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Acknowledging emotions

Acknowledging emotions

The purpose of this exercise is to support you in the skills in being able to continue a conversation, or to deepen it.  We want to be able to provide our children with a container in which explore their thoughts, ideas and feelings about their world.

These skills range through the reflective listening skills and are mostly top surface and more superficial in that we are not going for their underlying drive or motivation.

The idea is to generate a safe environment where your child does not feel judged or labelled. By reflecting back to the child, you create a space for them to deepen their understanding and expression of their feelings and perspectives.

Perhaps the most important component for you the listener, is to come from a space of enquiry. In other words, your attitude and reflections are non-judgemental, and always phrased as though you are open to being corrected if you understood your child wrong.

We always use words like, it seems as if, it sounds like, I hear that, what comes up is....Words like these have an implicitness of being open to change, or correction. They are not definitive and judgemental.

Although there may be times when this seems strange or you can't find the reflective wording, don't worry. With practise, this skill becomes incredibly fluent. But it takes practise to train your brain to look for key words, and later on, their underlying motivations.

That is why we have designed the following exercise to help you learn some responses so they are on the tip of your tongue.

We have split up the exercises into age ranges (age 5, age 10, and age 16) to give a sense of the different kinds of things that age range may say. Each age range has the same practice structure as the other ones. I encourage you to practise ALL of them as learning these skills is not about age ranges, but about your ability to listen and respond.


Age 5 group:

Exercise 1: I will read out a list of statements that your child may come up with. There will be a pause of 5 seconds before I share what I feel could be an appropriate response. Then I will read out the next statement and wait another 5 seconds before sharing another appropriate response.


Exercise 2: I will read out a list of statements with a pause of 4 seconds before moving on to the next statement (I will not be reading out the appropriate response. This exercise is best used when you are already familiar with your appropriate responses and just want to test yourself quickly)

 

Listen to just the Audio


Exercise 3: I will read out the same list of statements as above in exercise 2 but in a different order and with decreased timing.

Listen to just the Audio


Age 10 group:

Exercise 1: I will read out a list of statements that your child may come up with. There will be a pause of 5 seconds before I share what we feel could be an appropriate response. Then I will read out the next statement and wait another 5 seconds before sharing another appropriate response.



Exercise 2: I will read out a list of statements with a pause of 4 seconds before moving on to the next statement (I will not be reading out the appropriate response. This exercise is best used when you are already familiar with your appropriate responses and just want to test yourself quickly)

Listen to just the Audio



Exercise 3: I will read out the same list of statements as above in exercise 2 but in a different order and with decreased timing.

Listen to just the Audio


Age 16 group:

Exercise 1: I will read out a list of statements that your child may come up with. There will be a pause of 5 seconds before I share what we feel could be an appropriate response. Then I will read out the next statement and wait another 5 seconds before sharing another appropriate response.



Exercise 2: I will read out a list of statements with a pause of 4 seconds before moving on to the next statement (I will not be reading out the appropriate response. This exercise is best used when you are already familiar with your appropriate responses and just want to test yourself quickly)

Listen to just the Audio



Exercise 3: I will read out the same list of statements as above in exercise 2 but in a different order and with decreased timing.

Listen to just the Audio