16/11/2025
Our Children Don’t See What We See
It’s instinctive to try to make our traumatised children to ‘feel better’ about themselves. The problem is that our children don’t see themselves in the same way that WE do.
Because of experiences when they were young, our children’s internal working model tells them they are useless, invisible, stupid, ugly, not worthy, or just plain bad.
If our child communicates (through behaviour), that they believe they are bad, stupid or ugly, our immediate instinct is to ‘correct’ them and tell them they are beautiful, worthwhile and wonderful, giving them lots of reasons why WE think this.
But here’s the thing- If the child FEELS and BELIEVES that they are bad, you TELLING them that they’re not, doesn’t resonate.
It feels like a lie. It feels like YOU lied. It feels like you just became one more person not to trust.
We have all had those days when we feel unattractive, tired or overweight but someone tells us we look fabulous! We know they mean well but….. Imagine if that happened all the time!
Where is the reality check?
This is a really hard truth that we must deal with in order to help our children heal.
The way we do this is by making sure we KEEP IT REAL!
We base our praise and encouragement in reality.
“I see you are struggling at the moment, but I have faith in you because I saw how you handled it yesterday”
“I know you feel bad about **** but I know you have a good heart, because I saw you help your brother this morning when you thought no one was looking”.
This low level, factual, alternative positive feedback is much easier for our children to accept and internalise than over praising and over compensating.
Little by little, we see our children’s view of themselves change.
The moment when they start to see their true reflected self and realise that maybe they ARE beautiful, worthwhile, and that they matter, is wondrous indeed.
Have a good Sunday Everyone! 💛
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