How To Stop Worrying About Your Children And Start Loving Them?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

I, like most parents, was worried about the new school year on the eve of September 1. The previous experience at school was terrible. The new school and new class only added anxiety to the scale of anxiety. My daughters didn't seem to care. But something in this alarmed me. "I'm worried … worried …" - I tried to identify my feelings. Although the next day I found out that the youngest daughter had not slept all night.

As a psychologist, I am well aware that unjustified parental concerns are passed on to children. I also understand that there is no point in worrying and worrying without facing real issues. Therefore, I want to share ideas on how to change anxiety into constructive steps:

1. Set aside about 1.5-2 hours a day to interact with your children. They will trust you when you spend time with them. Time is a condition for closeness with adults, but especially with children. Children often interpret their parents' busyness as their unwillingness to communicate with them. My daughter tells all the secrets after we spend time with her (walking, jogging, playing chess, etc.).
2. Watch out for gadgets. I have noticed that when I talk to the children on a walk or at dinner, I look at my phone. I need to make an effort not to be distracted. Imagine that a gadget (phone, computer) is an adult in your home. He, this stranger, accompanies everywhere. It is important for yourself to understand “who is the value for me now, whom I want to listen to, with whom to communicate”. Phone or daughter? Who is more important? In your free time with your children, turn off your phone as if you were at an important meeting with your boss.
3. Be curious - don't be anxious, but find out - how your children are feeling. Don't think or count, but how they feel. Especially when important events take place at school. Today my daughter and his wife were with the director (they were solving an organizational issue), I was not with them. In the evening I asked: "How is it for you that you communicated with the director?" She replied that she "almost cried." I would never know about her feelings in my life. But this question allowed them to be opened. It was very touching.
4. Anxiety brings anxiety, and with our fear we frighten ourselves and our children even more. During therapy sessions, I often give this task: write down your fears, and especially the three most important ones. When we speak our fears, it often becomes clear how absurd they are. Try to write your fears in one column - on the left. And on the right - what you can do about it. Specific actions are needed in order to solve specific problems. I noticed how this works after my daughters walk in the yard. Boys hurt girls, this happened more than once. In the end, I went to talk to the boys and we were able to solve this problem.
5. Pay attention to how your child is doing at school. Since he spends 5-7 hours a day there, be aware of what is happening to him. It is important to participate in a child's life from an early age so that children understand what is good and right and what is not. Our teaching system assumes categoricalness: “there is what is …” However, this may be because parents often do not delve into what is happening in the classroom. Once it turned out that a classmate beat my daughter in the stomach (she hid it), not only her, but other girls as well. When I found out about this, they began to understand and it turned out that the boy had a very difficult relationship in the family, and his parents believed that it was the norm to beat girls.
6. There is a phenomenological method in psychology. Use it when communicating with children. What does it mean? Learn to perceive your child - and not only him - without any assumptions, theories. Try to see the reason for being late from a walk in the evening is not that he does not listen to you, how non-executive, irresponsible, etc. etc. The reason for being late may be conflicts on the street among children. If you cannot perceive the child phenomenologically, then he / she is forced to lie in order to maintain your attitudes, expressed in claims and accusations. The phenomenological method involves giving up one's own truth in order to hear the truth of another.
7. An important and one of the most difficult points: pay attention to your parenting relationship. Often mothers complain that fathers are passive or ignore the requests of their wives. It turns out that for a long time, issues related to resentment, betrayal, and lack of warm feelings have not been resolved between husband and wife. The list goes on. And it often affects the health of children. When we cease to understand the voice of a wise soul, then the body begins to speak to us in the form of diseases. I am not an adherent of extremes. But remember, if there is aggression between you, hidden grievances, screams, if you do not give each other the right to be, this will affect your children. I have verified this by experimenting with galvanic tests that show stress levels in children. Sometimes it is difficult to determine (especially for younger ones), but they have stress as a reaction to problems between parents.

Remember, parents, your mental well-being is the key to the well-being of your children. Try to live by integrating different values into your life: work - family; colleagues are friends. Allow different values to be in your life. People are immersed in anxiety and live in it because they do not know how or are afraid to enjoy life.