How to Parent a Kid Who's Nothing Like You

The day you receive a text from your girlfriend reading your quote in a magazine! Real Simple Sept issue! Thanks Brooke Smith-Lubensky and Chanie Mess https://www.realsimple.com/…/kids-parent…/what-child-is-this

“You have always had a very thick skin; your child might burst into tears if someone looks at her the wrong way. Why it’s so frustrating: “It can be embarrassing to always have the crying kid,” says Suzi Lula, a parenting educator and the author of The Motherhood Evolution. The other kids are happily bouncing in a bounce house, and yours is sobbing because someone cleared her birthday cake before she was finished. And when you try to quiet her down—“Don’t cry! Don’t cry!”—it only makes things worse. “Telling your child what not to do is about trying to alleviate your anxiety instead of hers,” says Lula.

How to meet halfway: Try this simple phrase: “It’s so understandable.” When we accept sensitivity instead of shushing it, kids don’t have to act it out as much. Say, “It’s so understandable you would be upset your cake is gone. I’d be upset, too!” As you empathize, you’ll see her whole body relax, says Lula: “Every child just wants to look up to a grown-up and think, ‘Oh, they see me.’ ”

Dealing with the reverse: Show your kid it’s OK to emote. “We’re taught to push an emotion away—eat it away, spend it away, drink it away, anything but feel it,” says Lula. Model for your child how to communicate feelings in a healthy way. Try, “Honey, I feel sensitive and confused when you roll your eyes. Can you put into words what you are trying to say?”

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