“They said they wouldn’t be mean to me anymore,” he said. “They said they’d try to be nicer, unless I did something they didn’t like.” “You don’t put stipulations on friendship,” I told my oldest son. “I know,” he said. “They’re being nicer now.” There was a time such an exchange would have broken my heart. We’ve lived through those times. Lots of them. My heart has broken more than I care to count. Now it only bends as I bite my tongue in frustration, willing the jerks of the playground to get theirs on the nose and nodding carefully at the boy in front of me. “Perhaps you should … [Read more...]
Emotionally Prepared Parents Give Space to Kids When Needed
Emotions are a complicated thing. We all have them, we recognize them in each other, and yet they remain relative and subjective. No matter our basis of empathy or the pulls of sympathy, we can never truly know exactly what it is that another person is feeling. We can only relate to the labels that we have all agreed on. Considering that, when discussing emotions with my kids I always attempt to dig deeper, not to hear “I’m sad” and quickly diagnose it, write it off, or try to fix it, but to find out exactly what “sad” means. How does it affect this action or that thought, where did it come … [Read more...]