Labeling Emotions Helps?

In the course of reading the book "Brain Rules for Baby", I am learning a lot to put it mildly.  One of the more fascinating aspects of raising a child that I hadn't even thought about yet is dealing with tantrums, outbursts, and the emotions of a child.  I think part of me was just putting off consideration of this area because I didn't want to deal with it and figured I had enough time to figure out the best way of dealing with tantrums, emotions, and the like.  Well, left to my own devices, I probably would have gone about it completely wrong and potentially screwed up my child.  OK, so maybe it wouldn't have been that bad, but I never would have considered what the book suggested as a proven solution to the problem of dealing with a toddler's emotions and occasionally concurrent tantrums.  The proven solution is, as you might have guessed from the title, labeling the emotions of the child.  At a young age, emotions are a new experience for children and as they don't know what is going on within them, the emotions they are experiencing or the resulting effect of the emotions, we as parents need to help label the emotions for them.  This labeling of the emotions is largely based on our ability as parents to be in tune with our children, empathize with their feelings, and help them work through them.  It is not enough to tell them they can or can't act a certain way for that only skates the surface and doesn't deal with the underlying issue of why they are acting the way they are.  Nor does it work to ignore their actions hoping they will go away.  They only proven method for helping children work through their emotions is to empathize with them and label the emotions for them so they can understand what is they are feeling. 

Lets take a minute and think about it from a child's perspective.  To do this we must pretend that we don't know what a given emotion is, like jealousy.  Lets place ourselves in the shoes of a 2 year old at an older siblings birthday party.  At that party, the older sibling is getting lots of presents and we the 2 year old are getting none at all.  We start to feel angry and frustrated at the fact that we are getting nothing while our older sibling is getting all the presents and attention.  At that age, we would probably react by trying to get attention through crying, screaming, and in extreme instances, acting violently towards our older sibling.  Most of this lashing out is due to the fact that we don't understand what is happening in our brains and thus in our body.  If our parents took the time to sit us down, explain to us what we are feeling, we would be able to put a label on the emotion and understand at least a little more what is happening and be better able to cope with it.  If, however, our parents told us to stop or go sit in a corner without explaining anything, we wouldn't know what we are feeling, only that we are told not to act a certain way.  This doesn't accomplish anything except maybe a momentary reprieve.  The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that simply being able to identify an emotion, label it for a child, and help them understand exactly what it is they are feeling, would be a great benefit for them in the moment and also later in their lives. 

How many of us had parents who did this for us?  To be perfectly honest, I don't know if my parents did this with me or not.  I know they did the best they could or knew how to, but my memory of childhood before 5 is somewhat hazy.  Even now, it takes a serious act of concentration to label my own emotions as I am feeling them.  I can label the easy ones, happiness, anger, frustration; but there are a whole slew of emotions that I understand, but can't always put my finger on when I am feeling them.  The research in the book shows that by labeling emotions, we are connecting a psychological reaction with a physical reaction and by doing so, we help calm the nerves that lead to whatever the emotion is we are feeling.  Some parents are naturals at this, others need to work on it.  All I can say is that I  am one of the ones that need to work on this now in order to get myself ready for when our son is older.  I am glad that I am reading this book now and not afterwards.  I probably would have been one of the parents who told our son just to not act the way he was acting and not really get into the underlying issues of his emotions.  As I move through this parenting journey I am realizing more and more just how much work goes into raising a happy, healthy child.  Its not easy, I never thought it would be, but I don't think I thought it would be as hard as it is turning out to be.  Trust me, now is easy for the most part, but I know it will get more complicated down the road.  Like I say quite often though, one day at a time, one day at a time, one day at a time.