They feel your condition, hear your conversations on the phone and with your husband, they feel, for example, that you are worried, more often angry or scared. And, in addition to the usual stress that every child has in his life: school, teachers, kindergarten, new friends, growth spurts, children are now experiencing stress associated with the situation in the world. They experience it no less than we adults. But unlike us, much is not obvious to them, they are looking for answers to the question: “Why is this happening?”
And here there are two unpleasant consequences.
First, the less information, the more anxiety. Anxiety is fear without an address. And if the child sees that “something is wrong”, but does not understand what and why, his anxiety intensifies.
Second: the child's psyche tends to look for reasons in itself, in its behavior. It seems to them that the processes around them directly depend on their behavior.
I'll give you an example.
Recently, a teenage client of mine told me about her parents' divorce. They divorced when she was 8. She said that it was completely incomprehensible to her why dad left, and when she asked him, he told her that he had gone on a trip with friends and would return soon.
He was not, was not, and a few months later she asked her mother when her father would return. Mom said: "Never, he has a new family."
She was very hurt at that moment, it seemed that dad left because she behaved somehow wrong, wrong.
Years later, she says: “I would understand everything if it was explained to me. If mom had just said then that their relationship didn’t work out, that’s why they get divorced. And my dad will always be my dad. But no one spoke to me. Everyone thought I was too young to understand. And I understood everything!”
▪️A story from my psychic practice
The woman was sitting with the child on maternity leave. Everything was in order, but suddenly the child began to get sick all the time. Sick leave after sick leave, SARS, colds, rashes, insomnia.
At the reception, we begin to find out what was happening in the family at the moment when the child began to get sick. Her husband suggested that she go to work, send the child to kindergarten and start looking for job opportunities.
The woman wrote a resume, she was invited for interviews, but she did not like the options. Before the decree, she worked in a high position in a large company and did not want to settle for less. Plus, due to the constant illnesses of the child, she was never able to start working ...
In therapy, she admitted that she does not like the proposals that are now, but she feels strong guilt towards her husband, because it's time to help him financially - the family is now in difficulties. And the child’s illnesses allowed her to justify to her husband that she did not agree to work.
Do you know when the child, as if by magic, stopped getting sick? As soon as mom found her dream job! As soon as she ran to the interview with burning eyes, the child's illnesses stopped!
Children often want to be “wizards” for us - they feel our true desires and fulfill them, sometimes even with destructive behavior or illness.
Learning how to speak properly with children is a very important skill.
Yes, it's not easy. Even for me, a psychologist with extensive experience, it is sometimes embarrassing to answer children to some suddenly serious question. But I know exactly how to help, I know exactly how to say what to say so that the conversation turns out to be safe and the child finds support for himself in it.
Yours, Ekaterina Antonchik
Ukraine
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