My daughter so often amazes me! She’s thoughtful, intelligent, creative and caring. She makes connections quickly, learns easily and always looks for the way to make something better or different.
And she’s emotionally intense! There is seldom a happy medium with her – it’s either the best day ever or it’s the end of the world…
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I love her more than any words could ever say, no matter how she acts – and yet I have to watch myself at times to make sure that’s the message that comes through to her via my words, actions and attitude.
There are days where it’s so easy to wish that she were more even tempered.
When she’s melting down over some little thing, my first instinct is to tell her “Sophie, this is no big deal – stop making it such a big deal!”
When we’re other kids her age, at school, it’s so easy to look at other kids and wish that she could just go with the flow sometimes instead of ALWAYS turning things into such a fight!
And when we’re with other parents, it’s so easy to feel like they’re watching Sophie and thinking “whoa – her parents aren’t doing a very good job!”
But all of that is about me, not her!
Thinking that way doesn’t send her the message that she is loved unconditionally.
Thinking that way doesn’t take into consideration her needs and feelings.
And thinking that way doens’t put me into a place where I can support her to be her best self!
Her first preschool teacher gave me some wonderful perspective on Sophie’s emotional reactions.
She said something like “some kids feel things strongly – so of course they react strongly or have problems staying calm! The kids who stay calm aren’t necessarily more disciplined – they just don’t have those strong reactions that compell them to act. So it’s easy for them to stay calm and handle things well. But that isn’t true for the sensitive child and we have to love the child we’ve got – not the one we wish we had!”
And here’s the thing that makes it even harder – Sophie is so much like me! The same things she struggles with are what I’ve had to struggle with Those reactions are what I used to get reprimanded for all the time as a child.
I lived on a fruit farm and we always had a bunch of cats and kittens around to catch mice. And I always got attached to the kittens – playing with them all day, naming them, loving them. I remember when one of them got run over by my Dad’s truck. I was devastated! Yet, when I came out of my room one evening to get some kleenex (as I’d been crying), my mom looked at me and just said “Quit crying – it was only an animal! What would you do if I died?”
Now, she was just being a practical farmer. And she likely grew up with that same message – quit making a big deal about everything, we don’t have time for such nonsense!
I don’t blame my parents for the “unlearning” and pain that I’ve had to do to learn to know or trust myself. I do, however, choose to do things differently for my children!
And so I hold back the sigh of frustration and I bite my tongue when I feel the urge to tell her to just QUIT IT! I take a deep breath, remind myself that I love the child I’ve got – and support her in loving all the good sides of being a sensitive person (enormous empathy, an ability and desire to help people, an intuition and gut feeling that can guide your actions) as well as temper the difficult side (the reactivity, the intense upsets, the overwhelming emotions).
Oh how I love (and am thankful for) the children that I’ve got – they truly are amazing!
