When Kids Have Big Feelings

I remember those early years of motherhood so clearly. I had three children under the age of three, and every day felt loud, full, and overwhelming. I was learning how to be a mother while trying to survive the constant needs of babies and toddlers. My oldest, my daughter, had what I used to call “big feelings.” At the time, I didn’t really have language for it. I only knew that everything seemed to affect her deeply. If her clothes didn’t fit right, it could ruin the whole day. If something broke, it felt like the end of the world. If plans changed or things didn’t go the way she expected, tears came quickly and often.

At the time, I didn’t know what to do. I had never experienced someone with such strong emotional reactions, and instead of responding with compassion, I often responded with frustration. I would wonder, Why are you crying again? Why is everything such a big deal? I felt exhausted trying to keep up with her emotions while managing two younger children and all the responsibilities that came with motherhood. Looking back now, I wish I had handled those moments differently, but I also understand something now that I didn’t understand then.

Her big feelings were so difficult for me because I didn’t know how to process my own.

That realization was one of the most humbling parts of my parenting journey. It would have been easier to believe the problem was her emotions, her reactions, or her sensitivity. But the Lord began to show me that the reason her emotions overwhelmed me was because I had spent most of my own life ignoring, dismissing, or invalidating my feelings. I knew how to keep going. I knew how to push through frustration, disappointment, and hurt. But I did not know how to slow down, identify what I was feeling, and allow the Lord to heal those deeper places in my own heart.

So when my daughter’s emotions demanded attention, they exposed places in me that were still unhealed. Her tears frustrated me because they touched places where I had taught myself not to cry. Her sensitivity irritated me because I had learned to suppress my own. What I thought was a parenting problem was often an invitation from God into my own healing.

As parents, we often want quick solutions. We want the tantrum to stop, the tears to end, and peace to return so we can move on with our day. But emotional discipleship is not about managing behavior as much as it is about shepherding hearts. Our children are not problems to fix. They are people to disciple. And discipleship takes patience. It requires us to ask what is happening underneath the behavior instead of only reacting to what we see on the surface.

Most of the time, anger is not the real issue. Tears are not the real issue. Frustration is not the real issue. There is usually something deeper happening underneath. One of the first healing tools that helped me understand this was learning about reconciliation models.

Every person has a reconciliation model. Whether we realize it or not, we all learned somewhere how conflict gets handled. Usually, we learned it at home. Some people run away from conflict. They hide, withdraw, or shut down. Some people avoid it altogether and pretend it never happened. They sweep everything under the rug and move on without ever addressing the issue. Some people hold onto offense and punish others through silence, distance, or control. Others explode in anger. Most of us inherited these patterns without ever realizing it.

The problem is that many of these reconciliation models are unbiblical. They are built around self-protection instead of restoration. So when your child has big feelings, one of the first questions to ask is, How do I handle conflict? Not how do I want to think I handle it, but how do I actually respond when there is tension? Do I avoid? Do I shut down? Do I get defensive? Do I control? Then ask the same question about your child. How do they respond when they feel confronted, embarrassed, ashamed, or disappointed?

Sometimes those big emotions come from conflict with others, and sometimes they come from conflict within themselves when life doesn’t go the way they expected. Either way, understanding your reconciliation model gives language to what is happening beneath the surface.

Another important step is learning how to give language to emotions. Most of us grew up with a very limited emotional vocabulary. We knew happy, sad, and mad, and that was about it. So when someone asks how we feel, the answer is often simple: mad. But mad is usually just the surface emotion. It is the leaf on the branch, not the root.

Underneath anger there may be fear, rejection, embarrassment, shame, disappointment, loneliness, or insecurity. But if we do not have the words for those emotions, we cannot identify what is really happening. I remember printing out emotion charts for my daughter and sitting down with her during those hard moments. I would say, “I can see you’re having big feelings right now. Can you help me understand what you’re feeling?” Sometimes she needed help finding the words. Honestly, sometimes I did too.

But giving language to emotions changes everything. Instead of saying, “I’m just mad,” it becomes, “I’m frustrated because it broke,” or “I’m embarrassed because I made a mistake,” or “I’m afraid because I don’t think I can fix it.” Once we can name what we are feeling, we can begin to address the real issue. We stop managing behavior and start ministering to the heart.

The third healing tool is asking one of the most important questions: What is the lie you are believing?

So many emotional reactions are rooted in lies we have believed for years. The enemy is subtle. He whispers quietly enough that the lie starts to sound like truth. Nobody likes you. You always mess things up. You’re not enough. You’re too much. You’ll never get it right. Children believe lies quickly because they do not yet know how to separate feelings from truth. But adults do the same thing.

A child may come home upset because a friend said something hurtful, and suddenly they believe, Nobody likes me. That is the moment to pause and gently ask, “Do you know that is true? Did they tell you that? Or is that something you are feeling?” This is where healing begins.

Feelings are indicators, but they are not truth-tellers. They reveal that something needs attention, but they do not define reality. If a child says, “I feel rejected,” we can help them trace that feeling to the belief underneath it. Maybe the lie is, I am unwanted. Maybe it is, I do not belong. Maybe it is, I am not enough.

Once the lie is exposed, we can bring it before Jesus. We can reject agreement with it and replace it with truth. I am loved. I am chosen. I belong. I am seen. I am not alone. This is where emotional health and spiritual discipleship meet.

Sometimes parents will say, “My child just has really big feelings.” And maybe that is true. But often, those big feelings are revealing places in the heart that need healing. Not just in them, but in us too.

Parenting is one of the greatest refining tools God gives us. He uses our children to expose our impatience, our fear, our pride, our control, and our own unresolved wounds. Not to shame us, but to invite us into freedom. What feels like interruption is often invitation. An invitation into healing. An invitation into wholeness. An invitation into deeper discipleship for the whole family.

Helping our children with big feelings is not about creating perfect behavior. It is about creating safe places where truth, healing, and transformation can happen. It is about teaching them that emotions are not something to fear or silence. They are invitations to pay attention to what is happening in the heart and opportunities to invite Jesus into those deeper places.

If teaching your children how to walk through conflict and forgiveness feels overwhelming, I created free Reconciliation and Forgiveness Printables to help guide those conversations. These simple resources walk your family through biblical steps of reconciliation and forgiveness in a practical, easy-to-understand way.

And if you are ready to go deeper in emotional healing for yourself and your family, my Pathway to Wholeness Course is available for $87 on my website. This course helps parents identify unhealthy emotional patterns, recognize lies they may be believing, and build emotionally healthy habits rooted in biblical truth. Because healing in your home often starts with healing in your own heart.

You can find both resources at www.ashleytilford.com .

Because raising emotionally healthy children starts with emotionally healthy parents.

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