lissa.
humans have been around for a long time. we're actually pretty hard to break.
maybe are you like my friend and can't bare the idea that your son might feel pain - well, it's inevitable and healthy. It's in fact even more unhealthy to pretend that pain doesn't happen or that it's something to be 'fixed' as soon as you can.
sometimes pain serves a good purpose: letting those around you know what your needs are, letting you know when you've made a mistake, letting you know your limitations. crying, in particular, can be a very cathartic and healing thing for even young children to experience.
whenever my son or daughter stub their toe or trip over or something I do two things: firstly, I ignore it. maybe they don't notice either, maybe they don't care, maybe they're not hurt. whatever, if _I_ don't cope with their pain in a relaxed and accepting way, what hope have they got of recovering from their 'owies'? The second thing I do, when they ARE hurt is tell them that they've hurt themselves, and get them to admit that it hurts "you fell over and scraped your knee and now it hurts a lot, doesn't it?" and you typically get back a snotty response of "yeah, it huuuuurts" and then 45 seconds later they're back climbing whatever it was that they just fell off.
when your kid is allowed to feel their pain and encouraged to name what's happeneing to them, it's not so scary or damaging.
.....
what I'm trying to say is that I GET why someone would feel very protective of their kids, but I also want to encourage people to be ok with the idea that kids get sick, break bones, vomit, get cuts, sprain their ankles and get sunburnt. It's calling growing up, and there's no fun way to avoid doing it.
----
on the issue of catching bugs and stuff - it's hard but... lighten up. ok, you don't kiss a baby when you've got oral herpes, that's uncool, but a cold?? that's just a cold. if the kid is going to catch a cold that's going around they're going to catch it - here, there, somewhere. if they hadn't got sick from that person it would have been someone in the checkout at the supermarket, or dad would have caught it at work... something. kids get sick. it's worth taking sensible precautions but it's not worth losing sleep (or friends) over.
humans have been around for a long time. we're actually pretty hard to break.
maybe are you like my friend and can't bare the idea that your son might feel pain - well, it's inevitable and healthy. It's in fact even more unhealthy to pretend that pain doesn't happen or that it's something to be 'fixed' as soon as you can.
sometimes pain serves a good purpose: letting those around you know what your needs are, letting you know when you've made a mistake, letting you know your limitations. crying, in particular, can be a very cathartic and healing thing for even young children to experience.
whenever my son or daughter stub their toe or trip over or something I do two things: firstly, I ignore it. maybe they don't notice either, maybe they don't care, maybe they're not hurt. whatever, if _I_ don't cope with their pain in a relaxed and accepting way, what hope have they got of recovering from their 'owies'? The second thing I do, when they ARE hurt is tell them that they've hurt themselves, and get them to admit that it hurts "you fell over and scraped your knee and now it hurts a lot, doesn't it?" and you typically get back a snotty response of "yeah, it huuuuurts" and then 45 seconds later they're back climbing whatever it was that they just fell off.
when your kid is allowed to feel their pain and encouraged to name what's happeneing to them, it's not so scary or damaging.
.....
what I'm trying to say is that I GET why someone would feel very protective of their kids, but I also want to encourage people to be ok with the idea that kids get sick, break bones, vomit, get cuts, sprain their ankles and get sunburnt. It's calling growing up, and there's no fun way to avoid doing it.
----
on the issue of catching bugs and stuff - it's hard but... lighten up. ok, you don't kiss a baby when you've got oral herpes, that's uncool, but a cold?? that's just a cold. if the kid is going to catch a cold that's going around they're going to catch it - here, there, somewhere. if they hadn't got sick from that person it would have been someone in the checkout at the supermarket, or dad would have caught it at work... something. kids get sick. it's worth taking sensible precautions but it's not worth losing sleep (or friends) over.
