We are all impacted by stress. Certainly that is apparent in the last couple of years. Sometimes, however, we forget our children are feeling the stress also.
Just because we don’t talk with our children about the problems we are facing doesn’t mean they don’t know what is going on.
It is always interesting to talk with children when you know their parents are struggling and may decide to divorce. The parents may not discuss it with their children but that doesn’t mean that children don’t know and worry when they see and feel the conflict.
Many people think that children do not understand when problems occur. They do. They hear parents discussing a potential move, putting the aging dog down, a neighbor who is an alcoholic, COVID-19, school possibly closing again, a potential vaccination, a potential divorce, running low on money, grandma’s traffic accident, on and on.
Your child may overhear a private discussion you and your partner are having or be listening when you are sure he is in bed and asleep. He may pick up pieces of conversation you are having on the phone with your friend. Children are great listeners and hear far more than you think they do.
Talk it out
If you find your child being upset about something and you do not know what it is, talk together. Listen to what he is saying. Give him plenty of time to talk. It may be a personal issue such as problems with his girlfriend or trouble finding a girlfriend. He may be having problems at school. Do not try to guess where he is going; just listen.
After he has had lots of time to get to what he is upset about, see if you can help. Maybe just talking about whatever he is worried about will help.
The lesson parents learn from trying to help is to not be too pushy. Give him the time he needs and help him learn to believe you are not going to push him to do something he might not want to do. If he is not used to talking about issues with you, you need to gently push this door open.
Some of the things he may be upset about may simply need to be discussed. What should he and you be doing about COVID-19? Are you in the same place as he is about how to handle the virus. What are the difficulties if school needs to close down again? What could change these problems? Are you going to get a divorce? Be honest. This isn’t a time to withhold information that might help him understand how things are going.
We are getting to the second anniversary of concern about face masks and vaccinations. We are all impacted by it. The best way to help is to talk together about it. Nothing like this has ever been around this long with this much confusion about what we should do about it. Talk about it.
Actually just having good subjects to talk about helps you both learn how to share feelings. COVID may be good at least for sharing feelings together.
Parenting goes on forever. Any way you can improve it is well worth practicing and learning how to make it work.
Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and former executive director of Parenting Matters Foundation. For more information, email to info@firstteacher.org or call 360-681-2250.
