Miki Dedijer

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Breathing through a feeling

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Feelings are fleeting.

Anger can be over in a flash. Sadness can settle and seem endless.

But it’s in the nature of all feelings that they pass. And they pass faster if we don’t do violence to ourselves by supressing or fighting our feelings.

Your child can learn how not to be overwhelmed by her feelings. With your guidance, she can come to befriend fear, shame or any other feeling, by being gently attentive and patient.

If your child is anxious, softly hold her hand, and let her know that you will breathe together. Place a hand on your bellies, and feel them rise as you inhale, and fall as you breathe out.

Concentrate on that movement for a while, until your thoughts begin to fade.

At the right time, perhaps you can speak a few words recognizing the painful feeling, and as you continue to breathe, see if you both sense the tension release.

When our child and us parents ignore or supress painful feelings, we suffer more and longer. Instead, find a way to breathe through them together.

Touch your child’s heart to feel her fear

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Fear isn’t always visible on our children’s faces, even when their bodies are in turmoil.

When my son was around four, we left the farm to visit the city for the day. We sat by a market square with an ice cream each, when a red-faced, drunken man walked up to us yelling and gesticulating.

He soon walked away, and I looked at my son, who sat very still. My hand was on his chest, and I could feel his heart pounding.

He was in fear of his life, but there wasn’t much showing.

I learned something that day.

Now, whenever I wonder if he’s afraid, I place my hand gently on his heart. It helps me know him better.

Your body says a lot to your child

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Your child knows your body better than you might imagine.

He knows the meaning of your hunched shoulders, the sound of your hurried heels on the floorboards, the slowly spreading smile before you get playful.

Your body language says more than your words. The tone of your voice says more about your feelings than the adjectives you speak. The younger your child, the more he responds to your expression, your tone or tension rather than the words you choose.

A little more awareness of how you carry yourself, goes a long way towards carrying your child with greater awareness too.

Withhold or flow

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Family energy stops flowing when you withhold your inner life.

You might want to hide your endless worry from your overworked wife. You’re secretly fuming that your husband has left his underwear on the floor again. Or you hesitate to show your joy on a day that your partner is in pain.

When you withhold, you put your whole family on hold. Even if you don’t share what what’s going on inside of you, your energy is in the room.

It’s confusing, not least to your child. They sense these things like a scented breeze, a vibration, an unease. When you suppress your inner life, your body says one thing and you say another. A child can’t make sense of it. Or your partner.

Making room for anger

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Our home needs to house our entire child, every part of her, even her anger.

Her screams, tantrums, rages need a large room of their own.

We create space for this out of our own familiarity with distress.

We teach her where to find peace again, by knowing how to find our own peace.

One of the old meanings for ‘anger’ is ‘grief’. Under the painful constriction of agony, there is a well of tears.

Once our child has spent all her anger, we hold her tears within the embrace of our own tears.

Our home needs to house all of us too.

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The tears of futility

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Transformation is most likely to happen when we find ourselves in a situation we cannot change.

The first step is futility–the sense that no matter what we do, nothing changes. All our strategies to get our way prove useless.

Every child knows this feeling, often several times a day. He comes last in a school race. Or daddy says, ‘you can’t have that remote control dinosaur’. Or mommy says ‘we’re too busy today to drive you to your friend’.

The second stage is when the feeling of defeat sinks in. Your child cries, yells, goes silent. The tears of futility flow. There really is such a term, and these tears have a specific chemical composition.

They are the tears of letting go, and discovering that it’s not the end of the world.

They are the immediate signs of adaptation.

Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’, or to bring your child to tears when you set a limit. Be there to hold them when their disappointment hits home.

You’re teaching your child how to live in a world that is mostly beyond his control.

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