Thought + Emotion = Energy - Teaching Your Kids How to Manage Their Emotional Energy

"The whole universe operates from energy that is ascending and descending." Ascending and descending energy is something we can physically feel when it is happening and it happens many times throughout our day, every day. We can test this by intentionally thinking thoughts that raise our energy. Right now, pause from reading this and close your eyes and think of something or someone (the latter works best) you are deeply grateful to have in your life. Thoughts that generate emotion are the thoughts were we can clearly notice our "shift" in energy.

Research has determined we experience on average 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day, and most of them have very little or no noticeable effect on our emotional energy. However, when someone cuts you off in traffic, "butts" in front of you in line at the grocery store when you are in a hurry or your child comes home from school crying because he was bullied on the school bus, you can feel your energy plummet. Energy filled events generate an instant emotional energy in us that we can feel as either ascending or descending. Watching your son score his first goal in soccer or ride his bike without training wheels for the first time, receiving an out of the blue compliment from your spouse or a phone call from an old friend are events that instantly cause our energy to soar. In this state of ascending energy, inspired thoughts start to flow that are derived from our higher positive energy and tend to lead to actions that create more events that trigger more positive energy. This creates momentum and an upward spiral in over well-being and happiness.

Certainly the same applies to descending energy like in the examples above. A downward spiral of descending energy will tend to create more undesirable negative energy filled events and situations.

Why Kids and Teens are Naturals

The young brain is very much "under construction" and the frontal lobes, responsible for reasoning and logical choice making, is far from fully developed. Adolescents use the first area to develop and the most primal area of the brain, the amygala which is the emotion center of the brain to interpret the same information that an adult uses a different part of their brain to process. Kids and teens don't interpret information in the same way adults do, but they can clearly identify with feelings, both positive and negative feelings. The young brain also falls within a "window of opportunity" to learn more quickly and with greater ease than ever in their lives. When we teach our kids, or give them the resources to learn about it on their own, they understand how the emotions they feel generate energy they can also feel, and that energy is either going up or down. That is why when we feel depressed we feel a lack of energy to do things whereas when we feel great we seem to have the energy to do more things. The energy they feel is also connected to the same energy force in everything, and everyone. Like when they can feel a positive and negative when they walk into a room filled with people, we can sense the energy in the room.

We Can Help Raise Our Kid's Energy

Our kids and teenagers have huge energy, and parents can feel it and see it in their body language and behavior. We can see when their energy is ascending and clearly see when it is descending. We can help turn it upward when we can see they might need some help in doing so. Sometime starting a conversation with your child or teenager can be a challenge when their energy is descending because they may feel they are being lectured. It is in our actions and not so much our words that will cause others energy to begin to ascend.

Here are 10 quick tips to help our kids increase their positive energy:

• Ask them to invite a friend over for dinner.
• When they make a mistake in judgment or a poor choice, tell them you love them and that together you will get through it, and that you have made plenty yourself (share a real story from your past)
• Be thankful to your child or teenager. Let them know how much they are appreciated.
• Notice their inner strengths and remind them of times they displayed them.
• Ask for their opinion on family issues. Involve them in family decisions.
• Be optimistic. Optimism is contagious and is a learned trait. The more we model optimism in front of our kids the easier they will pick up on it.
• Have some laughs! Tell some jokes or funny things that have happened at breakfast. Laughter is one of the best ways to turn descending energy around and a great way to start their day.
• Talk about feelings and emotions. Let them know that they have to feel the emotions they feel, good and bad and it is part of being human, but we all have the ability to change our thoughts to feel better and you are there to help them through it.
• Let them know how proud you are of them, and how grateful you are to be their parents.
• Increase your own emotional energy level.

Try to recall your own life as a child or when you were a teenager. You will be more prone to empathize with what they might be going through. Let your kids and teens know that you were a teenager once too and you are here to help them when they need it and want it. Regardless of what happens in their life let them know you love them unconditionally and will always be there for them.

Patrick McMillan is the founder of KidsCanDoAnything.com and author of An Exercise in Happiness, an Emotional Fitness Program for kids. A New Character Education designed for use at home with mom and dad and in the classroom with teachers and schoolmates. A stay at home dad with his two boys for over seven years Patrick became passionate about teaching kids the Science of Happiness and leading a fulfilling and happy life.

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