When there is nothing I can do.

[crazychicknlady]

What do you say to comfort your six year old when she is sad because her first grown up tooth is coming in, and she says, "I hate this tooth, I wish it would go away and never come back."

(S approved this message and wanted me to add that she is crying a lot.)

Comments

Fixing the unfixable

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

I remember having the same reaction to my breasts when they developed. I remember vividly being absolutely horrified that I was going to have to spend the rest of my life wearing a bra. I cried myself to sleep over them. My mother's comment at the time wasn't helpful. "Crying isn't going to make them go away, so quit fussing." So my ultimate take away from that as an adult, looking back, was any genuine attempt to comfort a child distressed by changes in her body is probably helpful, and my Mother wasn't any good at comforting. My goal in raising Eli was to avoid at all costs handling any crisis the way my mother did. To my great astonishment it worked pretty darn good. Who knew?

I'll tell you what a dear friend once told me when I was agonizing over some parenting decision, she said. "Just the fact that we are having this conversation tells me that you are a pretty darn good mother. Can you imagine your mother having this conversation with a friend about raising you?" The answer, sadly, was no, but it made me realized how much effort I was putting into getting being a mom right, and it gave me hope that I wasn't doing such a bad job after all. Mom's need to hear reassurances like that when their child is crying a lot, in my experience.

God, it's hard being a kid, but being a mom can be just as hard. I have to tell you that I am 50 years old and still pretty pissed about the bra thing, so maybe it's just going to be with her forever, but then again, maybe not. Maybe by tomorrow she'll be coping with the change just fine. Sometimes all you can do is validate their emotional distress and give them a bit of empathy, and usually that is enough. This tooth may be harder on you than her. Oh to have a magic wand....

[crazychicknlady.livejournal.com]

I expect she will be happier once the other three come in, she hates things unsymmetrical. She doesn't have any pain, it just really bugs her that it wasn't there before, and now it is. And also that it is the only one and her mouth is unbalanced.

I figure the next few years are going to be tough at times unless her baby teeth fall out in pairs.

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

I never thought of the unbalanced angle. That wasn't an issue with my boobs. How fascinating that the lack of balance bothers her.