Should Parents Show Negative Emotions to Children?

British psychologists recently published results of their study on whether parents should show negative emotions to children.

The scientists note that the common behavior model, when parents protect their children by trying to hide sadness or bad mood, has negative implications, since the child can never learn to show his or her own feelings.

At the same time, parents need to understand that when such emotions as aggression or anger are displayed in front of a child, even if not directed towards the child, they have negative impact on the child’s psyche.

The authors explain that at such moments the child perceives the reaction of the loved one as a standard one and this behavior will be used as a model on how to react in similar situations. Furthermore, in 95% of cases when those children will face similar situations they will react like their parents taught them to – get irritated, yell, and act aggressively and rudely.

On the other hand, psychologists note that parents should not ”wear” a duty smile when something sad happens to them. Children of any age need to see that their parents are real people, who also experience a wide range of emotions and feelings. The authors highlight that at those moments it is important to explain to children why the parent’s facial expression stopped being happy, otherwise the child can feel guilt and start withdrawing from society. Such simple phrase as ”everything is OK, mommy is just a little bit tired” will immediately bring back the sense of confidence to the child.

Yet, the psychologists note that only 24% of parents think it is important to explain the reason of their state of mind and vast majority of British parents resolve to the easiest phrase ”nothing happened, everything is OK.”

Source of the image: Photl.