Most, if not all of us as parents, deal with how to help our children navigate big emotions. And as a Christian parent especially, I feel like this can be really challenging because we want to raise our kids in a Christ-like way. And so today’s guest on the podcast is here to help us with that. Marley Hayman is a wife and mama as well as an LPC associate working in private practice in a Christian counseling setting. She loves working with kids, helping them learn how to manage their big emotions, as well as walking alongside parents like you and me as they navigate their kids with those big emotions.
Big Emotions & Where They Come From
Marley see kids from three and up all the way through adulthood. Typically, what she’s seeing a lot of right now is behavioral challenges. A lot of times this is coming from maybe a classroom setting or things parents are seeing at home, including a lot of frustrations, anger, irritability, anxiety, stress, and then just that general like concept of, “I’m a bad kid”.
Marley points out that emotions themselves don’t have to be sinful, but they can easily become sinful. We’re born as sinners and so, us as parents are learning. We’ve had to navigate this all on our own and within ourselves, and now we’re recognizing this in our children. So we first have to recognize that we’re all born into sin and we all struggle with these things. It just looks different for our kids who don’t know how to process through it or have the skills or tools to know how to navigate it.
Marley has worked with kids for years in children’s ministry and two missions, and then she went down the counseling path. Though she initially wanted to focus on adults, the Lord kept sending kids her way. As a mom, she knew how challenging it was to deal with the big emotions, let alone have to take her child to counseling in general. The Lord has helped grow her into teaching kids these skills and meeting them where they’re at, while also seeing the value and beauty of pouring into the moms who are on this journey.
Marley has an 11 year old stepson, a two year old little boy and one on the way! For teens, she’s noticed the amount of peer pressure, social media and self-image and anxiety tend to play into the big emotions. With her toddler, emotions are shown differently. If he’s tired, that tends to come out in a meltdown or frustration or anger.
Challenges in Managing Big Emotions
For parents, some of the biggest challenges that come with handling our kids’ big emotions are that we’re feeling emotions of our own. Especially as a Christian mom, you can feel this pressure and weight to represent Christ well and lead them well as a Christian mom and not mess up. So you’re trying to regulate your emotions but some days that can be challenging. Maybe everybody is sick, they’re all overstimulated, they’re all tired. Being able to recognize that and see where you are emotionally if you need to take a pause is extremely important because your emotions can escalate your children’s emotions too.
Marley also mentions that with parents of multiple kids, recognizing that each of them are different and what works with one may not work with another is important. Seeing it as an opportunity from God to teach you to work through those general differences and how to parent them is the same for working with those different emotions too.
I feel like God definitely speaks through my kids to reach my heart and to teach me patience and self-control and so many other things. For the first 10 years of motherhood, anytime the kids would argue or fight, it would be a huge trigger for me. It wasn’t until I did a bunch of heart work that I was able to connect the dots and see why the experiences from my past led me to be triggered. So I do agree that it’s really important that we consider and recognize our own emotions and behavior and take that intentional pause versus flying off the handle.
Christ-Like Parenting with Big Emotions
Marley mentions that with each season she talks through, and each parent or child she works with, she is consistently learning and growing. She recognizes the importance of just sitting down with the Lord; for her, it’s early in the morning before her kids wake up which sets a good tone for the day. Sometimes, especially as the parent of a toddler, that doesn’t happen. It’s easy to feel like you’ve failed or think you’ll just do it tomorrow but it’s important to be intentional about planning that time each day, or finding other ways to fill your cup. Being able to recognize what you need to do that and incorporate the Lord into your day is going to help.
Marley also pointed out the importance of holding every thought captive. In the moment when your kids are driving you crazy, it can be easy to spiral and have our emotions escalate but if you can recognize those thoughts early and what they are telling you, and if they are pleasing the Lord and allowing you to grow as a mom and wife, it’s going to allow you to de-escalate which is huge. Also, take note of the importance of what you’re telling yourself each day.
When it comes to incorporating Christ into managing our kids emotions, it can be a challenge, especially in our world today where we see kids processing through so many emotions and mental health becoming such a big thing. You want to validate them and meet them where they’re at but you also want to teach them how to catch those emotions before they become sinful. Again, recognizing those emotions and knowing that sometimes they aren’t based on facts is an important conversation to have with your kids. Even bringing Scripture into it is important with examples like Moses and Jonah. Helping them see that people then struggled with the same emotions and they didn’t always do it right, but Jesus still loved them. It doesn’t make you bad because you’re feeling those emotions, we just have to work towards teaching ourselves tools to de-escalate and respond from healthier places before it reaches a place where we’re saying hurtful things or doing things that aren’t honoring to the Lord. So knowing that are our emotions are separate from our responses or reactions is important.
Tools for Parents & Kids
One of the tools that we can use to help our kids manage emotions is to speak truth over them. The book of Proverbs tells us how powerful words are so we want to speak truth about who they are, who God says they are and what God says about what they’re going through.
Marley mentions the importance of parents practicing these tools with ourselves first because it can be a humbling approach. Sit with the Lord and ask Him, “How am I communicating? Where am I at emotionally? Am I taking responsibility for myself first before I try and lead my children?” Then we need to model boundaries for our kids as well. If our kids are yelling at us or raising their voice, it’s a teaching moment to help them recognize they wouldn’t want us as parents to speak to them in that way, so you shouldn’t speak to people that way either. And then asking, what do we need to prevent that? Is it space, is it a pause? So modeling those boundaries for them but also for yourself is important.
Practicing these tools ourselves first, along with our kids shows some unity and it can be a bonding moment and an opportunity to learn more about each other.
Another tool that Marley talks about is hand breathing. Breathing is calming to our bodies, and it helps calm emotions. But for kids, they sometimes think that’s not what they need, so if we can help them find ways to do it that is more fun and engaging, it can be really helpful. With hand breathing, you trace your hand on a piece of paper and as you’re going up your hand on the paper, you breath in and then as you’re going down your fingers, you breath out, and you do that through the whole hand. And you can do that again with the other hand. Marley then takes it a step further to make it a competition; something like who can make the most hand tattoos and doodle or draw or color your hand the most – whatever resonates with your kids. So you're going to practice your breathing as you're tracing. And then you're going to practice redirecting your thoughts a little bit further as you're drawing or doodling or coloring your hand.
Another tool is deep breathing. This is where you take deep breaths, breathing in for four seconds, hold for a couple of seconds, and then breathe out for eight. And then you take it a step further. Marley gave the example of naming as many ice cream flavors as you can think of, and they make their list of all the ice cream flavors. And then list the toppings, etc. So again, you're just kind of making it fun for them to redirect without intentionally pushing them away from those thoughts. And after you do those, it's a lot easier to have a more logical conversation.
I just love all of the tangible tips Marley gave us today! I personally am so grateful for all the equipping that she did with us here as parents to help manage our kids (and our own) emotions from a Christ like perspective.
Connect with Marley!
