Talking to children about feelings

Children do not need to be introduced to feelings. They have been having them since before they had words: the jolt at the preschool gate, the heat of a lost game, the private shame of a wet bed. What they need from the adults in the house is a language that is accurate enough, a listener who can stay in the room, and a life that is not organised as a permanent seminar on inner states. I write this from Brisbane kitchens and afternoon ovals, as someone who covers children and families for this journal, not as your child’s clinician.

We do not treat anyone here. If a child is in danger, you already know to call 000. If they need to talk to someone who is not you, Kids Helpline is 1800 55 1800. Beyond Blue and Healthdirect both publish plain pages for parents who are trying to decide whether this is a rough fortnight or a problem that needs a GP.

Why the conversation goes sideways

Adults often start too late and too large. A child has been quiet for a week, or explosive for a day, and we sit them down with a face that says this is serious. The child, quite reasonably, shuts up. Or we start too early and too often, narrating every flicker — “you seem frustrated, is it frustration?” — until they learn that feelings are a performance for us.

The middle is smaller. You notice something. You name it once, in a word they already half-know. You leave a silence that is not a trap. You offer a next thing that is not a lecture: a snack, a walk, a return to the Lego. If they pick up the sentence, you follow. If they do not, you have still shown that the feeling is speakable.

Timing does more work than technique. Cars, sidelines, the last ten minutes before lights-out, the walk home from the bus: these are the Australian consulting rooms of childhood. Eye contact across a table is, for many children, an interrogation lamp. Side-by-side is kinder.

Words that fit the age

Preschoolers need short, concrete language and a body that matches it. “You are angry the tower fell. I am here.” They do not need a lecture on emotional regulation. They need you not to collapse, and not to mock. They also need the limit that sits beside the feeling: the hitting still stops. A feeling is welcome. A punch is not. Holding that pair — warmth and a boundary — is the whole job at this age, and it is harder than it sounds at 6pm.

Primary-school children can use a wider vocabulary if they have heard it in calm weather, not only in storms. Sad, worried, jealous, left out, embarrassed, bored: these are more useful than “good” and “bad.” They can also hide. A tummy ache on Monday morning may be a virus. It may be a classroom. You will not know from a single question. You will know from a pattern, a chat with the teacher, and a willingness to take the tummy seriously either way.

Older primary children and young teenagers start to care how they look while they talk. Privacy becomes part of respect. You can say, “I am here if you want me,” and then actually be in the house rather than in another room on a phone. You can ask once about the group chat and not demand the password as a first move. headspace exists because this age also outgrows the family as the only audience, and that is allowed.

Do not hunt for a perfect script. Children listen for whether you can bear their answer. If every disclosure is met with a fix, a moral, or a story about your own childhood that takes over the room, they will edit themselves. If you can say “that sounds hard” and then wait, they will sometimes give you the second sentence, which is the one that matters.

What their body is already saying

A lot of childhood feeling arrives as behaviour or as a body complaint. Anger at the door. Tears over a sock. A child who goes very still. A child who cannot get to sleep. If you only respond to the behaviour with discipline, you miss the news. If you only respond with a feelings talk and never hold the line, you miss the need for a world that stays consistent.

You do not have to choose. “I can see you are furious, and we are still leaving the park” is a complete parenting sentence. So is “Your tummy hurts and I believe you, and we are going to school unless you have a fever — we will talk to Mrs Chen.” The feeling is real. The day still has a shape.

Sleep and food change the volume, for children as for adults. A late night at a cousin’s house will produce a different Monday. Our writing on everyday wellbeing keeps returning to this unfashionable fact: the conversation about feelings sits on top of a biological week. You can be a gifted listener and still have a child who needs dinner.

What not to do

Do not tell them they are fine when they are not. “You’re fine” is a sentence about your comfort. “You are safe, and this is a big feeling” is a sentence about theirs.

Do not force them to speak for an audience. Relatives who demand a hug, a thank-you, or an explanation of their shyness in the hallway are asking the child to manage adult awkwardness. You can greet the relative. The child can stand near you until they are ready.

Do not use a child as your counsellor. They notice when you are lonely, unwell, or frightened of money. A simple, contained truth is better than a brittle performance of being perfectly all right. The details of a marriage, a debt, or a diagnosis belong with other adults and, if needed, with therapy and getting help. A child who becomes the person you cry to at midnight has been promoted into a job that will cost them.

Do not outsource the whole task to a school program or an app and then vanish. Schools can teach words. They cannot replace the adult who is there on Thursday night. If a teacher raises a concern, treat it as information, not as an insult to the household.

The aim is not a child who can give a TED talk about their anxiety. The aim is a child who is not alone with it.

That sentence should take some pressure off. You are not producing an emotionally fluent performer. You are keeping company.

Culture, temperament and the quiet child

Some families talk in stories, some in jokes, some in food. Some children are simply less verbal. There is no prize for turning a reserved child into a narrator. There is a duty to make sure reserve is not the same as isolation. A quiet child still needs one adult they could, in principle, tell. That adult might be you, an uncle, a grandmother, a coach who knows how to listen without prying.

If your own upbringing treated feelings as weakness, you may hear yourself repeating a line you hated. You can interrupt it. “We do not say ‘stop crying’ in this house” is a rule you are allowed to invent as an adult. You will not do it perfectly. Children are interested in repair. “I was too sharp then. I am sorry. Tell me again” is a more powerful lesson than a flawless morning.

Language at home may not be English. Use the words you actually speak. A feeling named in the language of the kitchen is more use than an imported chart. If a practitioner later becomes involved, they can work with that.

When talking is not enough

Ordinary coaching has a range. It covers the lost friend, the spooky dark, the test, the move, the new baby. It does not have to cover a child who has stopped attending school, a child who is harming themselves, a child whose fear has organised the whole family’s routes around the city, or a child who has gone flat for weeks.

Then you start where Australian families actually start: a GP who knows the child, or can meet them. You describe the pattern, not the theory. You ask about a Mental Health Treatment Plan if it is appropriate, about paediatric advice, about what the public wait looks like. You talk to the school. You look up headspace if they are old enough. You do not wait for a perfect label.

Beyond Blue’s resources for families are built for this fork in the road — the night you are no longer sure this is ordinary. So is a conversation with another adult who has seen your child over time. You are allowed to be unsure. You are not allowed, as the responsible adult, to leave a frightened child alone with a frightened internet.

If you are also in a rough patch, get yourself a door as well. Children do better when the adults are not running on fumes. That may be a friend, a GP, or a psychologist of your own. It is not selfish. It is how the house stays a house rather than a clinic.

Talk to them on the way to somewhere. Use one true word. Keep the day moving. Come back tomorrow. That is the method, and it is enough to begin.