What to do when they have an emotional breakdown
Every child needs to learn to respect others’ boundaries.
Parenting gives us the opportunity to help children with this.
Leaving to go to the beach this week was one of these moments where I needed to embrace my rights to go swimming.
Having been what many describe as an empath, learning to care for my needs as a parent has been the toughest process.
Going to the beach required every family member to pack whatever they needed.
With training over the years, my 8 year old can make his own decisions what he gathers for his bag.
You manage taking control of your life by having some proper responsibility.
What I forgot to organise was for him to be in charge of putting his bag into the boot.
During the school year I had switched this responsibility to myself.
Blame covid and the year we all lived through ☺️.
Each time we went to the beach during the heatwave in July, I took my kids’ bags and put them in the car.
By the way, leaving home meant to include my parents and looking after all their necessities of being comfortable and warm.
For what comes next, I was not prepared:
Arriving at Red Strand, my son expected me to have packed his rucksack.
Getting him to go into the water in his underwear sent him into a state of terror.
He cried and insisted we go straight home.
How I managed not to give in was to remind myself that I have rights too.
My approach takes patience and longterm vision.
Understanding that disappointments are part of life is crucial for our children.
Have faith in your child to be able to survive disappointment.
The biggest problem for my son were the missing goggles he needed for the salt not to hurt.
Going home or buying goggles in the nearest town would have meant to everyone suppressing their needs so that he never experiences painful feelings.
That this happened meant we needed to stop for warm clothes on the way back as the water was bitterly cold that day.
Nobody wanted to leave earlier as we truly enjoyed our time.
Allowing him to have some discomfort meant for us to walk through my responsibility in this situation.
From now on we agreed to him being in charge of taking his belongings.
Enjoy the Summer and what’s left of it and live with the moments that find you more exposed to needing to hold space.
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