Like adults, some children just have a hard time letting go of emotions. It can be even more difficult for children to let things go because they don’t always know what emotions they’re feeling. It can be argued that every moment of the day is important for your toddler, but there is a special time for them that can help them let go of the day’s stress and relax so that they’re ready for a new day.

Bedtime
All throughout the day toddlers feel a wide range of emotions. They’re happy, excited, frustrated, angry, and more. As an adult, we learn to cope with these emotions and we usually know where they come from. This allows us to let negative emotions go, and embrace positive emotions in order to get through the day in a healthy way.

Toddlers eventually learn to control their emotions and develop health strategies for coping with stress and other things, but they need a little help from you. The best time to go over the emotions from the day is at night. Though your spouse can help you toddler just as well as you, you can take about 10 minutes right before bedtime for a little mommy-and-me time.

During these 10 minutes, talk with your toddler about their day and encourage them to talk about how they feel. If you got angry with them for something they did or if they threw a tantrum, talk about the incident in a positive way. Don’t be afraid to apologize if you feel like you reacted badly, and don’t be afraid of bringing up your toddler’s bad behavior, just as long as you bring it up in a positive way. You don’t want to argue again, you just want to discuss what happened so that you and your toddler can both deal with the emotions in a positive way.

Emotional Maturity
These 10 minutes before bedtime will help put your toddler on a pathway to emotional maturity. A big part of emotional maturity is being able to identify emotions and track where they came from. The second part is dealing with negative emotion in a healthy way and knowing how to face emotional challenges in a way that will make you stronger emotionally and mentally. The reason why toddlers have meltdowns is because they don’t know how to express their emotions or process them. These 10 minutes of mommy-and-me time can be a great bonding experience and will definitely help your toddler start to think critically about what they feel.

Barish, K. (2013, March 3). The most important ten minutes of your child’s day.Psychology Today.