Hello!

Today I took my 14 year old daughter and 10 year old son to a homeschooling board-game meet-up.

We arrived and my son said he didn’t want to join in – in fact he had said all along that he didn’t really want to go!

We went back outside, leaving my daughter there, and sat in the car.

He was fed up. He wanted to go. He was feeling agitated and frustrated and grumpy.

For a moment, I could feel myself being tempted to get grumpy and agitated too, going with a thought, “Why is he being like this!?”

And then I remembered about empathy, and I remembered all about what I am writing about in my newest course, and how I have been practicing this for 14 years and teaching it for 11, and remembered that HE DOESN’T ACTUALLY ENJOY FEELING LIKE THIS. Him being like this isn’t some attack on me. He’s just feeling frustrated and fed up.

Phew! Just in time I remembered compassion, and just stayed with him and gave him empathy and kept on being compassionate with him and how much he didn’t want to be waiting for his sister.

After a while, we started trying to fix something on the dashboard that was broken, and he really got into the engineering of it all, and we actually had fun working it out together.

It could so very well have gone differently if I had got frustrated and spoken to him from that place.

And then I had another test situation a bit later! My daughter finished the games, and we all went to the shopping centre.

My son was now happy and connected, but now she was clearly feeling fed up in some way. She avoided connecting, rolled her eyes once or twice, and was talking to us in an agitated and fed up tone.

And again, I found myself wanting to catch her upset and be upset because she was upset!

I could see some very old part of me responding from old beliefs, that somehow she ‘should’ be happy and that her eye rolling was some kind of attack on me!

And again, thank goodness, I remembered what I’ve been writing about. I remembered that SHE DOESN’T ACTUALLY WANT TO BE FEELING FED UP LIKE THIS and that she needs loving compassion, not me feeling upset in response.

And the rest of the way home I talked calmly with her about how she felt. And her feelings shifted too.

I love how, when I’m creating a course, old things come up to be heard.

I really saw that I’d grown up in a culture where, if someone was kind of ‘grumpy’, that the other people around would hear that as a criticism and then become grumpy or harsh themselves, or disconnect.

When of course, when someone is ‘grumpy’, they are in pain, and actually need love rather than disconnection and harshness.

I love how I keep coming back to basics like this, even after many years of aiming to listen compassionately to my children’s feelings!

I wonder if you ever notice that you react when your child is feeling agitated and antsy?

Are there times where you ever hear that as a criticism?

And would it help to remember that your child actually doesn’t enjoy feeling like that, and they’re not doing it on purpose to influence you, and that they actually need compassion rather than disconnection?

And yes, my Making Friends with Children’s Feelings Course is still available! 

CLICK HERE or on the image below to find out more!