I have a problem showing people how I feel... ( I don't want to tell everyone but) Its not that I don’t have emotions but rather I don’t allow them to surface. The other day my car broke down and my son was bereft... He bust into tears

Later on at home it all got too much for me and I was angry and throwing blame everywhere …My kids were frightened and the baby was teary cause mummy wasn’t herself…. In the end I let myself have 3 minutes to cry. My son was stunned and just sat there asking me what I was doing… and I realized they had never seen mummy behave that way…I then got angry cause I was showing emotion and it made my kids take on board that crying is weak… in hindsight now I know I did a parenting no no….

You want the truth?  I often feel like my emotions are out of control. At times I will blow up over minor incidents yet at other times I find it hard to feel…. I go numb when something upsetting has happened…There are those days I want to be furious, but I just don't feel anything, days when a spilled juice will send me into a tyranical spin and I just cannot seem to be able to cry. Some would say I am a cold-hearted person, some would say it is the effect of my past… I do not know what is causing this numbness… or why I even write about this… I feel like something inside me has switched off and no matter what I do, I cannot bring the right feelings up to the top

The thing is that the way we express our feelings affects our children…. we don’t often do this directly but rather subtly. Showing emotion is the best way to help kids identify them. When I told my son to stop crying, I was telling him that whatever he was feeling was not right. He may then replace his legitimate feeling with other feelings or actions (like hitting) because he was told that his original feelings were not accurate.

So what emotions do my kids see off me? My children are certainly watching how I handle my emotions! They learn more from what is modeled than what I say.

• Am I showing  my true emotions or blaming them on whatever is happening in life at that moment?
• How do I act when I get angry?
• Do I yell and blame others?
• Am I refusing to talk about it? Do i go off sulking because the world was not good to me today?
• What do I do when I’m sad?
• Do I cry? If not, why not? Do i know that Crying doesn’t make me weak? - it shows I am human.
• What about when I screw up?
• Do I put myself down?
• Can I say sorry and ask for forgiveness even off my kids?
• Do I allow myself to make mistakes, accept them and learn from them?

The best way to help my children understand and deal with their emotions is to let them see how I cope with mine. When I feel, I should allow it to be seen and acknowledged. I want my children to know that it’s ok to have these feelings too. And how  to deal with emotions.  I have noticed that It is easy to let my children talk about their feelings when they’re happy. But why is it when they’re feeling angry or sad and they show it, I  ask them to not feel this way. My son should be allowed to say 'I hate you mum' or 'you suck' if that is how he feels at the time cause I often felt that way towards my mum (who never told me to keep it in) and i feel that way in my life even now at times

So todays question is what emotions do I allow my children to express and what emotions do I show myself?