Sadness, anger, hatred, disappointment, loss, shame... Understandably, as parents, we want our children to be happy. Of course. However, when this desire gets in the way of our ability to welcome our children’s uncomfortable emotions, we limit the depth, the breath, and the richness of our connection.

I think of different emotions as colours that surround us - every single one of them contributes to the fabric of our world. Similarly, every emotion contributes to the fabric of the children's lives, and they will experience all of them.

So the only real choice we have as parents - will we be there with them, holding their hands, helping them feel safe in the middle of the storm, or will we leave them to deal with those emotions on their own?

Even though it can be scary to open the door to the tangle of emotions, it helps children in many ways:

• Children need our help to manage big and possibly scary emotions. When we welcome those emotions, children learn that even uncomfortable feelings are safe, and it is ok to share them without hitting out with difficult behaviours.
• With our help, they can find their way back to their genuinely happy place (with less unfelt, unprocessed stuff under the carpet).
• We need to help them sort out their "emotional brain" before they can access their "rational brain".

When we help children regulate their emotions, they can come back to their calm and settled place and figure out their own solutions from there. When we rush to offer solutions while children are still feeling emotional, they often can't really hear what we are saying because their "rational brain" is still offline.

In this workshop, we will explore how we can apply these ideas in day-to-day parenting.