SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – The election may be over, but after a contentious few months, it’s important to take care of yourself and your children even as the results roll in.
Bailey Pyle, director of the Be Well Initiatives program at Burrell Behavioral Health, says it’s important to be mindful of your child’s stress, especially in this day and age when so much information is available online.
“Our children are probably hearing about these elections through social media platforms. I recently read through a statistic that one in five TikTok users are actually children, and TikTok ranks as one of the most user-friendly platforms when it comes to people feeling free to talk about things like politics. So whether our kids hear about this political action at school or among their friend groups or on social media, the truth is they have access to these things,” Pyle said.
It’s essential to have open and honest conversations with your children about the election. When they are younger, it can be as simple as talking about what elections are or why we have them.
“Depending on what your child can process, speaking at a level he or she can understand, and really being an opportunity to be honest and open about how we feel.” I’m really excited about this election, or I’m really worried because there are a lot of big choices being made. It’s an opportunity to open a conversation about emotional intelligence, including for us and our little ones,” said Pyle.
For older children, curiosity and understanding are essential. You need to be able to talk to your children, listen to what they have heard and their opinions, and have honest discussions.
“If we stay in that space of curiosity and really work hard to listen to what our teens or our pre-teens have to say, regardless of whether their opinions match ours or not, we can ask some follow-up questions, things like tell me more about why that is your opinion, or what helped you form that opinion. Do you have any questions about that topic? And that, I think, the biggest takeaway for adults who are interacting with our children when we’re having these conversations, because we may have our own emotions about what’s going on, is to have this conversation when we’re in a space where we can do that. Listen,” Pyle said.
Another essential thing to do is to model good behavior for your children. Teach them when to put the phone down, how to consume media, how to manage their social media algorithms, and more.
“Part of that is that our world is digital, and we will continue to have access. Many of us will continue to access our world through this digital platform, so we need to understand how to do that in ways that are healthy for us and our brains. , knowing that that’s going to be different for each individual, and also modeling that for our kids, and talking to our kids about how to do that,” Pyle said.
It is important to teach our children to be kind as well. It’s easy to spread unkindness on the internet or in person, but showing kindness can also help our children be kind.
“Model it to show kindness. If you want your child to be kind to others, we need to see our own, no matter the circumstances. And kindness doesn’t mean you don’t stand up for what you believe in. It just means that you see humanity and other people that you are a human being just like me, you have feelings and thoughts and values and beliefs that you feel emotions, that you feel pain, that you feel pain and sadness, that you have a have a human brain. And by finding the things we have in common, we can remember that kindness,” Pyle said.
Remember that your children expect you to know how to respond to important issues and election stress. Being there for them is the best thing you can do.
‘They’re looking at us. Our children are watching us. And that doesn’t mean we hide or mask our stress, worry, overwhelm, or anxiety. It means it’s an opportunity for us to label it as saying this is a stressful day for mom because of blah, blah, blah, or I’m feeling really overwhelmed today. And this is why it’s an opportunity to teach our children how to label how we feel, how it’s completely normal to have these feelings when such big things are happening in our world, and it teaches them to stay engaged in caring for our world as a whole,” said Pyle.
For more tips on caring for your emotional health during and after elections, visit Burrell’s site here.
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