I don't know about you guys but when I was little I was told to suck it up a lot of the time (especially by my dad) whenever I hurt myself. He repeatedly told me he just didn't understand why there was such drama over the smallest cuts and bruises and then when I actually injured myself seriously I would cope quite calmly. I never had an answer for him, but like with a lot of things, I am totally with him on that one now I'm a parent. Other things he constantly banged on about included posture and table manners, which for all that it annoyed me as a child I really appreciate now, good table manners cost nothing but make a world of difference to an meal with someone. One of his favourite Swedish sayings that I also now appreciate is: "Låt maten tysta mun" (Let your food silence your mouth). I used to think he was so strict (he wasn't really) but now I have children who genuinely never stop talking, I totally get where he was coming from. When I've got food in front of me I just want to eat it, sorry, not sorry kids!
I digress though, I could easily write a post on just table etiquette but right now I wanted to deal with calming your child down after they hurt themselves. The few tricks we have in our arsenal won't necessarily work for you as my own children are so different that I've got different methods for each one, but maybe one of them will help. I must add that we still tell them to suck it up a lot of the time, especially when they injure themselves in the middle of being told to not do something or to be careful; sympathy levels are pretty darn low in those instances.
Our middle child wants everything to get kissed better, which is so cute my heart wants to explode, I'm sure she's just figured out I'm less annoyed at her for not listening when she comes up with her sad little face and asks for kisses. I always kiss her sore bit and then (as long as it won't hurt her further obviously) I tickle her there so she forgets about it. Our eldest, however, is the true drama queen and she WILL NOT let you touch her, she'll barely even let you look at the injury which is a bit of a pain in the hole. Luckily she accepts what we call "magic cream": arnica. My grandmother had talked about this cream that she uses for her sore joints and is amazing at calming bruises, I won't lie I thought she was just talking old lady gobbeldigook. But after one of her visits she had left us with a tub of the cream and arnica in a mini pill form, a few days later our eldest, who was almost two, fell and hit her head and got herself a proper unicorn horn in the middle of her forehead. I got home with her and we got some of the cream on, the next morning you could hardly tell she had hurt herself. My husband and I were so impressed! It is also great for burns and insect bites although I know it is not recommended if you are pregnant or suffer from a heart condition, the arnica plant is truly amazing though. And so the magic cream is a steady favourite in our household especially with the eldest who likes to cry but not get kissed. They also seem to believe that plasters take the pain away and refuse to accept that I want to see blood or at the very least a scrape to get them out.
I digress though, I could easily write a post on just table etiquette but right now I wanted to deal with calming your child down after they hurt themselves. The few tricks we have in our arsenal won't necessarily work for you as my own children are so different that I've got different methods for each one, but maybe one of them will help. I must add that we still tell them to suck it up a lot of the time, especially when they injure themselves in the middle of being told to not do something or to be careful; sympathy levels are pretty darn low in those instances.
Our middle child wants everything to get kissed better, which is so cute my heart wants to explode, I'm sure she's just figured out I'm less annoyed at her for not listening when she comes up with her sad little face and asks for kisses. I always kiss her sore bit and then (as long as it won't hurt her further obviously) I tickle her there so she forgets about it. Our eldest, however, is the true drama queen and she WILL NOT let you touch her, she'll barely even let you look at the injury which is a bit of a pain in the hole. Luckily she accepts what we call "magic cream": arnica. My grandmother had talked about this cream that she uses for her sore joints and is amazing at calming bruises, I won't lie I thought she was just talking old lady gobbeldigook. But after one of her visits she had left us with a tub of the cream and arnica in a mini pill form, a few days later our eldest, who was almost two, fell and hit her head and got herself a proper unicorn horn in the middle of her forehead. I got home with her and we got some of the cream on, the next morning you could hardly tell she had hurt herself. My husband and I were so impressed! It is also great for burns and insect bites although I know it is not recommended if you are pregnant or suffer from a heart condition, the arnica plant is truly amazing though. And so the magic cream is a steady favourite in our household especially with the eldest who likes to cry but not get kissed. They also seem to believe that plasters take the pain away and refuse to accept that I want to see blood or at the very least a scrape to get them out.
The thing that most frequently works with them both is the method my mother used: telling the object they injured themselves on off. "Oh no did the sofa jump up and hit your face? Bad sofa!". This morning the eldest walked into the fridge door; she'd been practising her balancing along the tile lines on the floor and wasn't looking where she was going. I also think she hadn't realised that she's stretched lately, so where she'd have missed the corner of the door before it is now at a perfect height for hitting her head on. She was inconsolable, not even telling the door off worked. So I put on a silky voice and started flapping the fridge door "oh no! Shorry Vanessa! I didn't mean to hit you! I didn't shhhee you coming." She was in stitches and I had to make the fridge speak for a good few minutes. So basically if all else fails try making shit talk, just don't be too funny or you'll have trapped yourself in a game you (possibly) don't want to play all day - I had just got out of bed so I just wanted my coffee at this point, but I'm pretty bad at the playing side of things anyway.
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