Posted by Lynne Kenney, PsyD on February 13, 2023 · Leave a Comment
How can you help kids deal with BIG feelings or emotions? With all the stress kicked into high gear by the holiday season -or any time kids are overly anxious- help children to understand and reframe their feelings and life experiences by having a Cognitive Conversation that recognizes and acknowledges their emotions and then lets them decide how long they want to continue to feel that way…
Consider a conversation that sounds something like this:
Kids! We all have BIG feelings sometimes. Some experiences bring us feelings of frustration, anxiety or anger. Let’s talk about times when we might make a decision about how long we will be “in” our feelings and when we will choose to let them go. Will we be “in” our feelings for 10 seconds, 10 minutes or 10 hours? You decide. Here’s an example…
If you waited in line for an ice cream cone and when it’s finally your turn, you learn they are out of vanilla ice cream, you might say to yourself, “That is super frustrating. I was so hungry for a vanilla cone. I’ll give this 10 seconds and then ask for a chocolate one.”
I’ll Give This 10! is a practical tool for feelings exploration, cognitive reframing and mood modulation.
In I’ll Give This 10, we learn how to recognize that when we are having BIG feelings, we name them and then tell ourselves how long we plan to experience these BIG feelings. We usually choose to “feel our emotions” for 10 seconds, 10 minutes, or 10 hours. Of course, this “rule of 10” is a cognitive construct, it could be 2 minutes or 27 minutes. But children get “10,” so it is a wonderful starting point to help a child to determine:
- “HOW BIG is this feeling?”
- “HOW LONG am I going to let this feeling determine my thoughts and behaviors?”
- “WHEN will I let this feeling go?”
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