I have a video of Harrison from a long while ago when he was first starting to crawl. He’s inch-worming himself to a bottle of kombucha (haha) and every time he gets close enough to touch it, I move it a few inches out of the way. A simple, fun game that we were both enjoying. I love this video up until towards the end- Harrison starts to get a bit fussy, either from overwhelm, or getting tired from working so hard, and I say to him “You’re okay!” in a peppy voice. I hear that, and every time I wish I could have a do-over.
It’s innate in our psyches, isn’t it, to pass over or pass off a young child’s emotions. We try to calm babies by shushing them and telling them they are okay. When a toddler falls and scrapes his knee, we try to keep him from crying by telling him he’s okay. When a child is acting frustrated if something isn’t working out the way she wanted it to, we try to get her mind off of it by telling her it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.
It’s a phrase I’ve successfully removed from my vocabulary with Harrison and Dylan, and in doing so I have become hyper-aware of how often it gets used. It just rolls off our tongue, without thought or effort. It seems to be always there, waiting for the first sign of displeasure, but why?
If my child is upset about something, clearly he is not okay. So if “you’re okay” is the first phrase we reach for, perhaps we are uncomfortable sitting with the emotions of our children. And sitting with emotions in general- yours, mine, ours.
I decided to remove the phrase from my parenting arsenal because I find “You’re okay” to be very dismissive of how my boys are actually feeling. Rather than being dismissive, I prefer to acknowledge. I try to not be long-winded about it; simple acknowledgement goes a long way.
If Harrison falls and hurts himself, I get down on his level and we talk about what happened. “You fell down. That hurt, didn’t it? Maybe it was a little scary too? It’s okay to cry. I’m right here for you.” If he’s overwhelmed by a task he’s set out for himself- like building blocks that keep falling down, or trying to keep a book open to a particular page- I talk to him about what is going on. “Those blocks keep falling down and you want them to stay up.” “That book won’t stay open to the page you want.” Followed by “That feels really frustrating, doesn’t it? It’s okay to feel frustrated. Do you want to try to figure out a different way to build the blocks/keep the book open?”
It’s simple, it’s acknowledging, and I think it’s healthier for him as he grows in to a young man. Hopefully he can use this as a foundation to accept and healthily express his emotions, and accept the emotions of others. Jeremy and I have seen this approach reap positive behavior already as Harrison is in his toddler years. He uses his emotions, along with the space he is given, to process through whatever difficult event he has encountered. Generally within a short minute or two he has worked through it and is happily back at whatever he was doing.
And what of my baby, my sweet 5 month old Dylan? While he’s truly the most easy-going and cheerful baby I’ve ever known, he certainly has more emotions than happy or cheerful. He cries in the car seat. He gets angry in the baby carrier. He lets me know if he’s hungry. And when we encounter these moments of unease, I let him know I hear him and am trying to understand what is bothering him. “You’re not happy to be in the car seat right now. I see you’re having a hard time, you don’t like this.” “You really want to be put down right now. I hear you. I can see how upset you are.” “You are feeling really hungry right now! I would be angry too if I felt that hungry.” Or the like. And I have been able to use these moments with Dylan as teaching opportunities with Harrison as well. “Dylan is not acting happy. It seems like he doesn’t want to do tummy time anymore and wants some help.”
This little change in my vocabulary has helped me as well to be accepting of the whole range of emotions we can feel. By accepting and acknowledging the “positive” along with the “negative” emotions of my children, I’ve found myself better able to accept those emotions in Jeremy and my family and friends, and sit with them in however they are feeling; little by little it’s also been helping me to accept my own emotions, and own them, and truly feel them and express them in a healthy way.
If this has intrigued you at all, next time you find yourself about to say “it’s okay” to anyone- a baby, a child, a peer, yourself- try this instead:
It’s okay. “It’s okay to feel ______.”
***
On a side note, I found myself a while back almost comically unable to name any emotions outside of “happy” or “sad.” It was a telling moment for me, and the advice I was given was to look up an emotion wheel (for example). It’s not that other emotion words were outside of my learned vocabulary, but by seeing them laid out in this form it was a great help in pinpointing my feelings and using that newfound self-awareness in my marriage and parenting and friendships.