I'm talking about those children who are part of life and not incredibly detrimental. These are those opportunities for teaching in this situation. What I did was I simply asked questions and that depending on the age of the child you can ask deeper questions and in this case, did you ask them to stop and how did they respond when you asked them to stop? Are you taking some responsibility for this situation on yourself, not for the person calling you names, but like how you choose to handle that?
“Is it OK to Come and rescue me? I need someone to come rescue me.” When we respond in a way like, “Oh my goodness, they said and they did that. Oh, we've gotta go in there and talk to them.” We instantly create the sense for them that oh, this is wrong, that child did do something wrong. They did judge me. I should feel down or like that they harmed me. They could very easily pick up on those kinds of senses when we go in and rescue them. In that way, did you ask them to stop? What did you do in that situation? What power did you take in that situation?
I do thank them for coming and telling me and so that we could have a discussion and depending on the things that are talked about, I might go over with them and talk with that child, and we give them that opportunity. We want them to understand that other people don't control our feelings, our emotions, that we have control over that. Did we ask them to stop? How did they respond? We might even go into well, how do you feel about what they say, what they said? Do you think that's true? Well, if it's not true for you, then you know it's something about them. Maybe they have a different way of looking at things. They have a different idea of what it means, and we can let that go. We can take that in as information. Take a look at it.
This isn't something that really, truly pertains to me. It has to do with the other person. We can teach them to let it go right then and there. It's about how you take it in that creates some foundational thinking and programming that doesn't benefit us. If you like, carry the learning or the maintenance of that program down through the years, what does that mean? As they're dating, what does that mean once they're married? You know that our spouse has to behave a certain way or do a certain thing, or say certain ways for me to feel loved because here's the thing, people aren't perfect. People struggle and if we feel like everybody around us. It has to be perfect for us. I mean, can you see how divorce it rates have increased?
Do you see how people can have depression, anxiety, loneliness, even when they're with people? When? We don't help them to learn to think about the information other people give them. And to choose, maybe what I did could be perceived as unkind.
Is there something I can do differently so it's not just about letting go of the things that don't belong to them, but taking it in and even looking at that as well? What could I do differently if I wanted to? If I feel like this would benefit me. What could I do differently next time?
Imagine what that's like to be able to have these discussions with your children, to come to understand things that perhaps you didn't understand as a child because you weren't taught by. Working with your children, just asking questions and what is the outcome that we want for them to be independent, to be self-reliant, to get the help they need when they need it, and to be able to determine when those times are really looked at.
What questions can you ask to bring more clarity to the situation for yourself to know? How much help the child might need in this situation and for the child to help them to be self aware and to be aware of other people, but as separate from themselves. Yes, we interact, we have all of that. But what another person says is not who we are. Often that's hard for us, even as adults really up through this.
So remember, children are great by their very natures, and we have that opportunity, privilege and responsibility of raising them.
