Resources for Parents
How to manage your emotions?
Feelings and emotions!
Feelings are challenging. Sometimes they are a cry for help, other times they provide us with that warm fuzzy feeling. ‘Managing our Emotions’ is one of the skills that we teach young people. Help us to help them to recognise these different emotions and feelings.
At New Ways for Life, we have put together a cheat sheet of emotions. You could chat to your children about what feelings they might be experiencing on a day to day basis. Knowing how to manage their emotions is an important life skill. It will enable them to be better equipped, especially when a stressful situation presents itself.
Our "Brains" and stress.
Our brains have a left side and a right side. We know that both sides are responsible for different feelings and actions. Put simply, our LEFT side of the brain is responsible for problem solving, calmness and contentment. Our RIGHT side is responsible for our safety, gut feelings, defensive thinking. If we can understand what each side does when we are stressed, it will explain the problems that arise when we’re upset, angry or stressed and we don’t think very clearly.
Another part of the brain. "Mirror Neurons"
Did you know that emotions are contagious. When we are watching someone doing something, in our minds we picture ourselves doing the same thing. Or if someone is calm, we start to act calm. We absorb all of that in our brains. In terms of emotions: If someone is really angry, we start to act inside ourselves as if we are angry. Being aware of this and understanding WHY? is the key to having control over our own feelings.
