Letting Feelings Be: A Guide to Understanding

Sometimes, I think about how little my parents knew when I was a kid. Not that they *didn’t care*, mind you – they did. They just...they got things wrong sometimes, and it always felt like such a big deal at the time. Like being told to stop crying when you really needed someone to just sit with you in your sadness. It's something I try my best not to do with my own class, even though I’m pretty sure half of them think my advice is just because I tell them to be polite and follow directions.

You see kids wrestle with big feelings every day – a scraped knee turns into a full-blown meltdown, losing a game feels like the end of the world. And what do we usually do? We try to fix it. “It’s okay! It wasn't that bad!” Or we distract them. "Let's go play something else!" But sometimes, what they really need is someone to let them *feel* that pain, that frustration, that disappointment. To just be present while they work through it.

I remember once, Mrs. Davison – a second-grade teacher who’d been doing this way longer than I have – saw little Marco crying because he couldn't tie his shoes like the other kids. My instinct was to show him a YouTube tutorial and push him to practice harder. She just sat beside him on the bench, humming softly, until he calmed down enough to talk about it. Then she acknowledged how frustrating that must be, and slowly, gently, helped him work through tying one knot. It wasn't about the shoes; it was about showing him he wasn’t alone in feeling frustrated.

It’s funny, isn't it? We put so much pressure on kids these days – to excel academically, to be involved in every extracurricular activity, to have a perfect social media presence. And when they struggle – when they *feel* like they’re failing – we panic. We push them harder, thinking that if we just get them to try harder, to do better, then everything will be okay. But what happens when all that pressure builds up?

I think back to summers at my grandmother's house in Delaware County. She never pushed me to be anything I wasn’t. If I was sad about something – a lost baseball game, a fight with a friend – she didn't try to cheer me up immediately. She just listened. Really *listened*. Then, she'd offer a plate of pasta and quietly let me talk it out until the edges of my sadness softened. She understood that sometimes, feeling sad wasn't something you needed to “fix.” It was something you needed to experience.

With younger kids, three or four years old, it’s about mirroring their emotions. If they're upset, you say something like, "You look really angry right now." Acknowledging the emotion helps them understand what they're feeling and gives them a way to express it verbally rather than through screaming or hitting. With older kids – maybe six, seven, eight – it’s about validating their feelings, even if you don't agree with their behavior. “It makes sense that you feel disappointed after losing the game.”

My own family definitely had its moments of awkwardness growing up. There were times when my mom would overreact to a minor disagreement between me and my sister, or my dad would try to brush off my feelings as "just being dramatic." Looking back, I realize they were probably just trying their best, drawing on what they knew about raising kids from their own upbringing. They didn't have the benefit of seeing how deeply that kind of dismissal could impact a kid’s sense of self.

This year, finishing up at school, it hit me: a lot of this isn't about specific strategies or techniques; it’s about being present and offering understanding. It’s about acknowledging that feelings are valid, even when they’re messy and uncomfortable. I spent the summer cooking my grandmother's Sunday gravy – layering flavors slowly, patiently, letting each ingredient contribute to something richer and more complex than any one component on its own. Raising kids is a little like that; it takes time, patience, and a willingness to sit with them in the heat of their emotions, even when you don’t know what to say or do. Sometimes, just being there *is* enough.