Hello!

My son had his tenth birthday a couple of days ago.

He was so excited to open his presents.

He started with opening a box with toy cars in it.

He had chosen 10 of them himself a couple of days before (they were reduced to a dollar).

But when he opened them, he found that there were only 9 of them.

He was sad about it. He kept telling me, “I’m sad that there are only 9,”

We looked in the shopping bags to see if one was still in there. It wasn’t.

I looked in the car. It wasn’t there.

He asked me to look at the receipt, which I did, and I had paid for 10.

But we couldn’t find that tenth car!

He kept on saying he was sad.

And I found myself, in my mind, wanting to say things like,

“It doesn’t matter, we can get you another one,” and,

“but it’s your birthday and it’s a day to be happy,”

“you’ve got loads of other things, one car doesn’t make a difference,”

but I stopped myself!

(Funny, that after 14 years of practicing Aware Parenting and Nonviolent Communication, which are both all about listening to feelings, I was still SO tempted to say those things!)

So I simply listened, and gave him empathy.

“I really hear how sad you are,”

“I hear how disappointed you feel.”

I was so curious that I had these shoulds, in particular that birthdays should be happy, and that nearly derailed me from just being with him where he was.

And in retrospect, I realise that the number was important too. He was 10 now, now 9. 

And after receiving the empathy, and talking a bit more about how sad and disappointed he felt, he was able to freely move on to the next part of his day.

I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that tension in yourself,between the part of you that wants to be empathic with your child, to meet them wherever they are at, to unconditionally love them whatever they are feeling, to help them stay present with themselves,

and between the part that wants to fix things, or avoid uncomfortable feelings, or make things be different to how they are?

I was amazed to see how strong those old thoughts were and how wanting his birthday to be a certain way nearly got in the way of me connecting with him where he was!

What helps you be with your baby or child’s feelings, without distracting them?

I’d also love to share about my current and next courses.

I launched my Create a Course a few days ago – it was going to be just for people who are doing my Aware Parenting Instructor Mentoring Course, but I decided to open it to anyone who has done any of my courses.
 

If you want to find out more, it’s on sale for another few days; CLICK HERE or on the image below to learn more.