Constance Wu, the Golden Globe–nominated actress from “Fresh Off the Boat” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” has always been very emotional. At just four years old her parents would reward her if she could go one day without crying, she told Hoda Kotb during the November 4 episode of the “Making Space” podcast.
But Wu said she is taking the opposite approach with her own children.
She described a parenting technique she learned partly from reflecting on her own childhood: When her daughter is upset, she sits quietly beside her instead of rushing to fix the problem.
“Sometimes the most effective move is not making a move,” said Wu. “If your kid’s having a meltdown, don’t try to stop it. Don’t try to solve it. Don’t try to give them a tissue unless they ask for it. You just sit with them. Just sit.”
Currently raising a 6-year old daughter and 3-year-old son, meltdowns are a common occurrence in Wu’s household. And her philosophy in handling them is simple: Do nothing.
“That’s actually harder than you would think because people aren’t always good at tolerating discomfort,” she said. “But if you just sit with them and listen to them, and let them feel that whatever they’re going through is okay, and I’m not freaking out about it … Then they’ll stop freaking. They’ll calm down. They’ll have their feelings, and then they’ll stop freaking out.”
Wu believes her children learn emotional regulation by watching how she handles her own feelings. She said this tactic works wonders with her 6-year-old daughter.
“The craziest thing happens with my daughter if she’s going through something, like she really doesn’t want to do X, Y, Z. The move is to do nothing. I don’t look at my phone. I look at her. I sit down next to her. I get next to her level. And if I don’t say anything, I just listen to her. She starts talking herself out of it,” Wu explained.
“She gets upset, and then she gets mad, and then she gets sad, and then she’s like, ‘I guess it’s okay. Let’s do it.’ And then she talks herself out of it,” she said.
“All I had to do was not do anything.”
“That might be the best advice we’re going to get from this whole podcast,” Kotb replied.
The biggest thing in parenting is actually learning how to regulate yourself because kids learn by example, not by what you tell them.
Said Constance Wu
“I heard this thing the other day that said parenting changes when you realize that the biggest thing is actually learning how to regulate yourself because kids learn by example, not by what you tell them,” said Wu. “If they’re having a meltdown and instead of panicking ... you regulate yourself, which means you don’t say anything. You sit down, you get on their level, and you breathe. They will start breathing, too. If they see you doing it every time they have a meltdown, they start doing it.”
Wu acknowledged that this is easier said than done. She said being such a highly emotional person herself has made handling her kids’ big emotions easier.
“You know how parents panic when their kids start to cry? When my kids start crying or having meltdowns, it doesn’t elicit a panic in me. It actually kind of activates me to want to lean into it more because I didn’t get that,” she said.
She believes allowing children to experience and express difficult emotions is healthier than asking them to suppress those feelings.
Hoda asked Wu where she put all of those feelings that she wasn’t allowed to express as a child.
“When you suppress something for long enough, it doesn’t go away; it comes out somewhere,” she said. “It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s many layers of straw and then one day something will happen … your green shirt isn’t clean. And you wanted the green shirt, but you have the blue shirt instead, which ordinarily is not that big of a deal. But on that day, you will just lose it because you’ve been carrying all of these feelings of grief or being unheard and swallowing it for so long without any release that it is going to come out.”
“That’s why I think it’s really important to just get it out when it comes out,” she added.
