The Tsunami Trick
“Mommy, are you not feeling good?” Asked my seven-year-old noticing me slump in my seat.
“Yeah, just a little hiccup. I’ll be fine. Thank you for asking, darling,” I assured her.
“Is it anxiety?” She asked.
“Yes. I’m working through it, baby.”
“Sometimes my belly feels weird and my heart goes fast and that’s how anxiety grows in me,”she so eloquently put it.
“What do you do when that happens?” I was checking in.
“I breathe deep and exhale long. But if you’re home, what helps me the most is momma huggies,” she grinned wide as she leaned in for a hug.
“I also have a trick mommy, the tsunami trick. You want to try it?” She added.
“Sure,”I was curious.
“So close your eyes. Imagine you’re in your favorite place, I know that it Lake Superior, now, imagine you’re standing in the water. Push all your worries into the water and watch them float away, get ready because a five hundred feet tsunami comes to wash it all away.” She had one eye open as did I checking on each other.
I forgot about my anxiety for a minute there as I marveled at my emotionally equip child. We have worked on articulating feelings since she began speaking. Now here she was sharing coping mechanisms with me. This is a far cry from how I grew up.
As a child I learned masking mechanisms to appear strong to hide the fear, hide the discomfort, hide the struggles. I learned the art of deception to thrive, to survive. When trauma found me, I was entirely at a loss, unable to share, unable to cope. It ate at me searing into my psyche - this idea that I was flawed and weak. It has taken years of therapy to reconcile the fact that a dent in my mental health was typical of any human being and that I was allowed to feel that way and there were tools to deal with it. We have come a long way from ‘children should be seen and not heard’ In the upbringing of our children, I am committed to the fact that emotional intelligence and mental health sits right up there with confidence and courage and intelligence and manners and kindness.
The CDC reports :
· 3.2% of children aged 3-17 years (approximately 1.9 million) have diagnosed depression.
· 7.1% of children aged 3-17 years (approximately 4.4 million) have diagnosed anxiety.
Mental health issues strike from years a lot younger than we are used to discussing. Dealing with mental illness myself I have found it pertinent to educate my children on mental well being. My husband and I began with giving them vocabulary to articulate their emotions. “Are you hurting in your body or your feelings?” “Is your mind going too fast?” “Are you sad or scared?” “Are you feeling like you want to hide?” However, being children of the ‘seen not heard’ generation, we have occasionally fallen back into bad habits of asking our children to “toughen up”, “stop whining”, “it’s not a big deal”. It’s a daily commitment and we’re getting better at it. Intentional parenting takes work and it’s not for the faint of heart.
We realized ways in which we take emotional space from our children and catch ourselves before we do. We allow them space to feel even if those feelings are big. Acknowledging those feelings and offering support is my favorite part of building their emotional intelligence. Instead of imposing my hugs or comfort to them immediately, I ask them what they need, allowing them a chance to process their feelings and identify their needs then communicate them clearly. Every so often I get an “I don’t know.” To which a hug is intensely welcomed.
Allowing them to take a break from a difficult conversation usually involving discipline, to return once they are calmer increases their self control. My children, seven and five are learning to use tools to calm themselves without the pressure of repressing difficult emotions in a heated argument. I must say most days they do better than me.
Also as important as imparting skills and knowledge, modeling is a vital part of parenting. As such, modeling emotions and ways we manage those emotions are important. I’ve learned through my bouts of depression that my children are watching. Organically we have talked about it and named it and discussed ways they can support me as a family. Going through a state of emotional interruption can be a learning point for our children to witness that it is okay to sometimes feel not okay and it is okay to need help from our loved ones. It gives them permission to feel and know that they can reach out when they are struggling.
These are a few things that I have learned along the way, imperfectly but persistently. Mental health is a vital part of our child rearing but receives very little attention. We ought to prioritize nurturing tools for emotional intelligence in our children just like we prioritize education, extra curricular activities, and talent.