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Children's
Feelings
- by Deborah (Critzer) Fox
I went on an errand
one afternoon, leaving my 11 year old daughter home alone. Twenty minutes
later, I returned to find my child sobbing hysterically on the couch.
"What happened, what’s the matter?" I frantically asked her.
She couldn’t answer, just continued to sob. I panicked. "Did someone
hurt you?" She shook her head no. "Did you hurt yourself?"
Again, no. Whew! "Briana! What happened?"
Between sobs, I
heard, "Ha-ha-mster." Uh oh. We have a neighbor cat that the
kids love to play with. I ran to the room, afraid to look. I peeked in
the cage, little milkshake looked up, teeth barred, but alive!
"She’s OK!" I yelled, Briana came in the room, still crying,
she couldn’t believe it, she said it was laying with it’s leg hanging out
of the cage and she was sure that cat had hurt it. She said, "I got
so mad at the cat, I picked her up and tossed her outside", (pretty
violent for my normally loving daughter).
She still looked
upset. I said, "Did you feel guilty that if the hamster was dead, it
would have been your fault for letting the cat in?" Bingo! That was
it. She nodded and began to sob again, this time I held her in my arms
and let her cry. When she began to calm down, we were able to talk about
what had happened and what she would do differently from then on. She was
grateful, relieved and had learned a very important lesson about being
responsible for keeping the bedroom door shut if she let the cat in.
A child’s feeling of
guilt is an opportunity for the child to learn about responsibility and
the consequences of his or her actions. Parental response to guilt can
have a tremendous impact on the development (or lack) of a child’s
conscience, the ability to learn right from wrong, and their level of
social interest and responsibility. Children who are allowed to feel
their feelings, and helped by their parents to identify their feelings
and learn from them, are learning the skills to deal with life in a
responsible way. Feelings in children that are suppressed, express
themselves in a wide variety of misbehaviors. Some of the ways which we
as parents unknowingly stop feelings in children are:
Rescuing - "I’ll make sure you
that cat stays out of the house from now on. You don’t worry about it
anymore!"
Punishing - "You’re grounded from
playing with the cat for one month!"
Solving the
Problem -
"Why don’t you just cheer up, we’ll go out for ice cream and you
won’t have to think about it anymore."
Moralizing - "How could you be so irresponsible?
When I was young I was a very responsible girl and would never have let
something like this happen!"
Denial - "You shouldn’t feel
guilty, it wasn’t your fault!"
Humiliating - "I can’t believe you
let this happen, how could you do this, I’m so ashamed of you. I’m going
to make sure your friends know what you’ve done so you never let
something like this happen again!"
Pitying - "Oh, honey, that bad
cat, she shouldn’t be picking on the hamsters like that and scaring
you!"
Lecturing - "From now on young
lady, you are going to be more careful. I want you to always check
before...." (This is only a partial list of feeling stoppers, for
more information please see pages 173-175 of the Redirecting Children’s
Behavior Book)
While our intention
is to teach our child a lesson in the above examples, our results are often
much different. The child focuses on how unfair we are, or how bad they
are, rather than learning from their mistake. If we want our child to
learn, it is critical that we address the feelings first and then work
with them on dealing with the situation. Some ways to encourage feelings
are:
Be Empathetic - "I understand how you
are feeling; I have felt that too, it hurts doesn’t it?"
Validate Feelings - "You have a right to
feel that way. If it happened to me, I probably would feel the same
way."
Identify Feelings - "Sounds like you feel
_____." or "That must feel______." or "Are you
feeling sad?"
Listen Intently - Make direct eye contact and
listen for what is going on in her life. Listen as if it were your best
friend talking to you. "I am listening. I am interested in what you
are saying."
Be Curious - "That’s interesting, I
want to know more about how you are feeling about that." or
"How could you handle that next time?" or "Anything
else?"
Affirm Feelings - "You’re feeling really
sad!" or "I can see how angry you are!"
Invite Expression
of Feelings -
"Tell me more. I want to know how you feel." "I’m on your
side."
Once you have
acknowledged the child’s feeling, you will see visible relief in the
child and will feel very close in your relationship. This is a wonderful
window of opportunity for you to share in communication with your child,
a time of feeling close and connected with your child. It is these times
when you will feel you and your child are really listening to each other
and hearing each other. When you build closeness in your relationship
this way, you will find that you have much greater influence in your
child’s thoughts and decisions, they will begin to ask you what you
think!
Just to let you know,
after we talked about the hamster incident, Briana saw that cat and went
outside to apologize.
Deborah Fox is a
Certified Parent Educator and the mother of 3 children.
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