How to help children regulate their emotions, tips from a child

[Intro] Hello, welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm so glad you joined me today. I'm your host, Corinne Powell.

I'm an intuitive mentor, and I help people pleasers to find happiness, embrace courage, and experience peace of mind. But say you're not a people pleaser, and you're desperate for change and not sure how to make it happen, then I'm here to help. 

In this space, you're gonna find motivation to live a life full of joy and resilience. We'll talk all things inner wellness. And because I'm a mom, we'll throw in some knock-knock jokes. Just kidding. We'll talk mom hacks and parenting sometimes. 

Whether it's your first time here or you listen week after week, I am wanting you to know, as I'm always wanting you to know, that your life is so significant. You are so valuable.

And I, for one, am happy that you are alive. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. And would you do me a favor? Would you go ahead and subscribe to my podcast? Give me a good rating and write a written review? Any of those three things would help me so very much, and I would appreciate it.

Enjoy the episode. 

…

Corinne Powell: Today, I have my daughter Layella with me on the show. And we're gonna start off basically just talking about how she navigates her emotions throughout a typical day.

Parts of what we share will even be about tackling chores, and we'll end by talking about a few other things. I hope that you will not only take a listen, but that you'll bring your kids into the conversation. What Layella shares is super practical for children.

Being a child herself and having siblings, she knows what it's like to get into disagreements, to have frustrating days where you feel unheard, overlooked, and misunderstood. And I feel that what she shares is super practical. And of course, it's a conversation with a five-year-old.

So there will be parts to it that you might sit there and say, not sure I caught all that, but that's okay. I want to empower everyone, children as much as adults. And so bringing my daughter onto the show feels very important to me.

And giving children a voice is something I'm passionate about. Not only do I want your inner child to know that they always matter, but I want our children right now to know the same exact thing. We're able to give our kids an opportunity to not go through life the same way we did. And so bringing my five-year-old onto the show is one way that I can empower her. 

I hope that you enjoy and that you'll bring your little ones in to take a listen as well. 

Layella Powell: So you can, so when someone's asking you to do something and you get really mad, do you have to get really mad? You don't really, you don't have to get mad.

You could just take a deep breath, you could get a drink, you could do something that's cool. Like make yourself like, like relax, you could calm down yourself. And like, if you ask someone, can I do that later? And they say, no, you just take a deep breath.

You do it and you know you really don't want to do it and you just like have to, you have to do it and just like feel pressure. So you take a deep breath and you can interact. Interact.

Corinne Powell: Okay, so what I hear you saying is that there's ways to help yourself feel more stable and to feel calmer. So if you can pause and take a step back and take a deep breath, then you might feel calmer, even if you're being asked from your parent to do something that you really don't want to do. And I also liked that you mentioned if your parent's asking you to do something you really don't want to do, you can ask them if you could do it later. 

Because sometimes you can do a chore later, right? Sometimes it doesn't have to be done right in that moment. But if your parent says, yes, it has to be done in that moment, then you can try to help your body out by calming down and deep breathing and pausing. What else can you do to help yourself calm down or feel more comfortable when your body is starting to, when you're starting to feel overwhelmed in your body? 

Layella Powell: You could eat something that's healthy for you. You could go somewhere that's fun to play at. You could do some exercises. You could do some yoga.

You could do Namaste. You could like, like stretch out. You could, you could like, calm yourself.

Corinne Powell: That's great. That's really practical. Talking about doing something that's going to help you out running, walking, exercising, doing yoga, having a healthy snack.

There's so many ways, and she mentioned a lot of the ways that we can help ourselves to reset and decompress. And there are gonna be times where that's not possible. Layella, think about a time when you're asked to do something you don't wanna do and you have to do it right then. And you can't go and do yoga. You can't go and take a walk. What are you gonna be able to do in order to do the thing that someone's asking you to do that you really didn't wanna do in that moment? 

Layella Powell: You could do it, then you can do something.

Corinne Powell: That is awesome! So do the hard task, and then go out and do what you needed to do to decompress. I like that.

Layella Powell: So we're gonna talk about more stuff. 

Corinne Powell: Yes, we're gonna talk about more things than just that. So Layella, what about expressing yourself? How can you express yourself with other people when you're frustrated with them or you see things differently than they see things? 

Layella Powell: You could put on a song. You could move your body. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could draw something. You could scribble a paper and then crumple it up. 

Corinne Powell: I see, you're expressing yourself in a different way than I was thinking. I like this. Thank you for telling us ways that we can express how we're feeling through dance and movement or our frustration. We can just scribble on a piece of paper and then crumple up the piece of paper and let out some of our frustration. I really like that, Ella. That's practical. What about expressing yourself in the sense of verbally talking out what you need to tell somebody? 

Layella Powell: So if someone's like ignoring you, it's not like it's just saying something while you're trying to talk and get really angry and you're just like, ugh, I'm trying to tell you something. Yeah. And you get so mad that you feel like you want to hurt them but you can't hurt them because God doesn't want you to do that. And your parents might say something and they might get angry at you but you're trying to hurt someone. So you can just take a deep breath, you can calm yourself down. 

Corinne Powell: Okay. And I think you actually are really good, Layla, at expressing yourself. And there are times where mom or dad asks you to do something and you don't want to do it and you're able to tell us that, you're able to say, can I do it later? And you tell us how you're feeling or if Vivi or AJ do something mean to you, you go and tell them that what they did was mean or that how it made you feel, if it made you feel sad or other ways.

So you're really good at expressing yourself. 

Layella Powell: I think so too. And I think other people are good at expressing too because I just like to hear other people do that and I like to hear other people say stuff that are really good. And it's like an angel saying something in my ear. 

Corinne Powell: Oh. So do you feel like sometimes you hear something speaking to you in your ear and it's helping you to know what to do? 

Layella Powell: Yeah, sometimes I feel like that, like that, sometimes I watch something and I hear that voice, like I hear it and I like it.

Corinne Powell: Yeah, I experienced the same thing so that makes a lot of sense to me. Okay, I'd like to finish off by just talking about chores. When you have chores that you need to do because there's other kids listening who also have to do chores and who likes to do chores? I don't always like to do chores.

Layella Powell: So how does it, how do you find, what do you find makes it easier to get your chores done? Well, sometimes you could pray to God that to help the chores not be hard. Sometimes I have to do the stuff that are hard and it's like so frustrating, but I have to do the stuff. And it's like so hard that I could like let out my voice. 

Corinne Powell: Okay, but what does mom do? What do I do to make it easier when you have to do chores? You mentioned earlier to me that you like lists. So what do you like about the list? Does a timer help you do your chores more easily? 

Layella Powell: Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Corinne Powell: Why is that? 

Layella Powell: Because it's like, if you put on like a time for two minutes that's so cool. And if you put a timer for 10 minutes, that's also cool. 

Corinne Powell: Okay, so timers can help sometimes, you know how long it's gonna take or you're not gonna have to do it longer than the timer runs for.

And lists help sometimes because you know what to, what's expected, you know that once you get your list done, you're done. Is there anything else that helps you with making your, getting your chores done more easily? 

Layella Powell: Wiping the floor. 

Corinne Powell: You like to wipe the floor? 

Layella Powell: Yeah.

Corinne Powell: Okay. 

Layella Powell: Or like someone could, you could walk and you hold on to someone's feet and they have a towel and you just, it's like a vacuum, but it's wiping the floor. 

Corinne Powell: Okay, cool. Use someone else to help you get your chores done. All right, before we close, is there anything else you wanted to tell any of the kids or the adults listening? 

Layella Powell: Not sneak any food or any sweets, but you could ask a parent if you had a snack or something sweet, like brownie chips. 

Corinne Powell: Oh, so instead of sneaking food, ask a parent if you can have it.

Layella Powell: Yes. 

Corinne Powell: What if they say you can't? 

Layella Powell: You could just have something that's protein for you, like good for you, get you what you like. 

Corinne Powell: So something that you still like that is maybe gonna nourish you a little bit more in that moment?

Layella Powell: Yep. 

Corinne Powell: All right, sounds like great advice. 

Layella Powell: That's all for today, almost I think. But my mom might need some more stuff to say. 

Corinne Powell: Thanks for being on, Liela. Appreciate that. Appreciate all that you share with us. And I hope that you'll come on again some other time. 

Layella Powell: Yep, bye!

Corinne Powell: Bye!

[Ending] Here we are, we've made it to the end. What'd you think about what you heard today? Is there something you heard that you know you need to take action on? I'm one of those people who loves to not just sit and hear something, but to sit and hear and then go ahead and start implementing, taking action on what I hear, what was stirred up in me.

And I encourage you to do the same. If you enjoyed today's episode or perhaps you heard an episode in the past that really stuck with you, would you go ahead and share that with some of your friends and your family? It would mean so much to me. And also, if you wanna connect with me, remember, you can always find me throughout the week.

On Instagram I'm @corinne_changeradically⁠. Or you can email me anytime, corinne@changeradically.com. I'd love to be in touch. And if there's any way that I can help you, please seek me out.

Until we speak again next week, I hope that you will remember in the moments that are loud and busy and in the moments that are quiet and still, that who you are is super important. You are valuable. And I am so glad that you're alive.