A learning
of life about human relationships surprises me a lot whenever I pass by it.
It''s the evident difference in perceptions and conclusions we’ve about people’s
behaviors and people’s opinions, especially the children. Being more specific,
the difference of conclusions and judgments extracted when we observe
children through the
emotional factors influencing their actions.
An example
of a situation witnessed by me
maybe demonstrates the force of the emotions in
children and the tremendous difference in our conclusions and judgments when we
open our eyes to it. For privacy reasons I’ll change the name of people. In a
Wednesday morning, I arrived at the workplace. Amanda, the mother, was very
concerned about a deadline of customers'' registration for driver''s license tests.
Camilla, her eight-year-old daughter, was irritated because she wanted to go
with her
mother to take coffee in a snack bar. But that problem couldn’t wait
because the deadline was preset by the DETRAN, The State Traffic Department in Brazil. Amanda tried to argue about the reasons she couldn’t
do it in that moment, she implored for a
little more time and tried to convince
Camilla to go with one of the employees. But Camilla
"hit the floor", she didn''t accept a "no!" Neither was
willing to wait a little more. The mother, already exalted, lost the patience,
reacted with hardness, imposing authority, judging and criticizing "you are impossible! You don''t
take breakfast in home like every normal child does only to interrupt me when
I’m busy!... I have to take you in the arms to the bathroom in morning
otherwise you don''t take a shower!… if I’m not watching every step you take, you die, you die because there
is the risk you forget how to breathe!”.
I observed the scene with
sorrow, but seemed to have something wrong behind that judgment, besides the
evident little tenderness. Amanda’s family has changed of city a few days ago,
Camilla still haven’t done friendships with another children of her age, in
fact, they live in the central neighborhood where most of the buildings are
commercial and the few family residences are distant one another. That situation left Camilla with very little human
contact, especially in the period of school
vacations. And, after all, she had only eight-year-old, very dependent of
mother’s affection. Amanda criticized the
“evident” irresponsible behavior about “not to take breakfast in home as every
‘normal child does’”, but actually, maybe the reason was the happiness the girl
felt when mother and daughter take together, it seemed to have a value and a
importance so high to Camilla, in an intensity maybe higher than the
starvation, that Amanda didn''t understand. The problem about “not to take a shower” maybe was
simply because Amanda normally had the affectionate habit of to take the
daughter in the arms to the bathroom all mornings, but now, with a lot of work,
stress, and little time, that habit was being put aside, generating a bad
sensation of absence, ruining with Camilla''s excitement. The
immaturity, the change of environment and the lack of friends, end up
exacerbating the emotional dependence common in children. In fact, Camilla sat
down in the floor of the office and cried for almost thirty
minutes.
I believe
everybody understands the importance of the role of feelings in our lives, but, at least in my community, we give the due attention
to it when we spoke in relation of the great emotional events, a son''s birth,
the preparation for the marriage, the financial problems. Those 10 percent of
the life. But we didn''t pay great attention to
the small events, the small underlying motivations influencing the largest
number of our actions. Those 90 percent of the
life.
Children
are pure emotion, each attitude of them, especially the most irrational, has a
great emotional charge underground. Maybe reliable ways to
understand our children with more amplitude and
justice is recognized, respected and have consideration about the weight and
influence their emotions exercises in their consciences. Before to write down any conclusion or judgment, the question: "What are the feelings behind my daughter''s
behavior?" Need to be addressed. This modifies a lot of things, maybe the most
important transformation is inside ourselves because when we really understand,
in a deep and revised way, the influence of the feelings and desires on
children and how is difficult for them to deal with it, we stop to force the
“correct behavior in our opinions”.
I believe we have the habit
of underestimate e reduce the complexity of childhood world, maybe because we
interpret this with our adult eyes, including our own
childhood, extracting references from “how we were as children”, and believing
that such representation of the past is exact and wide. All we need is to
learn while we live to understand: “The great percentage of children''s
actions are impulsive actions”, even adults, people with much more
maturity of conscience, of what’s right and what’s wrong, face difficulties in
deal with this side of our nature, it’s a life process that has end only when
the person die, is good to remind it!
Conscious parents, those who
work to percept life for a more accurate viewpoint, understanding the
importance of emotional comprehension to the well-being of the education of
they own children, those parents, have really more chances to succeed as
parents and solve their problems because they have learned how to extract
conclusions and discernments of more reliable sources, less speculative. With
more clarity they could understand what’s happens inside of an eight-year-old
person, how is difficult for her give up of desires and accept the
unavailability and the several forces that, for a period of time, are reducing
the mother''s attention.
More summaries about the Feelings in the Behaviors of the Children