“Most of us anyway wear masks while meeting others…Corona virus only made it real”
We avoid expressing our feelings due to many reasons like fear,insecurity, being judged, sign of weakness etc. We try to hide our feelings from others in many different ways. Sometimes, we even hide them from own selves too. Wearing masks all the time will impact our emotional well being and we may forget who we really are.
In my today’s SEL (Social Emotional Learning) class for 8 year old children, we discussed “Recognize your hidden feelings” as part of self-awareness competency. After the routine check-ins, I asked children to write about feelings which they don’t share with others and hide within themselves.
80% of students mentioned that they hide their feelings like sadness, anger, hurt and dislikes due to the fear. I was concerned about children hiding their feelings due to fear of different things / reactions.
Many times as parents, we are very strict and hard dos and don’ts for our children. Our reactions to non-compliance of those things are harsh and unclear to our children. We tend to believe that we owe no explanation or apologies to our children about our reactions.
These unmindful reactions instill fear in them and they stopped expressing themselves. They do not open up and bury their feelings deep inside. As they grow older, they stop expressing and their inner depth keeps increasing.
It takes lots of effort to remove this fear from children before they completely shut themselves from us. We don’t want our children to do or hide things because of fear.
To unleash their true potential, they need complete acceptance and unconditional love from parents no matter what. They need to feel safe in expressing themselves.
The children learn a lot of things by observing and listening. We need to start sharing our own feelings with them in different situations. We need to explain the reasons behind our actions and reactions. We need to apologize to them if they felt hurt. We need to provide them safe and non-judgmental environment at home to express themselves. They need to feel safe to express that I am NOT OK.
While parents are creating safe space for children to express, we are creating space for parents to express themselves. Let’s openly share our feelings without any fear.
Step into our HEAL-ing zone and express your hidden feelings. You can keep yourself anonymous. We listen to parents and parents listen to their children. Let us pour out all hidden feelings and fill ourselves with positive energy to become better parents and human beings.
Click on the following link to access our HEAL-ing zone.
Don’t forget to go back and ask your children “Do you wear a mask? Do you hide your feelings?”
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