“Parenting a Big Feeler”, A Guest Post by Elizabeth Laing Thompson

 

I had the pleasure of chatting with Elizabeth Laing Thompson on the podcast a few weeks back, all about her brand new book, “All the Feels: Why Emotions Are (Mostly) Awesome and How to Untangle Them When They’re Not”. Today, I’m delighted for her to be guest posting for me here on the blog, giving you the chance to hear from her again!

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As a family of six, we have a range of personalities, feelings, and opinions floating around our house. All four of our children contribute to the family mood, but the big feelers do so with a little extra spice and flair! 

Big-feeling children experience life’s joys and pains in high-definition, and their hearts need special kinds of care and guidance. What a privilege to see life through their insightful eyes and share in their passionate experience of the world! Parenting big-feelers is both a joy and a challenge: we long to protect them from harm, yet need to help them become resilient and strong. How can we shepherd our big feelers and prepare them to thrive? 

5 Ways to Help Our Big Feelers

1. Acknowledge kids’ feelings and help them move forward.

Don’t be sad.

You have nothing to worry about!

Shake it off and get happy.

Don’t be so sensitive!

Have you ever had someone try to tell you how to feel? It doesn’t work, does it? And yet how tempting it can be to do this with our kids! Children need to know that we care about and acknowledge their feelings, even the hard ones. 

But our parenting doesn’t stop there. We don’t just say, “I see that you are frustrated,” and leave it at that—children also need our help to learn to work through their frustration in ways that are kind and godly. Once children have named their feelings, we can help them find righteous solutions. Perhaps we share a Scripture that helps them to choose a more positive attitude or faithful perspective; maybe we teach them to express frustration calmly, without shouting; maybe we help them brainstorm solutions to their problems.

 

2. Share your own stories. 

As a big feeler myself, I’ve got a zillion stories from my own emotional journey. My kids love hearing my dramatic stories, like the time I cried so hard I got my dad out of a speeding ticket, the time I sulked for hours over a canceled basketball game, and—well, I could list memories for days. Sharing our own moments of struggle and success not only bonds us with our children, it also helps them feel understood—not alone in their feelings—and helps them envision their own growth. 

Even now, I share with my kids the Scriptures and strategies God is using to help me with my grown-up big feelings, and each of these conversations is a powerful point of heart-level connection and shared growth.  

 

3. Draw out all the feelers in your house (not just the big feelers).

 

As parents, we want to create an environment where every family member feels healthy, happy, and heard. Two of my four children are not only big feelers, they are loud big feelers. When they are excited, the whole family (maybe even the whole neighborhood!) knows it. When they are upset, we can’t help but overhear. I never worry that their emotions are going to go unacknowledged, because they are not afraid to assert them! 

But another child is different: Although he is a deep feeler, his feelings often get trapped inside. He has trouble translating feelings into words. It can take him a long time to find a way to name, much less put into words, what he is feeling. He also has a more thoughtful, quiet personality—he doesn’t need to take center stage. Because of that, his feelings can get drowned out by the louder personalities in the house. We have to make a point to give him opportunities to speak, and to remind the girls to slow down and really listen to him. 

Over the years, we have adopted and adapted Philippians 2:4 (nlt) as a family mantra: “Don’t look out only for your own interests [and feelings!], but take an interest in others, too.” 

 

4. Don’t let the big feelers rule the roost.

Big-feeling children often need our help to find healthy expression and godly resolution for their emotions so their changing moods don’t dominate the family mood. This is a complicated part of parenting a big feeler, but it’s among the most important. It’s not that the rest of the family doesn’t care about the big feeler’s emotions, but we don’t stop or reroute the family train every time the big feeler is having a moment. 

And keep in mind: The big feeler shouldn’t always get their way just because they demand it so passionately. It can be tempting to always let the big feeler choose the family movie because they are so excited and convincing . . . but what about the quieter child? Do they also have an opinion? It may feel easiest to just pick a different restaurant because the big-feeling child is vehemently protesting the original plan . . . but what does the rest of the family want? Learning flexibility and selflessness is a priceless lesson for big feelers, a lesson that will prepare them to be great friends and siblings now, and eventually, great roommates, spouses, and parents! 

 

5. Teach kids the power of prayer.

One of my daughters recently had some trouble with friends at school, and the feelings were flowing. I couldn’t solve the problem for her, so we did the only thing we could do: We prayed about it. When we finished, the problem hadn’t gone away, but we both felt a little better: she because praying reminded her that God cared about her problems; I because praying reminded me that God is a better parent than I am—and my daughter was (and is) in his capable hands! When big feelings fly, we won’t always be able to “fix” the problem—but we can teach our children to take their feelings and problems to the One who can: their loving Father in heaven.

 

 

Shepherding our children’s emotions is one of the most complex but rewarding parts of parenthood. The more we draw out and engage with our children’s emotions, the more we will experience the kind of heart-level closeness we long to have, the kind of relationship Paul described in Ephesians 4:15-16 (nlt) to the church family in Ephesus: “We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

 

About the Author:

Elizabeth Laing Thompson is the author of When God Says, “Wait” and When God Says, “Go.” She writes at ElizabethLaingThompson.com about clinging to Christ through the chaos of daily life. As a speaker and novelist, she loves finding humor in holiness and hope in heartache. Elizabeth lives in North Carolina with her preacher husband and four spunky kids, and they make her feel humbled but happy, exhausted but exhilarated, sometimes stressed but often silly—well, you know . . . all the feels.