How to Handle Your Daughterā€™s Tough Emotions Without Feeling Overwhelmed: Tips for Moms
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Hi, brave friends. Welcome back to the Brave Girl Project podcast. In today's episode, we're talking about how to handle your daughter's tough emotions without feeling overwhelmed. I'm excited to dive into today's topic because this is something that I know so many of us can relate to, especially us moms.
So if you are a brave parent that is also feeling overwhelmed by your child's emotions and how it impacts you, stay tuned. I'm so glad that you're here.
You Hi, brave friends. If you're new to me, my name is Laura Hayes. I'm the founder of the Brave Girl Project. I'm a school counselor and life coach, and I work with tween and teen girls and their parents in helping them develop the skills they need to live life bravely.
As a fellow mom, I know that we all can relate to the challenges that our daughters experience, whether it's friendship issues, [00:01:00] the stress that they experience at school, being cut from a team, having a breakup. We know what that experience feels like, and it really hits hard.
We want to help support our daughters , but it's not always easy to manage the tough emotions we experience as we support our daughters.
Today we're going to talk about how to handle these tough emotions, how to support our daughters without carrying the full weight of their problems.
And how we can take care of ourselves along the way.
Emotional dumping is when your daughter shares all of her struggles, her challenges, her heartaches, and it's almost like she's handing it off to you and you're going to hold on to all the stress and the worry and the problems. And it's a little bit of a break for her from the emotional experience that she's having.
She might go off into the world and feel refreshed and able to take on the new challenges, but for us, parents were left holding onto that emotional baggage, worried about how our girls are [00:02:00] doing, worried throughout the day. Whatever the stressor is we are spending time thinking about it.
And then when we see our kiddos, a lot of times they don't even remember it being a struggle because they let go of that baggage, but yet we're still carrying it and holding on to it. Now being the person that your daughter can come to is so important. We want our kids to share and
It says a lot about your relationship with your daughter if you are the one that she is venting and sharing with. But we want to be aware of when does that emotional dumping become the only way that your daughter is regulating her emotions.
It's not all bad our daughters benefit a lot of times from hearing themselves think out loud, sometimes they also just need to let it all out.
And it's wonderful that you're the safe person that she turns to.
As much as we want to be there for our daughters, when emotional dumping becomes a pattern,
it can leave us feeling emotionally drained and a little stuck.
Sometimes in [00:03:00] relationships we fall into a pattern
where our daughters may rely on us as a sounding board and a place to vent and release all of that emotional baggage. But we want to make sure that our daughters are learning how to develop the skills to handle those stressors, the skills they need to help self soothe and manage through these events when we're not always around.
And I know as a mom, we are wired to step in and try to help and solve this problem for our child. It is very painful to see our child struggle, to see them going through difficulty. It really hurts in a different level than I think a lot of us ever thought it would hurt.
I know it can feel very heavy on your heart, and sometimes we then begin to parent from that place of fear and it can leave us feeling really stuck. Being the emotional anchor for your daughter is a very hard job. It's overwhelming at times. Especially when your daughter is [00:04:00] struggling or things aren't going the way she wants in her life. And sometimes when we as parents look out and see our friends and our colleagues posting on social media, or sharing stories about how well their children are doing,
it can really leave us feeling that something is wrong with us, that we are doing something as a parent that isn't supportive, that isn't helping our daughter. That's perhaps adding to this problem. Please remember that every parent is struggling. It can be very difficult as a parent to know what to do and how to handle all the different challenges that our children go through. Oftentimes when they're coming to us and they're very upset, they're heightened. We're doing our best in the moment.
It is so important that you are taking care of yourself during this time, having a safe place as a mom to share what you're going through, whether that is with some of your friends. If it's journaling or it's talking to a partner or even seeing a professional, someone that you can talk to, to let [00:05:00] some of this heaviness out.
One thing that I suggest for parents is when your daughter comes home and she's upset and emotional, asking her, "is this a time where you just want to vent or do you want some advice?" If you notice that she's really upset, you can always let her know,
"I can tell it looks like you've had a difficult day. If you want to chat about it, I'm here, but if you need to take some time, do that." And sometimes just having that downtime, and not rushing in to find out what the problem is can be important for our daughters. I know as a parent, when our children are struggling, we are so eager to hear how things are going.
And sometimes we rush in too quickly. And that creates a dynamic where our daughters are only sharing the problems and we want to broaden our role and step in as a supporter, but not always trying to fix or having to have the information right away.
Listening and validating your daughter's experience is going to be so important. And the [00:06:00] next piece is even more important. We want to be communicating to our girls that we see them as confident and that we see that they have the ability to handle these challenges. We don't always need to step into problem solving.
We can ask questions like, " what do you think you could do to handle this problem?" Or " how do you want to approach the situation?" "What ideas do you have for solving this?"
By asking questions like this, we're helping her see herself as a problem solver and building her confidence in that she can handle this.
At the same time when you're asking your daughter what she can do to handle this situation.
I want you to remind yourself, " I can't carry this for my daughter, but I am here to listen." You can provide support without feeling responsible for fixing everything.
It's an important thing to remind yourself. I know as a mom, we want to take away our children's pain.
But it's so important for them to step into this discomfort and the uncertainty and the [00:07:00] hurt and to find their strength and their confidence in handling these tough situations with a loving, supportive parent behind them, but not the parent that's completely taking the problem and solving it for them.
A lot of parenting is taking care of ourselves. Getting curious about why something is such a big trigger for us. Being curious and seeing . "If this is such a big deal for me, is it truly that big a deal for my daughter?"
"How can I release some of this so that it doesn't weigh me down?" "How can I step into something different and new with my daughter and let go of my expectation of how I think things should go or how I think things should be?" Sometimes it is our vision and expectation that may be creating our own pain. It may not be what our daughter is experiencing, but what we perhaps have experienced in the past or what we're fearful [00:08:00] our daughter will experience. So many of us moms are putting other people first and it's really hard to slow down and take the time we need to take care of us. Make sure you're creating the space you need to take care of your mental well being. Whether it is talking to your friends, and I know that has made me feel a lot better.
It could be journaling, practicing mindfulness, going for an evening walk, but finding a way to process your emotions is key.
And it's not being selfish when you do this for yourself. It's so important that you take that step in self care, that you find your way to release this emotional baggage that sometimes you may be carrying because it is impacting you.
Some signs of unhealthy emotional dumping that I want you to pay attention to as a mom. First, is the constant unloading of negative emotions by your daughter. If she's always in a very heightened [00:09:00] emotional state, I want you to take note of that.
If you notice that your daughter relies heavily on you for her emotional regulation. And if you as a parent feel responsible for managing your daughter's tough emotions,
If you are noticing that this is taking up a lot of your time, your energy, it's impacting other areas of your life, it's important that you seek support, that you talk to a professional.
I hope you know that as a parent, you're doing a wonderful job. Our kids don't always see the work that we're doing to support them.
Please feel free to reach out if there's a way that I could help support you.
I have programs for my middle school girls. I'm getting ready to start a high school group for my high school girls. I also have , survive and thrive in middle school course. this is for parents and girls to help them through the difficult middle school years.
So brave parent, you are doing an amazing job. I know it is very hard, but you are not alone, despite what you might think, despite what you [00:10:00] might see on social media, other people are also struggling. Take time to take care of yourself. Find ways to release that heavy, emotional burden that you're experiencing as a parent and continue to encourage your daughter to see herself as the amazing, brave girl that she is, that she has the confidence and skills to solve tough problems.
She can tolerate the discomfort of growing up. She can handle the uncertainty. When we empower our children to see themselves as a problem solvers, they are stepping into their independence and we are allowing them to grow into the people they need to become.
Let me know your thoughts. If this has helped you, please share it with another parent. Continue to live life bravely, sweet parents. Take care. And I can't wait to see you in the next one.
