Well the trauma continues. The travel and back and forth of it all has finally gotten to impact my son. This past weekend after being away from him for a week he mentioned that he felt “lonely”. What a specific feeling for a 2 year old to express. Many adults struggle to identify what they feel is loneliness. To hear the love of my life tell me his stuffed cow was lonely and needed hugs made me cry.
I’ve spoken a lot about guilt on this blog. My child is not capable of intentionally guilting me, and I logically know that. No matter how bad I have felt in the past I never feel resentment or blame towards my child. Isn’t that novel? It’s not his fault that my pregnancy was an awful experience. It was not his fault that he had a rough start as a newborn. Don’t they all? It is certainly not his fault that I feel regret and then guilt and then regret about my guilt about having a child.
It’s so hard not to have something to blame, or not even have yourself to blame. If my son were a grown adult, I don’t think I would be giving him the same grace. But as a tiger follows its instincts to hunt, it does not feel guilt for killing and having food. Similarly, my toddler is expressing his feelings, as we encourage him to do, without thinking of how it will impact me. After all he doesn’t have the capacity yet to put himself in other people’s position.
I responded with the same script I use for all his other feelings:
- I repeat the feeling he named and approached it with curiosity
- “Your cow feels lonely?”
- I reinforced good behavior
- “Thank you for sharing that with me. How you feel is important.”
- He is not capable of explain why yet, but I still try to make it a habit of asking. One day he will be able to explain it.
- “Why do you think the cow feels lonely?”
- “Do you think a hug would help him feel less lonely?”
- We go back and forth on what can be done to make the cow (my son) feel better
- I point out his “friends” around like the other stuffed animals
- We move the cow to where the friends are
- We talk about making new friends
- We talk about actions to take when we feel sad
- We talk about how he sometimes feels sad with specific examples
- I suggest books to read about feelings (my son loves to read)
After trying to get some information out of him, I discover that he is sad because his father and I had just gotten back from the trip only to have my husband leave again. This was after I explained I had to leave for work again for a week. Naturally my velcro baby was sad, and additionally he spent the rest of the day wanting to “snuggle”. I hate seeing him sad, but I do love the snuggling.
Then another bombshell entered the villa…