On parenting…translated…
In the coming of age process of a child, it’s hard to avoid the bumps and bruises, mostly, if they’d hurt themselves, the parents would feel awful, because they couldn’t take their pains away. In another scenario, if the child injured someone else, after cleaning up after them, our heart would be in the air, worried, that if our young had, damaged the other individual to beyond repair.
What if, one day, the one hurting others, and the one getting hurt, is our own young?
On this very evening, the boys started playing a game of chasing and hitting each other, my second child chased my younger to the bed, and perhaps, he’d, pushed his younger brother, my youngest, with his back on the edge of the bed, “bump”, fell to the floor. All of us adults came into the room to check on them, we’d found our youngest, patting the back of his head, crying, and shortly thereafter, he’d, puked up all his supper.
As we’re working hard, putting that ice pack on him, and cleaning up, our second child worked hard, to try to get his younger brother’s spirits up, making faces at him, hugging him, and went to the kitchens, got some salt, spilled it behind our youngest, hollering, “It’s snowing! It’s snowing!”
This measure may be useful, in quieting our youngest for a short while, and it’d made us worked up, about our second child’s making a huge mess, on top of worrying over our youngest son’s injuries. AT that moment, we could no longer think thoroughly through our second child’s behaviors, we’d started getting angry at how he’d pushed his brother, and after grilling him hard over it, we’d punished him to stand against the wall a long long time.
The One Who’d Faulted Was Filled Up with Fears
In the middle of the night, our youngest woke up screaming out in pain in his head, followed by vomiting. This is awful, we’d rushed him to the E.R., had his scans done, the preliminary diagnosis was concussion, and it took us until four in the morning, to finally take him home again for more observations.
Perhaps, we’d, alarmed our second child as we came in, or maybe, he’d not slept a bit at all, he’d come to our room, saw me holding my youngest, he’d come closer to me, said in a tiny voice, “Mommy, I’m sorry, I didn’t cause younger brother to fall down intentionally”.
Ah! I was too worried over my youngest child’s conditions, I’d overlooked my second child’s emotions. Seeing how ashamed he was, thought about it, he must’ve been scared too, I suppose. I’d originally wanted to say, “It’s okay”, but I’d started struggling over that, because, some of the mistakes, doesn’t seem okay at all.
And so, before the words came out of my lips, I’d, swallowed them back in.
“Come, mom knows you didn’t hurt him intentionally, you must feel very bad too. I’m sure, that your younger brother’s head will get better, he’d loved his older brother just the same. But you know what? Even if you’d apologized, I still can’t tell you, that it’s okay you’d, pushed him, because this is really serious. You must remember what happened today, so you don’t push someone else like that again, okay?”
My second child started crying, nodded, “I know it now”. He’d gone to pat his younger brother on the head, and I’d, started to cry too.
“Mom thinks it’s wonderful you came to apologize to your younger brother, no worries, I’m not angry, I’d forgiven you. Go sleep for a while, you need to get up for school later.”
He’d gone back into bed, without another word.
Child, sometimes, a mistake creates serious damages, and even though mom knows you feel bad, I still can’t tell you it’s okay, I can only say to you, “I forgive you”.
Trying to Understand the Children Using Their Perspective
Every child needs a little luck from “being blessed as a child of god”, I suppose! And when a child couldn’t help, but fouled up, all we, as adults can do, is to watch over them best as we can, then, worked hard, to fix things, to minimize the extent of the damages, physical OR psychological.
My second child who’s more emotionally aware but more self-centered would always say, “I hope I’m the only child in this family”, but, he was born, in this family, with so many kids, and so, he’d, intentionally, or by accident, tested his mom and dad’s limits. Even most of the times, the consequences were all ours to handle, but this seemed to not lessen the wishes of him being an “only” child, and we found it hard, to divert his attention, to the benefits of having his siblings.
And all we can do was try then, hoped, that this kid really come to understand, what a blessing it is, to have his brothers in his life.
All the parents can do, is to use the child’s perspectives, to see them, guide them to relate to their own siblings better! If I can take my second child to see how his younger siblings see him, perhaps, that can be, the best kind of connections. Like how my second child started pouring salt all over the places (was he performing an exorcism?), it’s a behavior that we can’t handle, when we already have things, taxing our minds, but, as my youngest was describing how he was injured to the doctor, “My older brother pushed me off the bed, then, in order to make me laugh again, he’d started, splashing salt all over the place, and he was punished………”
This sort of a description made the doctor who’d thought we had, abused him, start getting it, the doctor even, smirked a little bit too.
My youngest understood his older brother’s heart, and knew of his good will!
I Will Help that Goodwill in You Grow Bigger
Most of the times, life pushes us forward, work, economics, family, relationships……..we are very busy, to the point of not having mind for anything else. Toward this sort of a lifestyle, I only have one rule: getting by when I can, and sometimes, I can, ram into things too.
But when things happen, there are conflicts, then, I’d must, slow down, even make a stop, to fight for some space and time for my own heart. Through stopping, we can see our own hearts, as well as the children’s hearts too.
Other than worrying about our injured son, we’d also, need to see that other child who’s fearful of what he did in the events. Other than trying to reduce the damages to a minimum, we’d hoped, that our ways of dealing with the matter will, give them an inoculation for the future, as well as guiding them toward the right directions of things.
After all, even if things happened all at once, the child who’d done something wrong must’ve felt guilty, seeing how he’d upset someone else, he’d wanted to, look after child he’d injured, these are, the goodwill of a young child, and his abilities to make connections, it may be weak but, it can grow, through our noticing it.
If I can, I hoped to help guard this goodwill—other than tending to my youngest’s injuries, and affirmed the simple kind of love my youngest has toward his older brother; not only helping my second son feel more secure and settled, and guide him to see the trust his younger brother has in him too.
If in this event, they can make up by holding hands, then, I believe, that their bond as brothers would only be strengthened as they get older.
So, this is how a mother handles a critical situation, the second son made the youngest fall off the bed, and while the parents worried about whether or not he’s concussed, the older child started doing things to lift up his younger brother’s moods, but the parents were too worried over this youngest to pay any attention to how the second child was trying to make up for what he did, and after the mother realized that the second son didn’t mean for his younger brother to get hurt, she’d empathized with the child, and, understood, that this event will only make the bonds of these two brothers grow stronger, after all, he didn’t intentionally give his younger brother a mild concussion…
Life, the Obstacle Course 