Learning to share concerns
Could talking about emotions and concerns for the future help caregivers connect with children?
Authors
Thinking about the future can leave adults and children feeling concerned, confused, or frustrated. While adults often have plenty of words to describe their emotions, it can take time for children to develop the ability to engage in complex conversations about emotions. Adults can help children in this journey by talking about emotions and sharing strategies for managing their feelings.
It helps if adults also take the time to learn about emotions and how to regulate themselves. An approach called emotion coaching can help buffer childhood stress, and teaches adults to find their own calm first and prepare for difficult moments with self-care. When caregivers have the tools to teach emotion understanding to kids, the knock-on benefits for children can include reduced anxiety, improved behaviour, and less fighting.
Both stress and anxiety are on the rise in children and in parents. While there’s no easy fix, adults can help young people build resilience and protect their mental health through practising emotional skills. Could talking about emotions and concerns for the future help adults connect with children and discover new ideas?
This video is part of the animation ‘Learning to thrive’. The animation and related resources bring these ideas to life, providing a space to engage in thinking about how caregivers and educators might support young people to thrive. This is also a space for researchers and science journalists to share the latest evidence on the role of nature, play, creativity and agency in young people’s wellbeing.
Our world can be an amazing place, full of wonder and surprise.
But it is also a world facing challenges that can leave us feeling concerned, confused or frustrated.
When we think about our future, these challenges and the uncertainties they create can cause anxiety.
In children, as well as adults.
This anxiety can lead to a sense of helplessness, making it harder to act or think about things in a more positive way.
Sharing our thoughts and concerns with those close to us isn’t always easy.
For children, this may feel particularly difficult — which challenges us as adults too.
We might be afraid of saying the wrong thing. Or perhaps not knowing enough.
But could saying or doing nothing make things worse? What if we could better connect with one another? With the world around us? With the concerns that we have for our futures?
Although our anxieties and concerns can leave us feeling overwhelmed and uncertain, with a little support we just might discover that
there are ideas all around us.
The more opportunities we take to connect with nature and notice its effects…
The more we can help each other to thrive.
Authors
Footnotes
Produced by PositiveNegatives for BOLD
In collaboration with Lifeworlds
Powered by the Jacobs Foundation
Direction
Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix
Scriptwriter
John Servante
Illustration
Gabi Froden
Animation
Diana García