You’ve come to this page because your child's emotional reactions feel bigger than you would like or than you expect.

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You've tried everything you can think of but you need more help understanding: why does this keep happening, what am I missing?

I've been there too. A preschool teacher once told me: "your child doesn't go from 0-100, she goes from 0-60, and if you don't catch the 60, she takes it to 100." Together we learned to notice the small things — the signposts when she is at 60 — so that I could begin to diffuse or narrate: this is what we are recognizing, it is ok, we see it, and we are going to help you get back down to 0. It also helped for me to narrate anything that I recognized as a potential trigger that moved her from 0-60, so we could all start to see it coming, and fewer people would be shocked if it couldn’t be stopped.

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What their big emotions are trying to communicate

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Esogetic Medicine says: if a child is unable to process their emotions and conflicts out loud, they process them physically — sore throat, tummy ache, head pain, fever. Several Esogetic textbooks describe it as: the child who is fine until they hear you're going out for the night, and then they suddenly fall ill. A child who is emotionally explosive could be thought of as a child who doesn't want to become physically ill — they are communicating, in the best way they know how, that something on the inside doesn't feel right.

Big Emotions or Big Behaviour almost always mean one of two things:

Something in their environment doesn't feel safe — which quickly translates to something in my body doesn't feel safe. Or they are being asked to function in a way that doesn't match how they are built — decide now when they need time, eat or sleep when their body is not ready, keep going when they need to stop, or stop when they need to keep going.

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Violating our Unique Psychology, in terms of how we are meant to eat, sleep, make decisions, or move through the world creates a lot of uncomfortable sensations (which we translate to emotions, behaviours, or symptoms/diagnoses) because the body is supposed to tell us when we are going the wrong way.

While family members may have similarities in their Unique Psychology, they are just as likely to have differences — which is why it is important to look and not assume. Our Unique Psychology is not a character flaw and when we see it on paper, we can have a lot more compassion for what is really going on.

When a child is consistently overridden, ignored, or asked to decide in a way that goes against their design, the unprocessed pressure accumulates. It comes out somewhere — usually in their emotions, their body, or their behaviour. A child repeatedly told to hurry up when they need time. A child pushed to commit when they need time to wait and see. These are not difficult children. They are children whose natural way of processing has not been acknowledged and has been consistently overridden — often with the best intentions.

Even in our family, where I have learned Unique Psychology and my husband has not, I can see that he wants to push our kids so they can do better, and I want him to understand why they can't and how pushing makes things worse. It is not by accident that we are in this relationship raising children together. Kids benefit from both perspectives. Not everyone is aware of their own needs, so they may not be open to accommodating yours. We all want our kids to be successful and able to be themselves. When we are looking at a child who is seen as overly emotional, the balance they need may not have been met yet — and it is not easy, because some kids have you learning how to adjust that balance for a lifetime. But it is worth it, because when the emotional system is intact the child can learn. When a child doesn't feel safe, when too many resources are being used up scanning for danger, learning becomes harder than it would be if the child could settle their other concerns first.

What Human Design shows us about emotional reactions

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Human Design identifies different ways that human beings process and move through emotion. What looks like anger in one child is not the same as what looks like anger in another. What one child needs to settle is the opposite of what another child needs.

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A child with a defined emotional system moves through emotional waves — they cannot snap out of it or go for a walk and let it go. Sometimes they just need to be alone to feel what is right for them and create. A child with an undefined emotional system feels other people's emotions in an amplified way — ten times what a defined person feels. They will constantly ask "why are you mad?" and the person with a defined system will say "I'm not mad" because they don't feel it as strongly, which doesn't mean it isn't real. It could be their own childhood programming teaching them it is not ok to be mad — so pretend you're not, even if you are. The person with the open emotional system who doesn’t know they are feeling others in an amplified way as information on how to navigate others might develop social anxiety instead. I did.