Teach Your Kids to Cry Better: Emotional Literacy as a Survival Skill

Sunday, March 23, 2025.

“Use your words,” we say to the toddler mid-meltdown. But what if no one ever taught you the words? Or worse—what if you learned that using them made things worse?

Emotional literacy used to be optional, like cursive or Latin.

Now, it’s a matter of survival.

In a world where stress is ambient, attention is fractured, and feelings are both pathologized and monetized, emotional literacy isn’t just nice—it’s necessary.

This post explores how emotional literacy became a top-tier parenting goal, how we’re doing, and why helping kids feel their feelings is one of the most subversive things you can do.

The Old Playbook: Repress, Distract, Minimize

Until recently, the emotional playbook for children went something like this:

• “You’re fine.”

• “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

• “Go to your room until you calm down.”

These weren’t just mean phrases. They were cultural scripts, passed down through generations terrified of vulnerability. Children were taught that emotions were either dangerous (anger), embarrassing (sadness), or weak (fear).

The result? Millions of emotionally illiterate adults raising kids in a world that suddenly expects everyone to be emotionally fluent.

Oops.

The New Playbook: Co-Regulation and Naming Feelings

In the past decade, emotional literacy has gone mainstream—thanks to Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (1995), Brene Brown’s TED talks, and a million therapists on TikTok whispering, “Your anger is valid.”

We now know that kids need emotion coaching, not just discipline. Gottman et al. (1997) found that children whose parents labeled emotions, offered empathy, and modeled regulation showed better academic performance, fewer behavioral problems, and stronger peer relationships.

But here’s the trick: you can’t teach what you don’t have.

So a generation of parents is now re-parenting themselves while parenting their kids. They’re Googling emotion charts at midnight. They’re pausing mid-yell to breathe. They’re learning to apologize without imploding.

Emotional Literacy Is the New Fluency

Emotional literacy involves four main skills:

• Recognizing feelings

• Naming them accurately

• Expressing them safely

• Regulating them with help or tools

These aren’t just soft skills—they are developmental necessities. Research shows children who can name and regulate emotions are more resilient, less aggressive, and better at solving problems (Denham et al., 2012).

And yes, this applies to adults too. The number of marriages saved by the phrase “I’m feeling overwhelmed, not attacked” is likely in the tens of thousands.

Memes That Know What You’re Feeling (When You Don’t)

Emotional literacy has gone viral—mostly in meme form:

• “I wasn’t a difficult child—I was a dysregulated child in a chaotic environment.”

• “The first time someone asked me how I felt, I thought it was a trap.”

• “Big feelings in a tiny body = human earthquake. Be the safe building.”

These aren’t just jokes. They’re public curriculum for emotional education—especially in communities where vulnerability was once unsafe or unspeakable.

And they’re working. Kind of. For now.

Philosophical Pause: Is There a Limit to Naming?

If a child can name 50 emotions, but still has no one to co-regulate with, does it help?

Is there a point where naming feelings becomes hyperverbalizing—an attempt to intellectualize emotions instead of feel them?

And when every emotion is medicalized or monetized—“Is this depression or just capitalism?”—do we risk turning real feeling into brandable content?

These questions don’t negate the value of emotional literacy. But they ask us to pair it with relational safety and ethical attunement.

Otherwise, “use your words” becomes another empty, meaningless script.

What Actually Helps:

• Feelings Charts with Faces: Use visuals, not just vocab. Especially for young kids or neurodiverse learners.

• Emotion Check-Ins: Ask “What color is your heart today?” instead of “How are you?”

• Repair Rituals: Teach that anger doesn’t break the bond—and that reconnecting is part of the process.

• Modeling: Say “I feel tense and need a minute” instead of snapping. Your kids are watching.

And remember: it’s not about perfection. It’s about rupture and repair, not never raising your voice.

Final Thought: Emotional Literacy Isn’t About Never Crying—It’s About Crying Better

To teach emotional literacy is to teach humanity in the face on impermanence.

You’re not raising emotional scolds. Or mutes.

You’re raising humans who will someday sit across from someone they love and say, “I’m scared. Can we talk about it?”

That’s the goal. That’s the revolution. That’s what makes a future worth building. If you can’t manage that, get off the train.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Denham, S. A., Bassett, H. H., & Wyatt, T. M. (2012). The socialization of emotional competence. In J. Grusec & P. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of Socialization (2nd ed., pp. 638–664). Guilford Press.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bantam.

Gottman, J. M., Katz, L. F., & Hooven, C. (1997). Meta-emotion: How families communicate emotionally. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.