Leading Your Kids Through Difficult EmotionsSýnishorn

Emotions are Information

It is important for kids to learn how to handle difficult emotions without sinning. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to “guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”. Teaching our children how to handle their strong feelings helps make sure that what flows from their hearts into their lives is the Fruit of the Spirit instead of darkness, violence, and hurt.

We aren’t born knowing about our emotions—their names, functions, and how to express them appropriately—all these things are learned. Many of us are “grown-up” before we learn to put words to our emotions and express them without sin. Some of us never learn no matter how old we get!

God gave us all our emotions. God himself has emotions. Emotions are not sin. They are also not commands to be obeyed. Emotions are information revealing where we are mentally, physically, and spiritually and they help us understand what we need. Our children’s emotions are information we can use to help us lead them well, not punish, shame, or ignore them. That is how we obey Colossians 3:21 and Ephesians 6:4, raising our children with God’s compassion and truth without causing them discouragement, resentment, or disconnection from us and the Lord. Our children are our “flock”, as it says in 1 Peter 5:2-3, and we are to shepherd them by being examples to them.

Handling difficult emotions, both ours and our kids, in a God-honoring way includes communicating feelings with respectful words and asking for what we need. As parents, we model this for our children as an important part of teaching them to practice the same.

In this reading plan, we will learn about leading our kids through Anger, Disappointment, Grief and Loss, and Anxiety.