Translated…
Awhile ago, there were one case of murders caused by love right after another, the guy who’d gotten shot down, professing his love to a girl, killed the victim, and set her body on fire, the classmates of the killer claimed, “That’s not like him at all!”; the other case of a male who received a master’s degree killed his girlfriend, and he’d told, “I was very nice to her, how could she treated me like this.”
Behind the Optimism
This phrase gave me a deep warning: the child who is usually very optimistic regularly, may SNAP when they have a conflict. In this, there’s the common notion that: s/he shouldn’t treat me this way.
As my daughter was watching the news, she’d become somewhat confused, so, I’d decided, to ask her about it, and, the opportunity to discuss this topic came, quicker than I’d imagined.
In the evenings, I took her out to the park to play, a little boy handed a lollipop to my daughter, my daughter shook her head no, and, the little boy got angered, as his mom heard, she’d rushed over, to comfort him, and told my daughter, “He wants to be your friend, that, is why he’s handing you a lollipop, do you want to try it out?”
My daughter shook her head, said, in a barely audible voice, “I don’t want any candy.”, and as the little boy heard, he’d started screaming, “Why doesn’t she want it? Why doesn’t she want it?”, his mom started to panic, kept soothing the boy, kept telling my daughter, “Won’t you just take it from him, please, or he’ll feel hurt.”
And my daughter took the lollipop, and this mom was like relieved, all of a sudden, and soothed the little boy again, the boy slowly stopped crying, and his mom felt better, and led him away.
Only Half Way in Empathizing
As the mother and son turned away, my daughter immediately threw the lollipop toward me, I’d asked, “If you didn’t want it, then, why did you take it?” “He’ll keep on crying, plus, I’d told him up front, I didn’t want ANY candy.”, my daughter said, in a voice that felt unwilling to me.
“They didn’t get it, you can say it again, there’s NO need to force yourself to accept it.” “I don’t know how! Plus, I’m not going to eat it anyway!” “Then, do you think, that he would think, that you’d changed your mind? That you’re willing to be his friend?”…… “If the next time, he handed you candy, will you still take it?”, I’d started throwing questions at her now, and my daughter remained silent. And so, I’d started discussing with her, what methods can be used, to make her want the lollipop.
As for the little boy’s mother’s methods, in the shortest time, empathizing with the child CAN stabilize his moods, but, this half way method of resolving the crisis at hand can make the child feel, “People should give me what I want”; a lot of the parents, in “teaching the kids to have empathy”, has the goal of making something into nothing, without finding out the cause of the behaviors, or believed, that as the kids get older, they’d understand better.
The Interactions Should be From Both Sides
Empathy should be both ways, in empathizing with a child, the parents MUST tell the child, to empathize with others as well. If the parents asked others to comply, as a way of resolving the issues, then, that would only help the child to develop a more egotistical view, and the child will lose the ability to experience other emotions (such as conflict, jealousy, etc., etc., etc.), which will make the child even MORE detached from reality, or that they may only accept reality partially.
When the child says that nobody plays with her/him, not going along with what s/he wanted to do………don’t be rash, to intervene, DO patiently, accompany your young in experiencing the entire process, to recovery, even healing the wounds. Otherwise, the child is only accepting to the reasons you’d given her/him in the moment, and not contemplate on the more important reasons, and, there would be knots, tied, inside of the child’s mind.
And so, “just take it” doesn’t work, because I don’t want to take it, but, if I don’t take it, then, you’ll be hurt by me, so, what, do I do? As an adult, we are more prone, to use the methods of taking it first, but throwing it out when the other person’s not looking, because our minds are more developed to weigh in the pros and cons of if we did this or didn’t do that, but, NOT for a child, because a child’s mind is still developing, and, the child’s mind just don’t see that “far”, and, if you ask the kid to “just take it”, then, the kid who’s FORCED to take the item will be very displeased, it is still, VERY hard, to balance here, but this mother explained the issues to her daughter very well.
and no, still NOT my photograph…
Life, the Obstacle Course 