Miss 3 – when I was at the shops with daddy, I was missing you!
Me – I know, but I had to do things at home sweetheart and I couldn’t come along
Miss 3 – but daddy said we go home later and I was missing you
Me – I know and we always go to the shops together, today was your special turn with daddy
Miss 3 – but I was missing you!
Me – I missed you too Maahi
Miss 3 – ok thank you !!
And thats all she needed from me, a responses appropriate enough to validate her feelings. I was too busy trying to manage my guilt for not going to the shops with them and tried to justify my actions to her. But all she wanted was to know that I missed her too 🙂
We as parents, as adults, forget to tap into the child’s emotion and assess what is it that they exactly need from us. Tapping into your child’s emotion is not an art or a difficult skill that needs to be mastered. It requires pausing, getting down to their level physically if need be, and recognise what is it that they feel and how we can validate and respond to that feeling – regardless of the words coming from their mouth. I shall write soon about recognising and tapping into a child’s emotion.