My Kid Is in a Bad Mood: What to Do and How to Help?
Children are extremely volatile, the very next moment they are completely different from what they are now. Is it right, or maybe this requires consideration and adjustment, so that your kid can learn to keep emotions well in hand?
Anyway, a good parent will always evince empathy: you ought to show that you notice and recognize the child’s feelings and are ready to share or otherwise react to them.
If the child registers anxiety or perplexity, your first wish would be to mend matters. Sad feelings can be treated with sweets or an ice-cream, aggression can be diverted with a video game, but these measures are not so efficacious: sweets and screens don’t really douse feelings, and incidentally add unnecessary weight.
If it isn’t a case of a grave emotional crisis, let the child work out their own way out of a problematic situation.
Emotionwise, there is one basic skill your child has got to learn: how to divert oneself from feelings that hang heavy on the heart – which means are healthy and which are not.
Explain to the kid that it is but natural to feel sad or unsettled or angry, but there’s no need to remain long under the influence of these feelings. Also, it’s not healthy to seek relief in getting engrossed in a video game or downing junk food; they can get back to happiness without resorting to these practices. We can take a closer look at what can be done on each particular occasion.
She’s Sad
Sadness is an emotion that overwhelms all of us at due times. The considerate parent recognizes the condition and attempts to discover its underlying reasons.
It doesn’t mean we can settle the issue at the drop of a hat or dissolve the sad feeling. You and your child need foremost to identify it for what it is and learn to put up with it. This way the child grows to know what he or she feels and can name and discuss the dominant emotion.
Your kid is angry
Discover the reason behind the kid’s fit of anger, inquire what can be done to allay the outburst. If it’s a case of a toy taken hold of without permission, explain that they must reclaim it instead of fighting for it. It’s all right to feel mad, the idea is not to quell the feeling, but to be able to deal with it. The anger dealt with properly will wear off by itself.
She’s so disappointed
In the course of life some happenings will be disappointing. The kid gets upset just as we do when they encounter frustrating circumstances. Once again, we have to live it down and balance the feeling as well as we can.
People do get disappointed and chagrined, and these feelings ought to be acknowledged. Still, it mustn’t prevent us from reaching for what we want instead of claiming the grapes are sour and turning away. Pretense is an unhealthy reaction to frustration.
Is your kid bored?
Many children grow up convicted that parents are here to entertain them; when they fail to do so, children begin to look around for others who could involve them. They must be taught to have fun on their own, then.
Get the little ones to think up amusing games or activities, preferably active ones and not on-screen games. Phrase the question like: “What do you want to do moving?” and put in a few suggestions – riding, taking a trip through the local park, playing outdoor games, those conducive to a healthy lifestyle.
Or is he hungry?
The first thought to consider is whether the kid is simply hungry. With some of the little folks anger or boredom comes with getting hungry or tired. Ask them if they want to make a break for a snack or a nap – and if they don’t, come up with a game to be played with you or on their own.
Goodies or a shut-eye not desired, suggest ways to spend time merrily.
Dance. Music can dispel low feelings. Get ready a playlist of your kid’s favorite songs that are sure to fire him or her up for moving to the rhythm.
Get irritants out of the way. By this time you know what factors can get your child down: tiredness, a sedentary spell before TV, the day’s temperature – maybe you can just banish them, and the child will calm down.
Smile at them or get them to smile. It has long been known that smiling (even forced smiling) can bring back brightness into life. Compete for the widest smile to invite hilarious feelings.
Find joy. Keep in mind things that make your child(ren) glad and bring them in whenever you want them to stop feeling the way they are doing.
Use low moods for teaching the kid. They make for a good example of how to distinguish between bad feeling and unworthy behavior, how to acknowledge the feeling and understand that it is but natural and quite all right – so long as he or she do not use it as the reason to quarrel with or hit other children/siblings.
Find alternatives for screen time. While TV and gadgets are often involved to give parents time for handling housework (or resting), you can easily overdo it and breed reliance on on-screen entertainment for pastime. Mind you spend enough time face to face with your kids.
With pre-teens and teens, hormones can affect their behavior and moods to a remarkable extent, oftentimes pushing them to extremes. When this is the case, stay patient, understanding and take the rough with the smooth. Meanwhile, it isn’t meant to shake either the rules of the house that are based on mutual respect or consistency. On the other hands, demands had better be reasonably simplified to avoid unnecessary conflict.
Kids’ schedule mustn’t be too busy – it can generate bad feelings. People of all ages need time allotted to wind down, take a break from the strain of the day and the diverse feelings brought on by the vicissitudes of the day. Also, everyone needs to spend some time in daydreaming and wallowing in imaginings, which are of great help in developing creative thinking which can also be helpful in solving problems. These qualities could be developed from early on, and need conditions for evolving.
Should you observe that low moods are recurrent and begin to pose a problem, it is time to consult a professional. The behaviors that make a serious indication of a looming trouble are frequent bouts of anger or irritability, low control over emotions, tendency to isolation, laboring under stress, haunting sadness, inflicting self-harm, abrupt changes in sleeping and eating habits, poor academic achievements. These are red signals that should be picked up on.
