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Children are constantly learning how to express themselves as well as to handle new situations. When it comes to raising children there will be times when children hurt your feelings. It can happen at any time or age of the children. Has it happened to you? I have experienced it a lot of times in my life as a mother. Today I would like to share some tips about what to do when your child hurts your feelings. Well, I am not an angel or a holy saint. I am just an ordinary human mother. I feel sometimes some love and hate relationships with my children.
What do you do when they hurt your feelings through their manners, attitudes, habits, and spoken words? Will you tell them that you hate them? You might not be able to control yourself and the words come out of your mouth uncontrollably. Whether children understand or not, I believe that you feel regretful a lot.
Let's swap the situation when children tells you that he or she doesn't like you. It's not easy to hear the words “I hate you!” out of the mouth of that little child that you love so dearly. This can break your heart and make you very sad. The key is to remember that all children have times when they're so upset that they say hurtful things to their parents and it's a completely natural part of learning to grow and express feelings.
Before we continue, I would like to share some parenting books that might be useful for you to read
The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups
I Hate You! What To Do When Your Child Hurts Your Feelings
Stay Calm
The first step is to stay calm because your child may not realize that they hurt your feelings and you responding with an angry response isn't going to teach your child any lesson about how to properly express their own feelings. Emotional action might lead to verbal harassment that might give permanent effects to their psychological growth.
You still have to suppress your emotion when you have hurt them back as well. I know this is very hard, indeed. However, everything will not get a positive result when you lose your anger. Get something else to do to calm down yourself.
Related article:
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- The Battles in Homeschooling
- When Will Your Children Get Ready?
Refrain From Punishing
There shouldn't be a huge consequence for a child expressing their feelings in a way that hurts your feelings. Children may not know any better than to say that and have no idea how it made you feel. It's best to work with your child to teach them a lesson about expressing feelings rather than punishing them unless they've said something that's completely inappropriate then they may need a small consequence for saying a naughty word.
However, when it comes to mischievous behavior, I will explain some natural consequences or let them experience more logical consequences out of their behavior. It is also not easy and it sounds too idealistic.
Punishment is not something wrong. It is something natural. However, we need to think further about the impact of punishment before doing it to children. Will it make any difference when you punish children having hurt your feeling with their words, behavior, and attitudes? What kind of punishment that will show positive improvement? You should be the one who knows the answer better than I do.
Don't Take it Personal
When it comes to getting our feelings hurt and our child is to blame for those feelings, we need to be careful about this. In any stage of ages, I am really sure that your child doesn't mean what they say when they say hurtful things, it's just their way of expressing their anger about not getting their way or having to do something that they don't want to do. I am very sure that they love you so much, but they cannot control their verbal expression and feeling. It is just the same case as what you might have done to them.
Therefore, you should not take hurtful words personally. They come out of temporary emotions. You might need to talk to children about the hurtful words you address to them later on.
Discuss Feelings Later
Do not discuss how the words your child said made you feel and the words you address to them as well until you both have had time to calm down from the moment. When children say something that hurts your feelings they're probably already too upset to have a normal conversation, allowing time to cool down before you discuss the situation will ensure you're able to get through to your child to help them express feelings better next time.
On the other hand, you need to explain that it also happen to you when you talk out of control. Tell them not to exemplify what you have done with the emotional verbal words. Ask for forgiveness from them and forgive each other.
Pray and meditate
Parenting is not always easy. There are times you might have to experience and face hurtful words, manners, and attitudes from children in the future. Bring your children to your prayer and have more quiet time. Ask God for more power to endure the temptations.
To conclude, these are just a few things about what to do when your child hurts your feelings. The key here is to remember that your child is growing and learning with each new experience. If you can let go of the personal hurt that your child caused you and try to handle this situation with some grave and positivity, you'll find that your child soon learns how to express their negative feelings in a more reasonable way so that you can work together to resolve their issues.
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