My 9-year old came to me, sad and upset and told me a story that I hear time and time again throughout the days and weeks of motherhood. One of her sisters had done something that hurt her.

As a mother, my knee jerk reaction is to fix it.

Who did what?

I will fix it. I will make it better. I will keep you from hurting. I will keep you from harm.

It’s part of our very important protective nature that we possess as parents, but I can’t and shouldn’t always fix everything and neither can or should you.

What should you do instead?

Listen

Often times before we know or understand the whole story, we react.

Child: Tommy hit me.

Parent: Tommy, get in here. What did you do? Go to your room!

Knee-jerk reactive parenting is not very effective parenting. More effective is to be the leader that slows everything down.

Talk about the situation.

Listen to what happened.

Identify the feelings your child has about the situation.

Make sure you clearly understand the situation and how your child feels because of it, and if you don’t yet understand, ask some more questions and do some more listening until you do.

Teach

An absolutely essential role of parents is to teach their children. Parents have a much broader frame of reference, than does the child–a frame of reference from which effective teaching can take place.

Help your child understand how they can solve, address or overcome the situation. As we teach our children problem solving skills, not only does that allow them to now solve problems in the future on their own, it also frees us from being a micro-manager and allows us to be a guide, a leader.

Be Available

Taking the time to teach our children effective problem solving or how to deal with problems and difficulties that can or cannot be changed requires time and attention.

It’s essential that when children come to us expressing a legitimate need, that we are available not just physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We need to be fully present.

No smart phones

No multi-tasking

No divided attention

Effective teaching requires our full attention. This may take several minutes, it may only take a few seconds, but if we want our children to come to us, if we want to be able to continue to teach and guide them, then we must make ourselves available and make sure that they know that by how we respond when they express a need.

Love

Sometimes, the only thing needed to solve a problem, to make things better is love–a hug and a word of encouragement.

A show of love and affection to a child who has endured a hard situation is a more powerful healing balm than us hauling off to fix the problem. Letting our child know that he is loved and cherished no matter what hard blows the world sends his way will build and maintain his strength to endure hardships.

We are also showing our children that we love them when we allow them to grow and recognize their own abilities in handling difficult situations.

When you are a “fixer”, you deny your children the opportunity to grow.

It is hard, so hard to hold back and let things be when your child has been hurt.

When another child hits yours, it is hard to not retaliate.

When it seems a teacher has treated your child unfairly, it is hard to not go in with blazing guns and do your best to force fairness.

When your child has suffered a defeat, it is hard to not lay the blame at someone else’s feet.

Letting your child grow is hard, but if you become a rescuer, it will be harder for your child later on.

They will not realize their own strength and abilities

They will become reliant on you, and you will not always be able to be there.

They will not learn powerful skills in successfully and happily living in the world.

If you really want to show your child that you love them, sometimes you will need to let them hurt and struggle. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to leave something broken and let your child learn how he can fix it.