The document discusses compassionate parenting and provides an example of how to respond compassionately when a child is feeling scared or nervous. It describes a mother who tries to talk her son Johnny out of feeling nervous about starting preschool, but this backfires as he appears the most anxious. The document advocates identifying and validating a child's feelings, normalizing their experience, and comforting them without trying to change their emotions. It provides a hypothetical compassionate response from Johnny's mother, where she acknowledges and names his feelings, hugs him to show he can trust her with his tears, and explains that feeling scared is normal. The goal of compassionate parenting is to help children develop the ability to identify and process emotions from a young age

1. Compassionate Parenting
My daughter tore into the kitchen with a wide smile on her face. She pushed a
flower toward me that she'd taken from a vase on my table. With pride she
exclaimed, "Happy Mother's Day, Mom!" We were in February—three months away
from Mother's Day. I laughed out loud, gave her a big hug and thanked her. Oh, how
I wished that parenting was always that easy. However, in reality, parenting is like a
kite soaring and swooping in the sky: one minute you are flying high and then, at the
slightest change of wind, the kite plummets and you scurry to get it sailing again.
Have you ever felt that way? Sometimes you feel on top of the world with your
child(ren) and then other times you feel inept and confused. Any parent knows,
while the rewards are abundant, an ample "tool bag" is needed for the daily work at
hand.
One challenging aspect of parenting is knowing what to do in difficult situations
where (complicated) emotions are involved. For instance, how do you respond
when your child has directly or indirectly experienced a trauma, a loss, or is just
simply scared, angry, or sad?
What children need is often counter-intuitive to parents. I recently took my three
year old to her first week of pre-school, and stood at the gate with many other first-
time parents of pre-schoolers while we watched and took pictures of our children
on the playground. I noticed that one of the moms looked wary as she observed her
son. He was standing off in the far corner of the yard by himself, with his head
down. The mom caught my glance and blurted out, “Oh! I’m so worried about
Johnny. He was frightened to come to school today. The tears started last week and
all day yesterday he cried, ‘I don’t want to go to school, mom!’ But I told him, ‘You’re
going to go to that pre-school tomorrow and you’re going to be the bravest boy in
class. You’ll do great! You will show all those other kids how to be brave!’” And she
ended with, “I didn’t want to tell him that I was just as nervous as he was.”
It is not uncommon that Johnny’s mom thought it a good idea to try and reason her
son out of his negative feelings. The problem with trying to talk children out of
troublesome feelings, though, is that it seldom works. Not only that, it is actually
counter productive. Judging by Johnny’s behavior on the playground, and despite
the depths of his mother’s efforts, he appeared to be the most anxious child of them
all. Here arises the counter intuitive piece for parents. Johnny didn’t need a pep talk
on courage and bravery (though there are indeed times for a well-delivered pep
talk), what he needed was compassionate comforting. He needed his mom and dad
to sit with his overwhelming feelings. Compassion, at it’s root, means to “suffer
with” (Com = with, passion = suffer).
We possess a fear in parenting that if we start talking about the difficult emotions
our children feel, they might totally fall apart. The fear for mom and dad then
becomes, “Oh no! What do I do now?” The good news is that with a compassionate

2. approach, these scenarios become easier and easier to handle. When we offer our
children compassion and encourage them to talk about negative situations, they will
begin to feel safe. Furthermore, when parents initiate the next step and help
identify feelings by giving children words for their experiences, children not only
feel safe but also confident and secure with their moms and dads. The more they
feel comforted, the more they trust.
Let’s look back at little Johnny’s situation. What would a compassionate response
from his mom have sounded like? Perhaps something like this:
“Johnny, you seem really scared, really nervous about going to pre-school. Is
this true?”
“Yes, mommy.”
“Yeah, I can tell because your eyes are really wide, your eyebrows are
furrowed and you’re crying about it, too.”
At this point, Johnny may break down and cry harder. If this happens, don’t
panic. This is a good sign! Johnny is crying because he feels safe to share. He trusts
his mom with his tears. Mom gives Johnny a big hug, and her counter intuitive
compassion has helped normalize the situation.
“Honey, feeling scared and nervous is completely normal. It is scary thinking
about going to school for the first time ever. Do you know that most people feel
nervous about starting school?”
After identifying and naming the feelings, validating and normalizing the situation,
now introduce some of the positive aspects to the experience. But keep in mind,
timing is everything! If you try and talk about the good things when children are
still feeling bad, it will not go smoothly; in fact, it will backfire. However, if the
timing is right, mom and dad can say something like, “Hey, I heard Matt from up the
street will be at pre-school,” or, “Did you know, Johnny, that they have special days
at pre-school like Farm Animal Day and Fire-Truck Day?” Hang in there through this
process. You may not see your child feel happy or confident immediately, but
through a process of offering a lot of grace and understanding for the emotions that
continue to emerge, eventually you will see a pay-off for the hard work of staying
with what they are feeling, and you will witness a confident kid who has overcome
his fear.
The goal of all of this is to help our children develop the internal capacity to identify
and process a broad scope of emotions. If we start now, while they are young, we
will encourage their development into becoming mature adults someday who
experience their feelings and deal with life. But it starts with us: mom and dad. Our
goal as parents is to be their containers for life. Our children need us to be a holding
environment that can tolerate good and bad experiences. As we help our children
process their feelings now, we are also helping them begin to contain their feelings
on their own. Parenting is no easy task; I know this from personal experience!
When we are trying to deal with our own struggles and stresses in life and managing

3. our own difficult emotions; parenting can be overwhelming and draining. However,
I believe we can take courage in a compassionate approach, not only with our kids,
but with ourselves as well; we will find sweet success in parenting . Compassionate
parenting will help your child feel safe with you and safe in the world.
Compassionate parenting will help you feel connected with your child.
Annie Brogger