Traffic light technique to control emotions in children
Do not miss this magnificent and effective traffic light technique to control emotions in children.
Having a child or being the legal guardian of a child is a great responsibility . Not only will you have to take care of all those basic economic expenses for their well-being, but it will also depend on you that they are healthy and happy, at the same time that they receive the best education, as long as their behavior is always as appropriate as possible in all those situations in which you find yourself, both during your childhood and also in maturity, so that you can feel comfortable and happy and respect others accordingly.
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THE DIFFICULTY OF EDUCATING YOUR CHILDREN
The perfect education does not exist . It is normal for parents to have many experiences that they had not had before during the education of their children. It is a new process for them and it is very easy to judge it from the outside, with the education of other people who have children, but when they are yours, everything becomes different. In addition to wanting them to be people of the future , with the best possible education, we will also want them to feel happy and loved, so finding the middle ground will not always be the easiest.
Although there is no single standard method to educate all the children of the world , because luckily all people are different from each other both physically and mentally, we can use some techniques developed by education or health professionals children’s mental health, such as pedagogues, psychologists and specialized psychiatrists, who can help us with specific exercises in order to achieve the desired results and attitudes.
Some children develop inappropriate behaviors depending on the situation due to their difficulty in controlling emotions. We must bear in mind that all of us, during our childhood or adolescence, have gone through a process during which we did not understand why we felt certain feelings at certain times. It is during growth that we learn to know our body and our actions and we develop our character according to these feelings .
For this reason, it is very important that the child, from his childhood, learn to control his emotions , not only to have a good attitude in certain situations or moments, but for his mental and emotional well-being. Knowing how to manage anger, anger or excess joy will help you to have a good relationship with the people around you, but also to feel less helpless or irritable in situations where you do not get what you would like .
HOW THE TRAFFIC LIGHT TECHNIQUE WORKS IN CHILDREN
Working with visuals has proven to be very effective in educating children . Therefore, whenever you want to teach your child something, such as a word in a foreign language or his own, or make a table of household chores, for example, you should do it with visual elements . It is not the same to imagine the meaning of a certain word than to see the object which it designates. Thus, the traffic light is an object of urban furniture that your child will surely recognize easily and understand the meaning, from a very young age, knowing that each color has a specific denotation: green being the one that allows crossing, yellow the one that warns of that he should slow down or be careful and the red one that tells him not to cross and to stop, without exception.
This meaning of each of the traffic light colors can be applied very easily to managing your emotions . You can draw a traffic light on cardboard or print a picture of it in black and white. It would be convenient for the child to participate in the process of creating it, integrating him into the task and making it his own traffic light . In this way, it would not be so much an element and imposed by their parents, but an activity that they have carried out together and that will be beneficial for their near and further future.
Once the traffic light has been colored with the corresponding colors, it should be hung in a place in the house where it can be easily seen and can be accessed at any time. If where you spend more time in each other’s company is in the living room or in the kitchen eating, that will be the most recommended stay. Both parents must be present at the time during which the child is explained the operation of the traffic light of emotions . In order for it to work properly, it must be constant with its use , warn when it has a behavior in yellow (before it reaches red), reward those green ones and have consequences with red ones, that is, punish or make them understand those negative so that they do not repeat themselves.
THE COLOR GREEN
You must teach the child to identify each of the emotions . Thus, those in green will be those that are approved by adults and are considered as rewarding and positive, both for parents and children. Therefore, it is just as important to make children aware of those that are not correct, of the ambiguous, as well as those that are. It is not necessary to give them their prize every time they have a positive reaction , but we should congratulate them for each one of them, so that they themselves are able to identify them as correct and choose these instead of the yellow or red ones in each context.
YELLOW COLOR
However, those that are considered yellow at the traffic light will be the ones that may turn red, so they will be a warning of the negative that can happen and turn into a bad emotion . Therefore, it will be in the yellow that the children learn to contain this attitude so that they do not have to be warned or called to attention when they reach the red . The yellow in the traffic light will be the filter so that they learn to control their negative emotions and, in the long run, they stop having them, going from green to yellow normally.
THE RED COLOR
It is essential that the child always, without exception, is made aware of the emotion that is considered red at the traffic light, so that he knows why it is negative, can identify it quickly and does not repeat it. If the act has consequences, that is, they are called to attention or receive some warning or punishment, it is likely that they will stop repeating these actions and on fewer occasions they will have to be warned that they are having a red emotion at the traffic light. However, perseverance and patience will be key so that they can understand the operation of the traffic light of emotions and avoid having red emotions to end up having fewer yellow ones and always choose to have, perhaps already unconsciously in the end, green ones.
However, each child is different, so this educational technique (which is simply an extra help) may not work for you. However, remember that consistency is key and that results are not seen overnight . Both parents must agree on the emotions that are accepted, rewarded or punished, otherwise the traffic light will not meet the desired expectations. Do not hesitate to consult a professional in education or child psychology in order to better understand the traffic light technique to control emotions in children and use its benefits or find another that is better adapted to the needs of your child.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.