. Remind yourself you have a right to feel how you feel. 

• You are a human being entitled to all of your feelings. Your feelings are just as relevant as your child’s, and you don’t always have to explain why you feel a certain way. 

• In essence, you feel what you feel because you feel it. No other reasoning is necessary. Accepting that for yourself, you will be better able to get it when your child experiences feelings you don’t understand or can’t or won’t explain. 
  

4. Show confidence during your exchange.

Avoid being afraid to tell your children how you feel. If you state your feelings with confidence, your children will listen and respect you. But if you feel unworthy, your self-doubt will reveal itself in the discussion.

• Take pride in being connected with your mind and emotions and that you’re not too afraid, ashamed, or embarrassed to share it.
  

5. Use respectful voice tones. 

Even though you sometimes might experience intense feelings, take special care in moderating your voice tones while expressing emotions. Using a calm voice tone makes it easier for your children to hear what you’re saying.

• Loud or disrespectful tones will divert your children from what you’re trying to communicate. Children focus on how we say things more than what we say. Your demeanor is critical.
   

6. Be appreciative. 

Finally, in your efforts to express yourself, show gratitude for your children’s willingness to listen. After all, children have a choice to tune in or tune out. A word of appreciation to them for taking the time helps to build strong relationships. Saying, “Thanks for listening,” shows you appreciate their efforts in the exchange. 

Sharing your feelings with your children takes practice. As you apply these strategies, you’ll improve in your quest to reveal your feelings to your children without shame and blame. And remember that your parenting goal is to be Mindful-ish^™, not perfect. 

In Mindful-ish™ Parenting, 20% of the effort yields 80% of the results. You can get big results from just that little bit of effort – the 20%. Once you become skilled at expressing yourself, you’ll be well on the road to better communication, problem-solving, and harmony with your children.

A resource I recommend in aiding the development of your feelings vocabulary, increase self-awareness, and connect with your big kid, tween or teen is the Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Feelings Wheel. 

Research shows that labeling our emotions moves us from “being” to “feeling.” The more specific we are, the better we can process our feelings and change our moods. We can decide to shift or stay and play!

Increased self-awareness is the first step to improved emotional intelligence. It can lead to enhanced self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

Start using the SEL Feelings Wheel to move away from your standard answer about your feelings, like, “I’m fine,” and identify what you are genuinely feeling. Click here to grab your copy!