Hi, thanks for asking this question Emre, I’ve been wondering about this too. My children are 10 and 7, and since starting to learn about TMS recently, I feel like I can recognise TMS type symptoms in both of them too. It also makes a lot of sense to me to help them express their feelings now so that they don’t have trouble with TMS in the future. I’m really looking forward to finding out what people think on this.
Here’s a few of my humble thoughts to be going on with. Anxiety has been a big issue for both my children, causing some clear physical symptoms – eg. stomach pain before going to school. I’ve recently read a book I’d recommend called ‘Parenting your anxious child with mindfulness and acceptance’ by McCurry. The book talks a lot about helping children develop their emotional intelligence. For example, it explains how to ‘reflect’ back (or validate) to your child how you think they’re feeling, showing them that you ‘get’ how they’re feeling, and helping to expand their ‘feelings’ vocabulary. You might say ‘you seem worried/cross/angry/frustrated at the moment. Also describing your own feelings out loud, eg. I feel so frustrated about … I’m finding it hard to explain and do the book justice, but I do think it relates really well to some of the ideas I’ve read on this site, about mindfulness, living in the moment etc. Interestingly, this book also helped me with my own feelings of guilt about not being the perfect parent.
I’ve also tried getting my 10 year old to write in her ‘feelings book’ whenever she feels angry or upset. She would then give the book to me, and I would write a little reply, congratulating her on expressing her feelings, confirming its ok to have those feelings, and reminding her I love her. She used this a few times until the novelty wore off and we both forgot about it. Think I will try and get her back into it, and maybe my 7 year old too - although he is currently more likely to demonstrate his anger by ripping the feelings book up!