FREE TO FEEL // Support emotional intelligence through self-regulation & emotion coaching

Upbringing

Today we’re back as we explore our kids’ FREEDOM TO FEEL! Does your kid struggle with big feelings? Do YOU struggle with their big feelings, not to mention your own? This week we explore how BIG FEELINGS are a gift-- an opportunity to nurture our nervous systems, build emotional intelligence and maintain our connection through it all.

How can we sensitively support our kids’ big feelings when we ourselves can hardly keep it together? Dig in with us for a deeper understanding of why meltdowns happen, what we can do to support ourselves as well as our kids, and why it’s so critical that we attempt this.

This episode is about WHY and HOW we can be responding to our kids big feelings instead of reacting to them. It’s about taking a HUGE shitty long list of work off our plate and swapping it for two things: bravery and effort. We’ll be exploring ways we can align our day-today struggles during kids big feelings with our true goals for their future and ideals for our best selves, too. We’ll look at how big feelings are a chance for us BOTH to build skills, stay connected, and grow as people and family. And as we confront our conditioning, set goals to break harmful cycles and HEAL we will be, in moments of big feelings, putting our energy where it should be - in loving ourselves and our kids. We laugh, we cry, we lean in. Join us!

Mental Mantras we explore:

- Feelings are information
- Gotta self-reg to co-reg, baby

- There's a need beneath the feeling

- It’s not an emergency

- Gotta find my happy place

- I need to make this better, not worse

- They just need my support

- This will pass

Relevant Links + resources that informed this episode:

- Upbringing’s Freedoms Model
- Upbringing’s RESIST Approach

- Upbringing's Empowerment Episode: We Welcome All Emotions

- Introvert Definition

- Eckart Tolle / The Power of Now

- Byron Katie / Past, Present & Future

- Self-regulation / Co-regulation

- Grounding strategies

- The Mindy Project

- 30 Rock

- Spirited kids

- Sensitive kids

- Brene Brown / vulnerability, shame, belonging

- Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman

- Raising Humans by Ross Greene

- De-Escalate by Douglas E. Noll

- Burnout by Emily & Amelia Nagoski

- Now Say This by Julie Wright and Heather Sturgeon

- Hold Onto Your Kids: Why Parents Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld

- The Whole-Brain Child- Dan Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson

- Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break The Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage

With Life by Stuart Shanker
- The Good News About Bad Behavior by Katherine Reynolds-Lewis

- Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B Rosenburg

- Amber Okamura, Upbringing’s Artist

- Mary Schroeder, Upbringing’s Letterer

- Alex Olavarria, our producer, conductor, editor + husband/brother in law

Today’s episode is supported by A Kid’s Book About- a collection of beautifully designed books that kickstart challenging and empowering conversations between kids and their grownups.

Visit our website, www.upbringing.co to learn more about us and sign up for our newsletter! We want to hear your thoughts. We care deeply about what you think and how you’re doin’, so get in touch -- we’re better together.

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