Acknowledging Children's Feelings

FEELINGS
This article is about letting our children choose their feelings.
Let me begin by narrating this incident to get a glimpse of life of an eleven year old. While reading it you will realize he is not alone in following this schedule, there are tens of thousands of children living similar lives!
I am at the dentist waiting for my turn. The place is crowded and my eyes fall on this 11 year old boy and his mother. A friendly, smiling duo! I find myself not only smiling at them but chatting with them. The little boy and I are speaking about his favorite time at school. I am expecting him to say Game Period, but he is saying, “I like free periods. This is the only time I get to play freely”. “Really? How about playing in the evening, after you get back home? “I ask him. He has got into a long monologue now, “I reach home at 2 p.m. Have my lunch and change. Complete my school work or tuition work. Then I go for tuitions and come home only at 7.30 p.m. it is dinner time and then bed-time. I do not have holidays on Saturdays.” I find myself saying, “O.K. Then you have your Sundays for doing what you want, right?” “No. On Sundays I wake early to go to the temple and I learn about our religion. Then I complete my pending school work or prepare for some test or the other. I watch some Television and the day is over”
The point is not whether this routine is good or bad; it is about experiencing choice. Do we even allow children to have choices about their feelings and thought? Are we alright if our ten year old gets up in the morning and says, “I feel tired?” Or our eight year old says, “I hate Bharati. She is the meanest girl”. And Bharati is a friend and not a bully. Or our three year old starts bawling after falling down and he is only bruised. Or our twelve year old says, “I am ugly” or “I am dumb.”
The way we would react to such statements is, “How can you be tired, you have just woken up?” “Bharati is your friend and how can you hate her?” “Common stop crying, you are not really hurt.”
What are doing in this process?
We are denying their feelings, telling them what they are feeling is incorrect, when it is the most natural thing about being human.
Let us not confuse feelings and behavior. I am not suggesting that, if your child is throwing things when she is angry you do not stop her. I will come back to this point later. Let me take a little detour and speak about how children have an ability to transfer their feelings to us.
Let me explain by giving the example of my boss. In one of our meetings she was speaking about how as a teacher, she had a noisy class and that she was shouting at the top of their voice to make them quiet. The principal of the school pointed out to her, “You are doing exactly what they are.” I always remembered this and whenever my class would get noisy, I would just stand quietly to show my disapproval and some student would notice and ask other to keep quiet and it would be quiet in no time. I would respond with a thank-you.
Coming back to handing a child throwing toys out of anger; the first thing to do is to respond to her feeling and say, “You seem furious, but toys are not for throwing.” The child may be stopped from throwing toys by picking her up from that situation and acknowledging her anger and then addressing her behavior.
The bottom line is that children choose how they feel; we acknowledge them and speak about our expectations about their behavior.