When they are having a bad day, being bullied, or about to make a decision that they will regret (because of the influence of others), do I recognize that something is going on?
Here are a few examples of behavior that can indicate that “something” is going on that they are not sharing with you, and instead are trying to deal with it themselves.
1. They are Moody.
This is a new or different behavior because they were at peace, and now they can’t find peace and they are easily upset by any little thing. Start observing them, watch their behavior pattern. When they come home from school or hanging out with a friend, and they slam a door. It’s not the door they are upset with, it’s something else in their life and they are trying to shut out what just happened to them.
Please be aware: You can’t put a 50 year old mind into the brain of a 10 year old! This is all new to them, and they don’t know how to handle the stresses of life yet. Please don’t yell at them. If you do, they will say something mean back and run somewhere into the home crying. It is not what you said, it is what happened before you.
What you say when yelling at them just puts more ‘peanut butter on the spoon’ (southern talk for ‘you made it worse’). Now you might try to make it right, but you are trying to correct an issue that is not the issue, so they reject you and it just keeps getting worse. Your feelings are hurt, and you spend time dwelling on what was said, but not ever realizing that it could go deeper than that (like my Deep Thinking books on Amazon – you should check them out!)
2. When they start Keeping their Distance from you and everyone else.
Odd because they enjoyed being around everyone, and loved the company. Now they have ‘suddenly’ become a loner. They might think that you will laugh at them or dismiss there problems and tell them to get over it. Do you think that could be the reason why they don’t feel comfortable sharing with you? They might be able to look at you and smile, but they have feelings too.
Can you listen without saying a word and give them a hug and walk away, or do you just ‘have to’ say something and end up hurting their feelings, by telling them what they ‘should’ have done and what you would have done? This sends a message that they are not good enough, and please remember: They are NOT you. They don’t have your years of life experiences to use when making decisions and handling life.
“Knowing Your Child” is to observe their behavior and notice the changes, especially when it is sudden, realizing that something happened to cause that – they are just acting out hurt feelings and confusion.
We don’t want to find ourselves saying “I didn’t know that was going on” and now it’s too late.
As King Solomon said ‘There is nothing new under the sun’. Meaning that just like children behaved when you were young, they still do behave that way now and then some!
Find time; make time, to do things with your child that they like.
Share stories with them about different situations, and positive ways to handle it, because this will help them out a lot. Don’t tell them what they ‘should have done’, instead show them by stories that there are different ways to handle stress and that this is not new but is something others have made it thru before them.
If they take positive approaches to the situations, they can learn a lot and use it to better themselves and become stronger!
I remember when one of my daughters was young and her mood started getting strange and wasn’t getting any better. I knew something was going on, but she refused to tell me. So when I saw the bus dropping her off, I knew she liked music and hurried and turned the radio on playing old songs.
When she came in the house she saw me dancing and having a good time. I stopped immediately, hurried and turned off the radio and greeted her, then went into my room and turned up the music and kept dancing. When she walked by and looked into the room out of curiosity, I really put my moves on. I told her “Oh sorry, honey, this is really old music and the dance moves are probably too complicated for you, so don’t mind me just go away from my room – I don’t want you to be tempted to try the moves and hurt yourself!”
Knowing I am saying the right words to get her really curious and rise to the challenge – she stepped away and then came back and ‘peeped’ to see how hard the moves really were. Then she came in the room ‘I can do what you are doing!’ “Let’s see, you have 3 chances to get it right or you got to go!” I turned the radio up louder and stepped back, watching her moodiness get replaced with a confident smile. This is exactly where I wanted to get her – MISSION ACOMPLISHED.
After we danced for a few minutes then I asked ‘how was your day at school?’ and she unloaded everything she had been struggling with. I was shocked at how much stress she had been carrying and I didn’t try to deal with it right then – we just continued to dance while my mind was going to work on how to deal with this and bring her back to peace. If I had tried to deal with it right then it would have caused more confusion and got her upset again and WORSE it would have caused her not to trust me and refuse to share anything in the future.
So we danced a little more, laughed some, and I waited until dinner.
Now I knew what she was dealing with, I remembered when I was young and thought that my mom didn’t understand anything ‘she was just too old’ to relate. So many children feel that way about their parents. So I decided to share stories about things that happened to other kids I went to school with, stories that would give her solutions and answers to her problems, stories she could think about without rejecting because it wasn’t a “lecture from mom”.
Do you want to know how it turned out?
Tune in next time…
With Love Sugar
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