Unison Parenting Blog: Validating Your Child's Emotions

A fine line exists between validating your child's emotions and focusing primarily on your child's emotions.

If you take my newsletter (and if you don't, sign up at UnisonFamily.com), you'll recall my recent article on Gentle Parenting and how it fails your child. Emotional validation is a tactic or technique, while Gentle Parenting is an overall strategy, weak in setting limits and boundaries.

I recommend a balance of love and limits found in Authoritative (not Authoritarian) Parenting. The limits side is stronger in defining rules and boundaries than in Gentle Parenting, while we still need to clearly express our love for the child. Validating their emotions is a tactic for showing our love.

According to psychologist Jonice Webb, parents may make two mistakes in handling a child's emotions. The first is to actively invalidate emotions, labeling them as "bad behavior" that must be fixed. The child is trained it's wrong to experience feelings.

The second mistake is to be inconsistent in validating emotions. Parents should not pick and choose what emotions are acceptable; feelings are valid, no matter what. Parents may need development of their own emotional validation skills.

When a child's basic emotional needs are unmet, they may feel unworthy or "less than." They may become quick to invalidate themselves.

How does validating emotions play out in a situation?

The Gentle Parent may fall short of enforcing boundaries. "I can see you feel bad about breaking the lamp while running through the house. Don't be sad; Mommy will make everything right."

But the Authoritative Parent would say, "I can see you feel sorry you broke the lamp. It's natural to feel sad when we make a mistake. Let's clean up the mess together. Then let's discuss the consequence for breaking our rule about running through the house."

The key is to recognize that emotional validation is an expression of love, which may still need to be paired with boundary enforcement. Such a balance provides a child better security and high self-esteem.