“Don’t cry.” “Just toughen up.” “Shake it off.” These phrases, often well-intentioned, are ingrained in the fabric of how many adults communicate with children when faced with emotional distress. The underlying belief is that by encouraging kids to suppress their feelings, we’re building resilience and preparing them for the “real world.”
However, a wealth of psychological and neuroscientific research tells a very different story. Far from building strength, teaching children to sweep their emotions under the rug actually undermines their long-term resilience, increases anxiety, and hinders their ability to navigate life’s inevitable challenges. True resilience isn’t about ignoring emotions; it’s about acknowledging, understanding, and skillfully processing them.
The greatest curriculum of our year has been play therapy. While it’s easy to believe we are all just born with the ability to identify, process, and communicate emotion in healthy and effective ways, these are actually skills that need to be taught in order to equip kids with tools and techniques that will benefit them far into adulthood. Since being better equipped with these tools, I am amazed at the progression of emotional literacy and increasingly mature communication I see happening more often within the walls of our home. In fact, I am a firm believer we would all benefit greatly from this type of education being implemented in each grade of school.
The Detrimental Impact of Emotional Suppression
When we tell a child to “toughen up” or dismiss their feelings, we’re inadvertently sending several harmful messages:
1. “Your Emotions Are Not Valid”: This teaches children that certain feelings (like sadness, fear, or anger) are “bad” or unacceptable. They learn to distrust their own internal experiences, which are crucial signals about their needs and environment.
2. “You Are Alone in Your Feelings”: If a child is told to “get over it,” they learn that their emotional struggles must be handled in isolation, rather than seeking support or connection. This fosters a sense of loneliness and disconnection. And let’s be honest, none of us like to feel alone in our emotion…some of the richest moments in relationship are helping one another carry the sadness, fear, joy, etc.
3. Hinders Emotional Literacy: How can a child learn to manage an emotion if they aren’t even allowed to name it or feel it? Suppressing emotions prevents children from developing emotional literacy – the ability to identify, understand, and express feelings constructively.
4. The “Boiling Pot” Effect: Emotions don’t just disappear when ignored; they often fester, manifesting in other ways. Suppressed anxiety can lead to physical symptoms (stomach aches, headaches), behavioral problems (acting out, aggression), or internalizing disorders like depression and chronic anxiety later in life.
Research Insight: Studies show a strong correlation between emotional suppression in childhood and increased risk for anxiety disorders and depression in adulthood. For example, research consistently links habitual emotional suppression to poorer psychological well-being and less adaptive coping mechanisms (e.g., Gross, 1998; Aldao et al., 2010).
The Power of Emotional Processing
Building true resilience isn’t the absence of feeling; it’s the capacity to bounce back after feeling. It’s about navigating difficult emotions effectively, not avoiding them. Equipping children with tools to identify and process emotions is a far more effective strategy for building genuine fortitude. Here’s what research shows about the benefits of emotional intelligence:
1. Enhanced Self-Regulation: When children learn to identify what they’re feeling, they can begin to understand why they’re feeling it, and then choose how to respond. This is the core of self-regulation. Instead of a meltdown, they might say, “I’m feeling really frustrated because my tower keeps falling.” This simple act of naming the emotion is the first step toward managing it.
2. Research Insight: Studies on emotion regulation highlight that children who are taught to label and articulate their feelings show improved self-control, better social skills, and reduced behavioral problems (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2005; Ursache et al., 2012). Secure attachment with caregivers, consistent comfort, and modeling of good emotional behavior also contribute to better emotion regulation in children (American Psychological Association).
3. Stronger Problem-Solving Skills: Emotions often signal a problem or an unmet need. When children are allowed to feel and explore their emotions, they are better able to identify the root cause of their distress and work towards constructive solutions. Sweeping feelings away leaves the underlying problem unaddressed.
4. Greater Empathy and Social Competence: Children who understand and accept their own emotional landscape are better equipped to understand and empathize with the feelings of others. This leads to stronger, more authentic relationships and enhanced social competence.
5. Reduced Anxiety and Depression in Adulthood: Children who grow up in environments that validate their emotions and teach them healthy coping strategies are far more likely to develop into emotionally robust adults with lower rates of anxiety and depression. They learn that discomfort is temporary and that they possess the tools to navigate it.
* Research Insight: Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, authors of The Whole-Brain Child, advocate for helping children “name it to tame it” – the act of putting words to emotions helps children integrate and process them. This approach promotes neural integration and emotional well-being. Neuroscience research, including fMRI studies, supports this by showing that verbally labeling emotions decreases activity in the amygdala (the brain’s emotional center) and increases activity in the prefrontal cortex (the thinking brain), leading to greater emotional control (Lieberman et al., 2007).
Equipping Our Kids
Instead of “toughen up,” let’s embrace “tune in.” Here’s how us parents can cultivate true emotional resilience:
1. Validate, Don’t Dismiss: When your child is upset, acknowledge their feelings. “I see you’re feeling really sad about that.” “It’s okay to be angry.”
2. Name the Emotion: Help them put words to their feelings. “Are you feeling frustrated?” “That sounds like disappointment.”
3. Teach Coping Strategies: Once emotions are identified, equip them with healthy ways to process them: deep breaths, talking it out, drawing, physical activity, or taking a break.
4. Model Emotional Intelligence: Let your children see you acknowledge and process your own emotions in healthy ways.
5. Be a Safe Space: Create an environment where all emotions are welcome, and your child feels safe to share their inner world without judgment. True resilience isn’t a hard shell; it’s a flexible, well-managed inner world. By empowering our children to understand and process their emotions, we’re not making them “soft.” We’re equipping them with the most powerful tools for a mentally healthier, more resilient, and less anxious future.
Play Therapy Notes
The following are my notes I found to be helpful from the first few sessions of play therapy:
The only way humans connect is through emotion. The only emotion we cannot connect through is anger. That’s because anger isn’t really a real emotion, but rather a mask for fear, sadness, guilt or shame.
Sometimes us or a child can’t name what they are feeling but can notice what urges they are having and then be able to associate that urge with the feeling).
Anger (the urge might be to yell, attack, hit/kick, and fear, sadness, guilt or shame is underlying anger)
Fear (the urge might be to avoid, run, hide)
Sadness (the urge might be to cry or isolate)
Guilt (doing something against our moral code, the urge might be to hide from others)
Shame (feeling inadequate or unworthy or belonging or real relationship, the urge might be to hide from self and blame others for things they haven’t done to avoid looking inward at our own shame)
Love (the urge is to move towards, or to feel affection)
Disgust (our reaction is to push away: if dinner is yucky, we push it away; if someone mistreats us we may be disgusted by their actions and need time and space away, and that can be valid and healthy)
Joy (the urge is to smile and laugh)
Envy (the urge is to attack someone’s character, the more occasions we experience envy, the less confidence we have and the more insecurities grow)
If we take a moment at the end of each week (for both us and our kids) to write down a time they/we felt each emotion from the week, we will likely start to notice a consistency or pattern in whether it is fear, sadness, guilt or shame underlying our episodes of anger). It is also helpful on gaining insight into what each member of the family is felling or has experienced that maybe they didn’t share otherwise.
Because we connect through emotion, if there are people in your life that are harder to connect with (aside from basic differences in interests), it’s likely because they don’t allow themselves to feel or share certain emotions with others. Often times childhood or the world will tell us that stress, anxiety, fear, sadness, shame are “bad” emotions and that we should hide them, get rid of them or toughen up and power through them, instead of process them in healthy ways. They are not “bad” they are just an emotion, just as joy or love is, and each emotion needs to be processed in a healthy way in order to not have a constantly disregulated nervous system, a feeling of uneasiness/restlessness.
No matter how much we want to think that we can make someone happy or that we are responsible for their happiness, we aren’t and can’t. Yes, we can do things to bring others temporary or superficial happiness, but not lasting happiness. Only a person’s relationship with him/herself and with God can bring true and lasting happiness so we can free ourselves from that responsibility, otherwise we will burn ourselves out on the never-ending treadmill to a goal that will never happen.
It is important to differentiate facts from false perceptions (judgements). Most of the shame we feel isn’t actually true, but comes from believing false perceptions that we learned to believe in childhood or from others in the world. “If I don’t accomplish or perform, x y z I am not good enough.” “I am not worthy enough to have friends like this or a spouse like this…” etc. For example, if I say I focused too much on chores and administrative work today so I am not a good enough mom, that is not true. I am still a good enough mom. If I focused on playing with my kids too much today and neglected the house duties I might say I am not a good enough housewife. But that’s not true, I’m still a good enough housewife. If Dex didn’t finish his whole work to do list in a 10 hour day he may feel like he’s not a good enough employee, but it’s not true, he is a good enough employee! So, we start to build realities on these false perceptions and that leads to restlessness, anxiety and stress. But, if we can take time to sort out facts from false perceptions, it can be helpful to live in a truer reality.
It takes time to learn to identify emotion, to learn a toolbox worth of tool’s to use to process stuck emotions that we want to be unstuck, and to learn to communicate our emotions to our family and trusted friends in our lives.
A lot of times our mind is operating out of fear “I’m afraid this will happen tomorrow…” “I’m afraid that I did the wrong thing yesterday…” that we need to remind our mind and body that really, most of the time, we are NOT experiencing our fear in real time, but rather “I am safe!”, but when our thoughts live in our fears a majority of the time instead of in our realities “I am safe”, our body starts operating out of constant fear (aka a chronically dysregulated nervous system.
When we live in a dysregulated nervous system more often than a regulated nervous system, our brain can’t as easily or quickly switch on the logic side in times of high emotion and we need the logic side switched on in order to remember how to process our emotion in a healthy way. These mindfulness tools are things to practice once a day every day with your kids because every time you practice it, it reminds your brain that you can quickly and easily turn on the logic side of your brain, which comes in handy in an emotional moment:
Rainbow (kind of an I Spy game!): find something red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
Or
Senses: 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
Do this in the car or looking out the window or on a walk to the mailbox with kids.
When kids see us taking time to identify and process emotion instead of hide it, it gives them permission to do the same. We often think we shouldn’t feel an emotion or give too much attention to it, but when we hide it our mind and body is keeping it, which IS giving too much attention to it. If we briefly identify it and pull out our helpful tool to process it, it’s no longer stuck in us.
Here’s to having the courage to allowing time and space to have our struggles identified, and allowing God to refine us and sanctify us through them, in the way He sees best fit, so we can continue to become who He wants us to be.
References
- Aldao, A., Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Schweizer, S. (2010). Emotion regulation strategies across psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(2), 217-237.
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.). How to help kids understand and manage their emotions. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/parenting/emotion-regulation
- Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S. A., Guthrie, I. K., Murphy, B. C., & Reiser, M. (2005). Parental responses to children’s negative emotions: Longitudinal relations to children’s emotionality and regulation. Developmental Psychology, 41(1), 11-30.
- Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299.
- Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421-428.
- Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2012). The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind. Bantam Books.
- Teicher, M. H., Samson, J. A., Anderson, C. M., & Ohashi, K. (2016). The effects of childhood emotional maltreatment on brain structure and function. Psychiatric Annals, 46(3), 154-162.
- Ursache, A., Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2012). The ecology of self-regulation: Parental and child contributions to preschool children’s emotional and behavioral regulation. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 336-347.