I like to put my vulnerabilities out there, up front and center. I started this blog intending to write about building bounce with our children. However, I found that I couldn’t just start it, as this is a skill I am just now learning myself; which makes it hard to write about something in which I still feel like a beginner. (Maybe it’s because parenting is hard, and I don’t feel like I even have my own stuff figured out, let alone my kids.) Regardless, whether beginner or expert, this “building bounce” concept is a vital part of raising joy-filled children.
Last week, Jen introduced “building bounce” as another way to say ’emotional regulation’, or ‘returning to joy’. All three phrases mean the same thing: learning to recover from an upsetting, negative emotion. We talked last month about the importance of attunement, and this building bounce step builds on top of that. In other words, “building bounce is taking attunement to the next level. You will notice some overlap between these habits, because building bounce always starts with attunement, then adds the step of helping our children regulate their emotions.” (p. 39)
I had an opportunity to practice this just the other day with my daughter. I was heading out to spend time with my mom, and I knew my daughter would be disappointed that she didn’t get to come along and have a “girls’ day.” As I was preparing to leave, I shared with her that I knew she would likely feel sad, but that I was going to be going out with Yaya (our nickname for grandmother) and she wouldn’t be able to come this time. I saw her face draw up in sadness, and I walked over and asked if she would like a hug. She nodded and as I hugged her, I told her that we would find another time the three of us could have a girls’ day soon. She took a deep breath and said, “Okay” and a few minutes later she was back to her smiley self.
To be honest, I was a bit surprised that the interaction wasn’t more drawn out, but I realized that I had attuned to an emotion she would likely feel, was with her when she actually felt it, and came up with a way she could return to joy (i.e. go with us next time.) The attunement laid the groundwork for the sadness, and she could get back more quickly to joy.
Sadness is an emotion that is easy for me to be in with my children. It’s an emotion that I have learned to self-regulate. So what do I do when it’s a really difficult emotion for me to stay in, like anger or hopelessness?
In those situations, I will do my best to stay attuned but I also communicate what is going on inside of me. I say something like, “I know you’re upset right now. I would be too. This is a big feeling for you. And to be honest, it’s a big feeling for me too. Let’s spend a few minutes practicing our breathing and quieting ourselves before we continue to talk about it.” Other times I can’t communicate what is going on inside of me, and I often have to leave and come back later to repair. It’s not ideal, but repairing is one of the most important aspects of parenting – especially since we can’t always get it right.
I’ve also found that with these big negative emotions that I’m learning to navigate, it’s important for me to find those friends or support people in my life that can help me co-regulate them. I can ask these people for stories of times when they felt the same emotion and how they returned to joy. It’s important to note that we have to be very careful not to use our children to help us co-regulate our emotions. Building bounce is a one way street from parent to child.
My eldest is highly sensitive and picks up on my emotions easily. He will sometimes try to help by asking what’s wrong and how he can help me. It would be easy for me to let it all out with him, but this places additional burdens on him as a child. My response is, “Yes, I feel ____ and I appreciate you asking. But I’m spending time with Jesus right now to help me process this.” Or, “Thank you for being so caring. I’m upset about ____ but I plan to talk to your dad/a friend about it so they can help me.”
If we did not receive help regulating these big emotions as children, we will still need help regulating them as adults. This is where it takes some intentional work to find people who can regulate those feelings, and ask them to share their stories with us. It’s also where, as believers, we will need to ask Immanuel to show us those places and speak to us in them. We also have to learn what things can help us return to joy after upsetting emotions. Things like taking a walk, deep breathing exercises, writing in a journal, or even coloring, can help us get back online.
The last, but one of the most important things, about building bounce is emotional vocabulary. As we are teaching our children how to emotionally regulate, it’s vital that we help them find the words for those feelings. A great tool that we have used in our house as a game and resource is this Feelings in a Flash flashcard game. It not only has words for a variety of emotions, but also has scenarios to ask kids how they would feel or react in situations. For extra training in non verbal skills (and some laughs), try to act those situations out as a game of charades.
Lieza, I love reading your articles. You are the real deal and I love and respect you. I do wish I had you and other “thriving Mamas” in my life as a mother of four years ago but alas, it’s never too late! Now, as a grandmother of 13 and living around 7 of the youngest ones, this gives me many an opportunity to practice these skills with them and times to reflect and work on the areas I still need practice in recovering from big emotions. Thank you for writing and sharing your life vulnerably with us.
Thanks Amelia! I so appreciate your comment (and support.) What you said is so important, it’s never too late to learn these skills and pass them onto grandchildren. 💕
Thank you!
I am really struggling with my 7 year old girl and anger. She hit and screams and destroys things. Mostly when she is told no. We have tried the … ok sweetheart seems you need more practice being told no…. we attune to how she is feeling. Usually angry. We state what we see. I feel like I have used all the tools. But still we are in this place w her. I have read the new parenting book also. Trying to incorporate those things. But still…. she is so angry 🙁 Any thoughts or resources appreciated.
I totally understand, Kelly. My son went through a similar phase. The biggest thing for us was coming up with a “game plan” when he was calm and had his relational circuits on, to figure out what he could do when he was angry. For example, we found a used punching bag and put that in a corner of our basement. When he’s angry, I’ll attune with, “I can see how upset you are right now. I know this is big for you. You can choose: do you want to go punch the punching bag or would you like a hug?” It works so much better to help them find their outlets when they are calm and then bring them to said outlets when they’re having an angry outburst. I have had to sometimes bring him to the punching bag and encouraged him to use it before he would actually do it. The other important thing is to model what we do with our own anger. My husband and I have found that sitting (or even laying) down when we’re angry tells our bodies to start calming down. I’ve done this when my kids are upset with me, and I invite them to take deep breaths (which we practice outside of just angry outbursts also.) And when I see them calming down, I invite them to sit or lay down with me. I hope these things could be helpful – please keep me posted if you try them. You’re doing great, mama! Keep up the hard work.