Free from Negative Emotions-International Sunshine Home

As time has gone by, I have worked in Sunshine Home for more than five years. Working with children every day, I have enjoyed observing each child’s different characteristics and listening to their mothers telling me about their happy and troubling stories.

In the process of answering parent questions, I’ve learned how to help children rid themselves of negative emotions and find positive solutions instead. As it happens, my daughter was also troubled by her negative emotions last week.

My daughter graduated from Sunshine Home more than a year ago, and now she is a second-grade primary school student. Last week, as usual, my daughter was picked up from school by her father. After washing our hands and changing our clothes, the family began to have dinner.

But today my little “sparrow” acted very oddly. Instead of chattering away, she completely ignored her favorite food, dumplings with chives, and even didn’t pick up her chopsticks. She looked so down, with her head drooping and eyebrows frowning.

Seeing this, I guessed something must have happened, so I asked, “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you in a bad mood today?”

My little “sparrow” responded weakly, “Yes!”

Her dad was also quite worried and asked, “What happened? Tell daddy, ok?”

My daughter was silent for a while and said intermittently, “Today Hanhan promised to play with me, but she played with Coco and didn’t play with me!” As the words came out, my daughter started to sob. It was not like her at all, she is normally a tough girl.

My daughter continued to vent her grievances, “She did this several times. She promised to play with me at first, but then went to play with others.”

Looking at her troubled little face, my heart ached a bit.

I thought for a moment, gently touched her back and said slowly, “Baby, mommy knows you are angry right now, right?”

She replied immediately, “Yes!”

I immediately continued to help her sort out her troubling emotions, “What Hanhan has done makes you feel very sad, right?”

Hearing this, my daughter burst out crying and nodded her head vigorously. I quickly held my poor little girl into my arms and patted her on the back, allowing her to vent her feelings.

After a while, I lifted my daughter from my arms, moved her hair from her forehead, looked into her eyes and said, “Mommy knows you want to play with Hanhan very much. You value your friendship with her. And what she has done makes you angry and hurt your feelings.” She was still immersed in her sadness and troubles. I continued, “But, you see, because of her, you’re crying so hard and can’t even eat anything. She doesn’t know that at all. This won’t solve the problem. Let’s figure out how to solve this problem together!”

My daughter looked at me and said nothing. After a moment of silence, she suddenly remembered something and said angrily, “She does not want to play with me.

I’m going to play with someone else!” I took my little girl’s hand and said, “Well, that is one way. But mommy wants to give you a suggestion. You can decide whether it can better help you or not. Tomorrow you can go talk to Hanhan and tell her you regard her as your good friend and what she did makes you feel very sad. You can tell her you like to play with her and ask her if you can join her and Coco together. If she agrees, great; but it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t agree. You can play with other children. My little baby is such a nice girl, there must be other children who like playing with you!”

After hearing my words, my daughter looked at me hesitantly with her bright little eyes. I looked into her eyes and nodded affirmatively. Children often gain strength and confidence from their mother’s attitude. My daughter accepted my suggestion with pleasure. I wiped her little dirty face with a warm towel. The family began to enjoy the dinner again, laughing and talking.

Through long-term work in the preschool and frequent contact with parents, I find that many parents, especially new parents, give too much tolerance for their children’s emotions, which leads to their children being trapped in a vicious circle of negative emotions for a long time and unable to come out.

Here is a common example: in the morning, I often see some parents who refuse to leave after dropping their children off at school, saying that they should fully respect their children’s feelings and wishes. They don’t want to leave until their children are willing to follow the teacher to the classroom. Sometimes the children cry in their mother’s arms for more than an hour and finally the mother has no choice but to leave.

At first, the child just felt a little sad, but because of her mother’s lingering the child would fall into the cycle of negative emotions. As soon as the mother left, the child would quickly begin to have fun in games and activities with other children.

In fact, education is about how to grasp the right degree. We can’t ignore our children’s emotions, pay too much attention to or give too much tolerance for their emotions.

When children have emotional problems, we should fully accept their emotions first, but more importantly, we should teach our children to actively find solutions to problems, rather than indulging in negative emotions for a long term.

This is a very important ability and mentality. A child with such an ability to solve problems will surely grow to be strong and optimistic and have a splendid and bright life!