Coddling vs Empowering
One of the hardest things to impart to parents is how important it is to balance children’s “happiness” with their “development”.
Some of the most difficult and uncomfortable moments of your lives are spent dropping off a crying child, hearing a child tell you stories about a child who is being mean to them, or how they don’t have friends at school and want to stay home. We as teachers can try to reassure you that your child does indeed have fun at school, is playing well with others, and has all around adjusted to this environment which is admittedly so different from home.
Ultimately, we all want children to be happy. More importantly though, we want them to learn how to make themselves happy and to weather things when it doesn’t all go their way. For our teachers, this is very hard to do but something we know that we must do, or we will be doing our children a disservice. Here is an example.
A child comes to me and wants their mom. They are sad, crying and look like they need some attention. There are two ways for me to handle this. The first is to immediately pick the child up in my arms coddle her, tell her I am sorry that she misses mommy and that she will be here soon. The problem with this approach is that I have taken away all her power and encouraged her to be sad by babying her. I have not given her a chance to work through it; in fact, I have literally and figuratively sheltered her from her sadness. This is not true happiness, just easier in the moment. It does not leave the child with any lasting lesson, other than if I cry the teacher will fix it all for me.
The other approach is to get down to her level, give her a hug, and acknowledge her feelings. Then I can empower her by telling her that she can decide if she would like to just be sad or if she would like to play. I can take her hand and help her to find something to do that will take her mind off of missing mommy, but also, I have acknowledged to her that her feelings are indeed important. This is where the happiness comes in; where the child feels OK because of their own choices and actions and is supported in getting there by the adults. This is what we want!
Please prepare your children for life by allowing them to feel sadness and disappointment and helping them to learn to cope. Sheltering and fixing all their problems will not allow them to have these very important learning experiences. Unfortunately, life is not always rosy. Things do not always go our way. It is our job, our responsibility to illustrate these lessons at home and at school.
If you would like more information, or help implementing these ideas at home, please ask anytime.
