Teaching Kids to Traverse Pain

We all have challenging moments when we are suffering. It’s part of the human experience.  As a parent it is so challenging to witness our children feeling pain.  How do we as parents teach our children to navigate pain, physical and emotional, with as much support and grace as possible?  How do we teach them to be present with their experiences and  encourage them to express all emotions? 

This morning I brought my almost 3-year-old daughter to get a cap on her front tooth.  It wasn’t a painful process, but because it was unknown for her, any time the dentist used a tool that made sound, she got really scared.  I could feel and see her whole body tense up as tears started silently pouring down her cheeks.  

Backtracking a little bit, I woke up this morning feeling like I could barely breathe.   In a few days her papa and I are moving into two houses as the next phase of our divorce.  Many things were causing escalating anxiety for me, such as neither of us knowing where we are moving yet.  On the one hand, I am aware of the excitement of finally going through with this transition.   On the other hand, disentangling from a 15-year relationship is highly emotional and particularly heightened for me in this moment.  

So, I woke up this morning feeling like I couldn’t breathe. After making breakfast for the kids, I asked my daughter to come into the bedroom with me to do some breathing.  She happily came along.  As she watched me doing some deep breathing exercises, I heard her taking some deep breaths with me.  As I continued breathing, my tears started to flow.

Fast forward a few hours back to the dentist.  As my daughter was getting more scared, I saw her begin to take deep breaths.  Without me having to say anything, she was modeling the breathwork she saw me doing that morning.  She remained present through her fear by consciously breathing.  There was evidence of this by the way she was responding to the dentist’s consistent questions.   Another amazing thing she did was to take control of what could be controlled.  She asked them to change the channel on the T.V.  

Hands-down the best way to teach our children is by example.  They learn so much from how we show up, both our conscious and unconscious choices.  One thing we know for certain is there will be times of experiencing pain in our lives.  We can’t control what will happen and when.  We can however equip ourselves and our children with simple tools to navigate stress with grace and presence.  We can verbally teach them tools, AND there is no substitute for witnessing firsthand. 

Do you currently have tools that you use in highly stressful situations to manage your fear and stay present through the process? 

If not, NOW is the time to implement them into your life.  Do it for yourself first and if you have children or want to be a mother someday, you will lead by example, modeling an essential (often untaught) life skill.  As we model practices, our children do them without thinking about it.  We can then make it conscious for them by talking about what they did.  This morning, a while after we left the dentist, I reflected to my daughter the ways I saw her using her breath and her choice of what she could control to get through something that was scary for her.  I then celebrated her for this huge victory.  The more we support our child through modeling, reflecting, and celebrating, the better they will be able to navigate challenging times in their lives.  

Support begins with acknowledging our own emotions by having strategies to encourage feeling and choosing to use them.  I could’ve made the choice this morning to ask her father to watch her so I could have space to go breathe and have a big cry.  Instead I chose to invite her to witness my vulnerability, as well as the ways I navigated it.  This simple choice showed her that it’s ok to be vulnerable, that she doesn’t have to pretend to feel something she’s not, or hold it in or all together.  These versions are the unconscious modeling I learned as a child and by including her, she gets to learn another way.    

Our children are sensitive beings.  They feel everything we are feeling and sense our unspoken thoughts no matter how much we try to pretend everything is “fine.”  As parents, letting our children witness our full range of emotions is such an incredible gift to give.  When we take it one step further and model healthy ways to traverse fear, grief, anger, and resentment, we begin building a new humanity.

Dare to Desire!
Kristen