When children feel out of control, adults who share their calm can be immensely helpful to children. In addition, they model for children that it’s possible to manage Big Feelings. Slowing things down, being in the moment, reducing sensory input, talking in a voice that conveys safety, using an emotionally generous tone of voice and staying connected to your child are ways to help children when they are upset.
Here are 7 ways Gretchen helps Joseph that you can model to your children.
She’s always by his side offering support, love, and companionship.
She stays in control so, like Joseph’s mom, she shares her calm with him.
She alerts him that he is losing control of himself and helps him use a calming strategy so that he can think about solving the problem instead of being controlled by his big feelings.
Once he’s able to think instead of react, Gretchen helps him summon his will power (by flipping the switch on Robojo’s head) so that he could free himself of the feeling of being controlled and so that he could stop himself from thinking about what he wanted (keep watching TV) and start thinking about doing what was expected (go to bed).
She encourages him to breathe and then reinforces for him how he turned things around once he started breathing.
She models for him how staying in control leads to solving problems.
She partners with Joseph to defeat the HypnoZoids, and at the end of the story, Joseph pictures them both posing in the power position, victorious in the battle for self-control.
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Get ready to "BLAST OFF" with Joseph and Gretchen in their exciting big feelings adventure "Mission: CONTROL! A Big Feelings Adventure!" Buy your copy here.