Why facing emotional challenges is important for toddlers

Let your toddler experience and handle her emotions for better emotional health.

As parents, our main job is to keep our children healthy, happy and satisfied. But we often go to the extent of not letting them 'live' completely by being over-protective. Doctors and experts say that children who get dirty and are allowed to play in the mud have a stronger immune system, but as parents, we get super-paranoid about getting our children dirty and exposing them to god knows how many germs. Similarly, experts are also of the opinion that children should be allowed to be bored, for them to unleash their creativity to keep themselves entertained. What we, as parents, do on the other hand is flood them with toys, activities and hundred different things to keep them occupied. Of course, we can't be blamed. We want our children to be happy and have everything in the world that we can afford to give them. But as old people say, too much love can be suffocating sometimes. And same applies to when our children have a meltdown or are cranky, annoyed, upset or even downright angry. As toddlers, children have difficulty processing the big emotions they suddenly start experiencing and they don't know how to express it. As parents, where we often go wrong is that we don't let them find an outlet and express it in the right way. We resort to things like distracting them, offering candy or toys so they will give up crying, but we seldom help toddlers to internalise and cope with the emotions themselves, feels Dr Shuchi Dalvi, child psychologist.

"If your child is experiencing anger, a major issue with most toddlers, don't always distract her. Help her learn ways to calm down instead, that she can even use later. Ways like counting numbers, breathing or even stepping away from the situation will help your child control her anger without getting violent or too aggressive. Of course, it will take a lot of time and patience to help her develop that, and you will have to be very calm and gentle too, but it will work," says Shuchi Dalvi. "Letting our children handle their emotions in a positive way is important for their emotional growth. Letting your children face their emotional challenges, instead of running away from it, will help them grow up to be more healthy individuals who will be in control of their emotions. As grown ups, we have difficulty at times processing our emotions, because we have not been taught better, so we should repeat the same mistakes with our children."

Let them face their emotions and give them positive outlets. Distracting and letting go will work now, but 10 years down the line it will be difficult for your child to cope with her emotions and for you to change her ways.

Image: Shutterstock