Here’s what happened:
My baby was drinking her morning bottle using one hand to prop it up to her mouth while using her other hand to twirl her fingers through her short strands of hair. While exploring her hair, she comes across the clip I placed on her moments ago. Seeing her recent discovery, I take it out of her hair and clip it into my own to avoid losing it.
Fast forward an hour.
My toddler is struggling to regulate her emotions. I’m down at her level coaching her through.
She sees the clip in my hair and begins to take it, “I’m using that.”
I reply with, “Who’s using the clip right now?”
“Mama.”
“That’s right. What can you say if you want it?”
“Can I have it, please?”
As I remove the clip from my hair, I reply with, “Yes, you can have it. Would you like me to put it in your hair?”
“Yeah.”
As I place the clip in my toddler’s hair, she says, “No, I don’t want it” with agitation.
As I start to remove the clip from her hair, she says “Don’t take it away” with frustration.
Throughout her last two comments, she was whining and getting upset.
This interaction between my toddler and me perfectly depicts the mental and emotional struggles that kids go through on a daily basis.
We, myself included, constantly remind ourselves to have patience and grace with our kids because we know they are learning how to make sense of the world around them, learning how to navigate it, in addition to learning how to understand and manage their emotions.
Even though we were all kids at one point or another, the truth is that we will never truly understand what our kids are going through in the present.
The interaction I had with my toddler may have caused you to smile, roll your eyes, and think “Oh, kids will be kids”. I thought something similar at that moment, too.
But It’s so much more than that. This seemingly mundane moment reminded me why we parents give our kids the attention they deserve.
It wasn’t about the clip. It wasn’t about wanting the clip. My daughter was having a hard time understanding her feelings and managing her emotions. She saw the clip and her emotions transferred to it. Her responses and comments told me that she was battling something and it’s times like these when she needs me to have patience.
It wasn’t about the clip. It was so much more than that. It was more than I will ever be able to understand, but what I do know is that she needed me. Even though she seemed agitated by me, she needed me there.
And at that moment, I chose not to talk through her feelings. I could tell she needed a moment, and I completely understood that because I sometimes need a moment, too. My presence was enough for her and we sat facing each other quietly as she processed her feelings and settled down.
Sometimes that’s all our kids need – our presence.
And if you’re wondering, she kept the clip in her hair.
