Emotional education at home, relationships and self-regulation

In our Parents School we had the visit of Alma Serra as our guest and with her we were able to reflect for almost two hours about the concept of emotional education and many of the issues that are directly related to this fundamental element in respectful parenting.

And the fact is that we are facing an important challenge due to the lack of references in this path we are traveling and the complex panorama in which we are immersed, both the schools that believe and bet on this type of education,

and at home with the constant difficulties we find to reconcile, to heal our wounds as adults and to accompany children as they need us in a reality in constant change and tension.

All these latent difficulties should not tarnish our purpose, because it is really something transcendental, something that we sow to harvest in following generations and it is the acceptance that we cannot educate without attending to emotions and without previously carrying out a deep personal work that leads us to love and accompany children calmly and with a balance that leaves aside the authoritarian paradigm and also the lax approach that flees from the limits and gives children some capabilities and a power of decision that does not correspond to them by their evolutionary moment. Setting limits is one of the greatest acts of love that exists, and it is a responsibility that adults in charge of children must assume.

Let us take advantage of all the questions raised by children to face our fears, our wounds, the insecurities that in many cases we carry from childhood, our difficulties in resolving conflicts and thus be able to connect with our true and essential self, which is what will allow us to really connect with them and move towards a more humane and peaceful world.

Some tools for this path, in addition to what has already been mentioned (looking inward and healing) and that our guest expert gave us, are clear and essential, although they do require a little time and calm, because in this parenting based on respect and love, we already know that there are no magic formulas:

– Reconnecting with the most essential and spiritual human values, such as contact with nature and practicing the qualities of spirituality: meditation, reading, contemplation, gratitude, being able to be moved by music, compassion, cooperation, unitary human sense, etc. To transfer these values is to help them endow their behaviour and actions with meaning and purpose

-To recognize the emotions in our body, to have corporal conscience and for this the regular practice of sport will be very beneficial.

-To expand our emotional vocabulary to be able to name how we feel, as well as to help them to expand theirs, because it will be very difficult to solve what they do not know how to name.

These actions will make us more connected to each other as a family, as a group and as a society and will help us to go through our lives with calmer and less conflicts. Even so, these are also part of life and learning, they are natural, and we can use other tools to help us regulate ourselves in those more difficult moments, therefore, in the conference we also talked about looking for different ways to regulate ourselves and in this way co-regulate the children.

In this sense, Alma Serra talks about staying in the conflict with our children, if necessary, without resorting to quick solutions out of fear or discomfort. To withdraw from the conflict to breathe if we need to, when from that previous work and connection with our body we feel that it gives us that signal of great and imminent danger that will end in a possible automatic action, such as screaming, for example, thus being able to reduce that feeling of guilt that accompanies families in parenting.

A very valuable tip is that we can check how we are self-regulating in these conflicts with three words that Alma has shared: intensity, duration and frequency.

These are just some of the fundamental steps we need to take to begin this journey of awareness and engagement with children.

We have a lot of capacity to move forward and do it better every day, let’s remain committed to transforming our relationship with children and the way we educate in schools!