I hope
you can help. My six year old daughter is very sensitive. She
cries at
a drop of a hat. For example, if her favorite T.V. show is not on or if
something does not go the way she wants she cries. We don't know what to
do anymore. It seems to be getti ng worse. We
really could use so good
advise. Thank you.
Dear parents,
Your sensitive little girl will
probably become a wonderful adult. It is the insensitive ones I'd worry
more about. Crying is her way of expressing herself and of course it bothe
rs you because you might think she is trying to make you unhappy too.
I don't think that's her motive; I think it's just a disability on
her part to control her emotions. It has been a while since you wrote to
me and either the problem has gone away
by itself, or it is getting worse.
In the case of the latter there
are a few things you might do to help. If you can show her, by your own
example, some other ways of reacting to disappointment, she might pick it
up from you. For instance, when the
favourite TV sho has been cancelled, you could react by laughint loudly
and saying "Well, I guess we'll have to phone the station and complain -
and meanwhile, lets have cocoa with marshmallows to cheer ourselves."
And when she can't find a toy, or
if someone comes along and takes something away from her, or if she wants
to do something that you know she should not do - or whatever other things
make her cry - maybe she doesn't want to go to bed - you could say, "This
is awful isn't it - and it real ly makes you mad doesn't it - so let's see
what we can do to make it better - how about making a happy face with
crayons on paper, and sticking it on the refrigerator door - to keep us
smiling anyway!"
You get the idea. Replace the misery with some
positive action. And lete her go on crying through it all, to get it our
of her system. In the the end, it is the ones who CAN cry who can also
enjoy all the other emotions that human beings enjoy.
Sorry it took
me so long to get around to your lett er.
I hope you can weather this
episode in her life - there will be many more much more difficult ones.
Yours
sincerely,
GG
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