It's been an emotionally draining week for many many reasons. Some thing weren't even related to me directly but it involved one sweetheart of a little girl that I know losing her mom at the tender age of 3.
Stuff like that just makes you stop and put things into perspective a little bit doesn't it.
What's really important in life? Family, health and happiness are my top 3 - always have been and probably always will be.
Moving on to the situation that does involve me and my child directly:
Domestic violence has had a HUGE impact on my youngest son. And it didn't occur within our family/extended family and he never witnessed anything.
What happened was he seemed off all week and Wednesday he finally broke down and spilled the beans. Apparently his buddy at school confided that his parents split because the mom was punched in the face by dad. Oh em gee, I wasn't prepared for that.
So, poor Alex has been feeling really sad for the mom and his friend. He just can't understand how this could happen.
I've talked to quite a few people about this and as adults we don't understand it so how the heck do we explain it to our kids.
For the past five nights his bedtime prayers have included this family. He's prayed to God and asked him to help the mom find a new husband that won't punch her in the face.
Kids tell it like it is and don't sugar coat anything do they?
It's become really obvious to us that Alex is a really sensitive guy and he holds stuff in. I can see we're going to need some help with this topic.
Any suggestions? I'm really not sure what to do.
3 comments:
I think you can only listen to Alex as much as possible and talk about it as honestly as possible.
I don't think we must strive to explain everything as violence can't really be explained or accepted in anyway. It's ok to tell him you are sad too and you don't understand why people do such things ?
Keep talking to him and hold him close when it gets to be too much. As long as he's getting his feelings out, I think he'll be able to cope as best as a youngster can.
It's good that the mom left the dad...and it's good that Alex knows that those kinda secrets shouldn't be kept from grown-ups... Give the boys extra hugs from auntie and jonathan!
Post a Comment