Over the last few months I’ve noticed an uptick of me saying, “Oh MY WORD!! What is going on with you?!” followed by a reply of instant tears and “I don’t even know!!”
It’s incredibly frustrating and overwhelming to be in such an irrational place with my kiddo.
And it’s heartbreaking.
She literally doesn’t know what is making her feel the things she feels. Her emotions cycle so quickly some days. One minute she’s happy go lucky, the next she’s in tears and can’t even identify the issue.
I have a pretty good guess.
But, I want her to have power over her own life, and to learn to connect with her body, her cycle, and her emotions.
Today we did a project together. It has been one of those “I don’t even KNOOOOOOW!!” kind of days, emotions up and down through out the day, and the suggestion of a project was met with eye rolls and stomping. But quickly turned to interest when I said there would be markers. 😉
We set out to put together mood journals for ourselves.
She’s been writing in her journal somewhat regularly, and I keep a bullet journal, so we set up mood journals in the bullet journal style.
We created year long mood journals, because I felt like it would give her an easy way to see trends over time. Say, on the 25 of the month she literally loses her mind and doesn’t know why… oh look… that happened last month too. Hmmm. Maybe there’s something going on here. 🙂 I’m hoping it not only allows her to see patterns, but opens up space for conversations between us as well.
I had her choose the emotions she wanted to follow and track, because she knows herself best, and I really want this to be a tool to help her better connect with herself.
I did one for myself as well. 🙂 I’ve been doing some things to help manage my anxiety, and I’m eager to track how well they are working.
So here are our mood journals. We made it a fun project, and it seems to have lighten the mood… for at least this minute. Hopefully we’ll keep up with the tracking and it will become a truly useful part of our daily lives.
What about you? Have you done something to help your tween begin to identify her monthly cycle or to notice her emotions may be cyclical? I’d love to know what you’ve tried… join us in my private group and share!
I really thought we wouldn’t survive this period with my daughter and it is still a struggle. Especially when we are both in PMS mode. lol I love this idea and am pretty sure only markers would get my kiddo involved as well. THanks for this idea!