Feelings By A.I.R. Charmaine Gumbs

Let us be honest, being a parent is a wonderful thing, but it can be hard and sometimes really challenging. Children do not come with instructions and parenting does not come with a manual.

As parents we are our children’s first teacher, and what we teach them as babies are what they became as adults. It starts in the womb and as a mother what we put into us is what we also put into our baby. We are responsible for teaching our children how to find, manage and cope with their emotions. As a mother, some of us do not provide a safe and healthy haven where there is security in expressing their feelings.

We are in a society where children are emotionally unavailable, we wonder why they find it hard to express their emotions. It begins in the womb, we not only put nourishment into the fetus we also put into them what we are going through emotionally and mentally. If you are not in a healthy environment the fetus is not as well. They find it hard to express their emotions because they lacked that when they were young. Their individuals who from young that in their childhood raised without the tools needed to be emotionally healthy they tell themselves that they cannot express their emotions or be vulnerable or have the emotional intelligence or the emotional ability to express themselves without the fear of judged. They do not show emotions and are forced to grow up when, yet they are still growing themselves and  lacking the navigational tools needed to manage and cope with their feeling when they become adults.

  That expresses their emotions, especially male children for example, crying when he fell and scraped his knees. It is not ok, what are you feeling, do you want to talk about what you are feeling? No, it is better not to cry, get up, you need to toughen up, suck it up, you stop crying because you are a boy. What we are teaching them is your feelings are not not to be acknowledged or dealt with because you are a boy. 

As a male adult in a healthy or unhealthy relationship he has told himself that he cannot express himself or be vulnerable to a woman, because he lacked that in his childhood from his mother, because he did not see it in his mother and in his home and his upbringing. 

As a female she has learned to be accepting of the behaviors of other people and not voicing her emotions. She struggles in sharing her emotions and makes it a challenge to create deep emotional connections. She will tend to avoid being vulnerable especially in being intimate in truly being open because of her fears of being open. Her unresolved traumas and her early childhood scars prevent her from truly engaging in this type of relationship. Avoiding conflicts instead of addressing them by tackling the root of the problem. Tends to shy away from deep conversations due to the fact she sees any serious conversation as a potential argument.

All that stems from an environment with no experience in how to deal and express yourself and your feelings. Some mothers, not all, are our children’s biggest critics. What we mentally put into our children is what they will have in them as adults. It all starts in the womb and then in the home and as parents especially being a mother sometimes, we destroy our children from the inside out with our words. As parents it is important that we teach our children the tools needed to navigate their emotions, stress, anxiety, fears, and doubts. How to GPS their emotions and the complexity and the challenges we called life. Where they can be emotionally and mentally healthy adults because they did not lose themselves by unlocking their emotions because we raise our children to be strong and secure in expressing and dealing with their emotions by raising them as CHILDREN. 

C Create a secure environment to express their feelings

H Help them if needed with professional help to be fully open with their feelings 

I Invite them to spend time with you setting secure environment to be open 

L Learn how to accept their emotions as they are happening 

D      Do not ignore signs of emotional struggles

R      Redirect their negative emotions by accepting and engage with positive ones

E      Expressing their emotions does not make them weak 

N      Navigational tools needed to accept, express, and direct their emotions

We as parents also need to be emotionally available to our children if we are to provide them with a haven and the tools needed to become healthy, intelligent, and emotional adults.