From crying to happy in 10 seconds – or – what makes a Kid tough
Over the ages, many a parent must have pondered about how they can prevent their kids from becoming crybabies and instead become strong, stable and tough persons.
While this may apply to boys in particular, I am sure parents want brave daughters as well. Daughters who can take a stand in this world that can bring all kinds of threats and perils from all sides.
It must be an age-old question, with many different approaches to raise kids into toughness.

In Order to be “tough” one has to somehow overcome these emotions.
Now, the obvious approach to “make” kids tough, you have probably seen in the movies. I don’t know about you, but I have this stereotype picture of a dad in mind, living during the “happy days” of the fifties, driving his pickup truck through the rural countryside of the southeast of the USA, his rifle behind the seat, his son beside him. They’ve just come from a good ol’ hunt in the woods. While the lady of the house wasn’t happy about it, that didn’t matter. After all men have to do what they have to do, sometimes. And besides, he hasn’t had a deep talk with his wife for a long time anyways.

But interestingly enough, during war times, the “toughest among the toughest” who had really killed their emotions for good, suddenly realized, that their killed emotions hadn’t really been dead, but only slumbering, and these guys suddenly became the most fearful and timid, unable to fight any fight during battle.
I don’t really believe in the “kill your emotions” theory. Instead, we need to be able to handle them. We have to rule over them.
In order to do that, let’s consider the following three attacking points:

- Know the source of the emotion
Knowing what incident initiated the emotions you are feeling will help you tremendously with the next point:
- Know the emotion
Analyze your feelings. Is it pain? Is it fear? If you are able to describe, what exactly you feel. It will be so much easier to know how to deal with those feelings.
- Deal with each incident/emotion step by step
Dealing with each emotion/incident separately will prevent you from being overwhelmed by them all.
I am so glad we have a trustworthy God, who through Jesus Christ, can heal us from all those wounds. He is the helper. He can do, what hardly any psychologist will ever be able to do. He can change our lives, so we can be at peace with our past.
So how about that title? What makes kids go from crying to happy in 10 seconds? Well, I chose that title, because when I apply the three attacking points from above, I’m always astonished, how quickly our kids will stop crying, when they’ve hurt themselves. Here is what I do, with great success.
- Know the source of the emotion
I compassionately describe to them, what has just happened: “Oh, no, you tried to climb that tree and then you slipped and fell down. Then you hurt your arm when you landed?”
- Know the emotion
I try to name each emotion the kid is going through: “That probably was a shock for you, huh? You certainly didn’t expect to fall down, when you wanted to show me how you can climb that tree. Does it hurt?”
- Deal with each incident/emotion step by step
Now let’s see, where exactly is the hurting spot? Your arm hurts? Let’s check this out..” I then grab his or her arm and check all joints by moving them manually with my hands: “Hmm, this one is ok, how about the wrist..yeah, ok. And now the fingers..they look fine, too. Hmm, everything looks good. You’ll be fine. Does it still hurt?” I then blow at the wound and by the time I’m doing that, they are usually already off and running again.

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