No matter how committed we are as parents, our children still have their daily ups and downs and sometimes their frustrations mount. Sometimes the stress builds up in the family and everyone is affected. When feelings build up and weigh a child down, even the simplest requests can feel overwhelming for them. At these times children’s emotional needs become very high, but instead of asking for extra hugs and connection, they’re more likely to become very unreasonable, inflexible and grumpy with all around them. Much of what is judged to be defiance, misbehaviour, laziness, spite or selfishness stems from your child having unmet emotional needs and consequently not feeling good in themselves. At such times reasoning, demanding, appealing, threatening or bribing can add to their underlying frustrations and do nothing to address their unmet emotional needs, but applying a little empathy goes a long way to turning things around. Children yearn to feel free of the stress of unexpressed emotions. When difficult feelings are listened to, accepted and understood, they become much less difficult, it allows the child to feel normal and ok about themselves again. The more genuine loving empathy we give our child, the quicker they can bounce back to feeling calm, settled and more secure. Our children can generally only cope with their feelings to the extent that their parent can cope with them. ~ Genevieve
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 07:05:57 +0000