Workshop Educates Parents on Emotions of Children

The importance of emotional responses from parents and their children were developed during the Children and Emotions Workshop held at Suffield High School on Monday, May 9.

The workshop, led by Ruth Ettenberg Freeman, a licensed clinical social worker, gave a small group of parents the opportunity to learn more about responding to boththeir children's emotional cues and their own. Freeman used the interactive setting to demonstrate ways of parents should interact with their children.

The workshop addressed several aspects of parent-child interaction, including temperament and determining and resolving problems.

At the beginning of the event parents were asked what one thing they would change about their emotional reactions or their children's emotional reactions. A majority of the parents said they would change their emotional responses to their children.

Freeman provided the correct way to deal with emotional reactions from children but warned about the use of punishment.

“In the long ru,n punishment does not improve behavior. In the short run, you can scare kids into compliance,” Freeman said.

Freeman also noted the importance of a child's perception of self-worth. She stated that children who have strong self-worth tend to have more long-term success.

Parents were asked to chose partners and discuss various parenting archetypes that they felt exemplified their parents' patterns or their own personal patterns.

The categories included the psychologist, the critic, the judge, the know-it-all, the moralist, the consoler and the commander-in-chief; several parents, who wished to remain nameless, said their own parents most resembled the moralist and the know-it-all.

The workshop also focused on problems and resolutions, noting the many phases of the process. The most-discussed phase was reflective listening.

Parents were asked to come up with an incident from their own childhood as their discussion partners were asked to respond.

Several members of the group provided examples including “mom is mad I didn't make my bed” and “I can't find yellow (blanket).” From these parents were instructed to focus on the emotions displayed in the statements, and not to offer solutions.

“The most destructive thing a parent can do is try to change their children's emotions,” Freeman said while instructing parents on how to deal with certain situations.

The event gave parents in attendance a chance to work on how to determine their child's emotions and how better to react to those emotions.

Freeman posed several scenarios to the parents and actively instructed the parents on how to address scenarios ranging from children being mad about homework to children refusing to cooperate.

The Children and Emotions Workshop is part of a series of events being held in Suffield to help parents, according to Lori O'Neil, social worker for Suffield Public Schools.

The workshop was funded through grants from the Primary Project and the Suffield Foundation for Excellent Schools.

A similar program, called the 1-2-3 magic bootcamp, will be held on Saturday, May 14 and May 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. At McAlister Intermediate School. This program aims to teach parents effective discipline for children from age two through age 12.