Confinement has tested coexistence in many families. Conflicts between parents and children have surfaced in countless homes, and with them anger, anxiety, frustration, or a sense of misunderstanding. In her book Discovering Emotions (The Sphere of Books), Sonia Martínez Lomas , psychologist specializing in emotional intelligence and director of the Crece Bien centers in Madrid, encourages parents to listen and understand what may be behind a tantrum or reaction unexpected, ensuring that it is necessary to know and accompany the emotions of the children instead of controlling or eliminating them.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of a father or a mother, how can this book help them overcome 'resistance' or 'blocking' in dealing with their children's emotions when they are not pleasant? Many things scare us until we understand them. That would be the first big step, knowing them to understand them, discovering them. Thus we will learn to handle them. When parents make sense of anger, fear or sadness there will no longer be a resistance, but empathy, and thus they will be able to manage them in their favor, turning them into allies. As a psychologist, do you distinguish between "positive" and "negative" emotions, or do you think that something beneficial can be extracted from all emotions? All emotions are positive, they inform us of how we are and help us in life. For example, guilt serves to repair what we have not done well; jealousy, to value and protect the love of mom or dad; sadness, to realize that you have lost something; anger, to defend yourself from what you do not like or that you consider an injustice, fear, to protect yourself and stay safe, etc. How and why did you decide to incorporate in your book cases and experiences of families with whom you have worked? If you are traveling to an exotic country, you would like to know the experience of someone who has already been there, right? Better to know first-hand information about where you are going, rather than a more theoretical travel guide, right? So I decided that it was essential to incorporate lived experiences. These enrich us a lot; the story of what other mothers and fathers did and how it works for them or not helps more than isolated theoretical advice. As an expert in emotional intelligence, what do you think the behavior of those who tend to hide their emotions or refuse to speak about them is due to? Undoubtedly, learning based on experience; If as a child you continually hear "you shouldn't cry" or that "crying is weak," you will try not to cry as an adult and teach others not to cry. Similarly, if you learned as a child that getting angry is bad, you will have learned not to. But, fortunately, we can relearn, or as one of the most used expressions lately says, we can "reinvent ourselves". Do you think that phrases made and repeated ad nauseam like "crying is from children" are still penetrating us today? Although, to a lesser extent, we continue to listen to them, especially from the elderly. At the Grow Well centers, we sometimes see that parents have a hard time identifying what they are afraid of or what really bothers them. We also see difficulties in talking about our own emotions more than those of the children. You assure that it is important to know the emotions of the little ones without trying to control or eliminate them. Is this a frequent mistake that parents often fall into? Above all, it is important to help children to be the ones who know their emotions; learn with them to name them or find solutions. To act as a "guide". The mistake of many adults is to try to control the anger, fear or sadness of the child, to act as a "solver"; for example, giving in to their wishes, doing things for them, or inviting them to eat when they feel sad so that they can get over it as soon as possible. Can an adult guide their child in managing their emotions if they do not know how to properly manage their own? They could, and indeed that is a resistance of many families, who say that, since they do not know, they will not be able to teach their children. And it is not like that. Yes, they can help them, since they can teach them to know how they feel just by asking them; or with inquiring about how they would solve it. And, above all, they can be a great model of learning and example, being able to grow together. Everyone who teaches must be a teacher and a student at the same time; helping the child many times generates a rebound effect in the adult, who also ends up progressing. Sadness, anger, fear or jealousy are some of the aspects that you address in these pages. Why is it important to name what we feel? It is the only way to resolve what we feel. If we do not know what is happening to us, we will not know what to do. If we try to deny or obviate it, we will not be able to understand or manage it either. A child knows that he feels things, but he does not know that this is anger. The first step to learn how to manage it correctly is to know what I feel. During confinement, parent-child tensions have inevitably flared up in many homes. Is it possible to extract a learning from these episodes? How? It is a great question. If there is something we can (and should) teach children, it is to learn from mistakes, to take advantage of them thinking about how we would do better next time. If the child gets angry and breaks her toy, we can, once she is calm, think about the solution she would have liked to take, how she would do it better next time. In short, learn from mistakes. If this confinement serves so that families can think of ideas to get along better and that they are thought out by all, we will have gained a lot.

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