Previously I’ve talked about how to be a good co-regulator, and how one way to do so is to accept all emotions as valid and important. Oftentimes we try to shield 
children or loved ones (including ourselves) from experiencing negative emotions. Which is understandable, but not actually helpful in the long run. Sure in the moment that individual may feel “better”, but essentially we are sending the message that negative emotions are bad. And that feeling them is something to avoid. Which is impossible, because negative feelings happen and can occur with relative frequency. Accepting them has actually been linked to better psychological health, while suppressing negative emotions can cause stronger emotional responses, that are often blown out of proportion in comparison to the actual event/trigger.
Personally I have found myself struggling to accept my own negative emotions, and it’s something I’ve had to deliberately work on over time. A lot of this is due to how negative emotions were modelled to me as a child: I wasn’t ever taught that being frustrated, sad, or angry was ok. I mean absolutely no disrespect to my parents here, as I believe they raised me the best way they knew how. And information around the effects of emotional responses wasn’t so readily available in the early 90’s! However with what I know now, I can reflect back and see how my parents’ responses to their own negative emotions, as well as to my own, shaped my emotional responses as an adult. And while it’s definitely something you can work on and change as an adult (and I highly recommend you do for your own mental well-being), like most things, it’s easier to learn how to accept negative emotions whilst we’re young.
If you’re reading this blog, you most probably have some connection or interest to a child/children and their development. And as an occupational therapist who specialises in working with children and adolescents, my focus is on how to best support their development, which includes educating and working with those with a vested interest in them. So while I’m not 
exactly qualified to talk about how to learn to accept your negative emotions as an adult (best left for the psychologists and coaches out there), it is important for you to be able to model this to your child or children. Children learn from their co-regulators, and the way you respond to a stressor or negative emotion will teach them how to as well. If you don’t accept your thoughts and feelings for what they are, you will react to and exacerbate the experience (making it bigger than it really is), which in turn increases the frequency of experiencing negative emotions in response to stressors. Essentially by accepting the negative thoughts and emotions, you respond less to a stressor, which leads you to respond less to future stressors too.
This response is what we want to be modelling to and teaching our children as well. That negative thoughts and feelings are ok, and will happen. And that we can choose to accept them, rather than pushing them away or reacting strongly. This is so important when supporting regulation development, as it demonstrates that what we think or feel is separate to how we react or behave.
Many people (children included) feel that certain emotions cause a behaviour. While emotions can and do cause physiological changes (things like increased heart rate, flushed skin or rapid breathing), the physical reactions we give to emotions are largely within our control. I say “largely” and not “completely” as we do have some ingrained reflexes (such as jumping when startled), however these reflexes occur before we consciously “feel” an emotion. When we are actually feeling a particular emotion, we can learn to control our response to that emotion (e.g. when we feel scared, we can choose to scream or not, as opposed to the involuntary jump/startle reflex).
It is much easier to control a behavioural response to an emotion we accept and acknowledge. Suppressing (or attempting to suppress) an emotion just causes that emotion to be stronger, or causes it to be felt more often. When children are learning 
to control their behavioural and emotional responses, it’s crucial they are taught to firstly accept the emotion they are feeling as valid. For co-regulators (generally adults), it can be super challenging to do! Firstly because we don’t like to see a child experience a “negative” emotion, and secondly because sometimes the emotional response seems downright silly or overblown! Is it really the end of the world that a crayon broke? Or that someone else is playing with a toy that your child wants? For your child, the answer is “YES!”.
There’s things that are important to all of us that others may not value. I love sport, and get very emotionally invested in teams I play for or support. My mum on the other hand, couldn’t care less (but has learnt to because she loves me!). My partner lost his favourite hat in the whole world, and was pretty upset about it. I sympathised with him because I knew it meant a lot to him, but deep down I was thinking “it’s just a hat!”. Some of the guys we were travelling with could empathise however. One had experienced the exact same situation, and recounted how devastated he felt, validating my partner’s feelings.
When I asked him about how that response felt, he said “it always feels better when 
someone else knows what you’re going through”. And I completely agree! Sure we may not be able to directly understand (or remember) how it feels to have peers not want to play with us, or a toy break when we’re playing with it, or a parent leave us at school/childcare, but we can definitely relate! We shouldn’t dimiss the emotion as insignificant, not welcome or unnecessary, we don’t need to distract them immediately away from it, and we need to learn to be comfortable with discomfort. By validating how your child feels, you tell them that the emotion they are feeling is ok. This helps them learn to accept and control their own emotional response, which allows them to develop control over their behavioral response as well.