As parents, it’s hard to resist the urge to get your kid talking as soon as they’re home from school. After all, you only have a few hours of quality time with them during the week, right? But this mom explains why she makes a habit of giving her young kids ‘de-compress’ time.
When Rebecca Earnes picked up her son from school one day, she paid close attention to his body language as he dragged his backpack on his way to the car and then proceeded to plop onto his seat letting out a large exhale as they drove out the school parking lot.
She asked, “Hey love. How was your day?” He replied, “Okay” without his eyes averting from his window gaze. Earnes could tell that her son was exhausted. She said, “I can read the signs in his expression. Give me a minute. I need to rest.” She then proceeded to turn on his favorite song, and she watched his expression soften, and visibly relax.
That’s when she realized that this is what children need, ‘emotional rest.’ Many parents don’t realize that school can be an unrestful place for children and they need to unwind as soon as leave the premises. At school, there’s constant pressure to perform for their peers and their teachers. Also, they’re navigating tough situations while learning to absorb tons of information.
When they leave school, that’s when they can relax. Dr. Gordon Neufeld, a developmental psychologist and founder of The Neufeld Institute discusses the need for emotional rest and how we can give it to our children.
Three Ways to Provide Children with Emotional Rest
1. “Children Must Never Work for Our Love; They Must Rest in It.”
Some parents say, “Go to your room and don’t come out until you can behave” as a disciplinary tactic that tells the child that we do not want to be with them unless they can “be good.” What this tells children is that they can’t communicate with their parents until they behave better and parents have to realize is that children can’t control their emotions, impulses, and behaviors as easily as we expect them to.
Even as adults, we sometimes struggle with doing this too. Emotions get pent up, and it’s hard to control them. So, we have to understand that if it’s difficult for us, how much more of a challenge is it for our children who are still learning to manage their emotions.
Dr. Neufeld says, “Children must never work for our love; they must rest in it.” Telling them not to communicate with us until they behave better signals that they have to earn our approval and attention, which achieves the opposite effect of finding security and comfort in their parents. To them, they’re trying to keep mom and dad close. Breaking loose from sending this message to your children will provide them with emotional rest.
2. “Give More Attention Than the Child Asks For”
When we give our children unsolicited attention, even if it doesn’t seem like an extravagant gesture in the grand scheme of things, it makes a huge difference in the way they interpret their parent’s love for them. They see how significant they are to their parents and it trumps the thinking that they have to earn their parent’s attention. Even worse, they have to compete with other things that busy their parents’ lives, like their mom and dad’s cell phone use. In fact, previous studies have proven that parents who are addicted to their cell phones affect their children’s development.
It’s important that parents exercise significant gestures like being the one to invite their children to play or say “I love you” first and be the last one let go from a hug. It tells children that they’re valued, and they’re worth their parents’ time.
Take for example the well-known, creative mind behind television shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal,” and “How to Get Away with Murder” Shonda Rhimes, who is also a mom of three girls. In her TED Talk, she explains that saying yes to everything especially when it comes to her children gave her her ‘hum’ back, and she rediscovered what truly matters most to her.
3. Show Our Children That We Can Lead
Our confidence trickles down to our children’s attitude. For example, when your family faces a stressful situation, your child(ren) will look to you as a point of reference on how they should feel. When they see that you’re worried, they will also feel uneasy. On the other hand, when they see that you’re confident in tackling that situation, they find emotional rest in that.
This ‘expectation’ is not to set a bar for every parent to act robotically and have their confidence intact at all times because that’s just not the case. What this communicates is that we have to show our children that they can look to us as leaders of our families. A good start would be to stay calm when they’re provoking us to react negatively towards them when their actions ruffle us. It shows that we’re capable of leading them as their parents and they can feel confident in our ability to raise them.
Conclusion
We have to remember that though they’re children and the weight of ‘real life’ responsibilities isn’t on their shoulders, they still get exhausted. Children face constant pressure at school, and in some cases, they get bullied. That in itself is emotionally taxing.
Also, take into consideration that every child is different. Some children may require more emotional rest than others, like introverts. Also, there are children with special needs that require additional attention and others whose personalities develop slower, thus requiring more time to process things that go on around them.
Children need their emotional rest, maybe in varying degrees but its nonetheless necessary. When they get it, they can grow to become the best version of themselves.
