02/04/2025
How children try to make sense of things and how to support them.
Today my child had to witness my iron infusion and learned that I have to get double dose of iron through IV. Now, it’s neither a life threatening condition nor really a big deal necessarily. However, for my child hearing that I need iron and that too in double dose was just too much to handle, my child wasn’t crying or acting scared as we all understand a child beingscared, but said ‘double … you don’t act sick”. And then got quiet. Changed the topic and didn’t mention ‘double dose’ again.
Later, we talked about home school science lesson, and my child said “we did our science lesson already, when you did ‘that’ thing”. Didn’t name the ‘thing’.
After sometime, I joked with my little one that I am iron man, and my child corrected me ‘no, iron woman, but didn’t engage in anything else. My child did not want to talk about it, and did not want to mention it at all. Actually, my child talked about the food and type of food I eat (healthy food and nutrients in food is usually a topic in our house). My kid was probably trying to make sense of my iron deficiency.
So, what does this all mean? It means that my child felt scared and anxious. For understandable reasons, mama getting an IV that’s running black fluid through a needle was disturbing, although my child was not there for the whole time, it was still scary. It was a needle, scary looking fluid, and then surprisingly , the most terrifying thing was the double dose! My focus was to lighten the fear of needle and iron - never thought that dose would even be noticed! Mama is the safety net and it is overwhelming to talk about her ‘sickness’. If mama is sick, life becomes scary, and for a child parents are their world- at any age. My child didn’t want to know about mama being ‘sick’ especially when she doesn’t look sick to her!
Lesson: Often we do not know what kind of things will make our child worried and anxious. And often, when they are overwhelmed, they do NOT want to talk about things that flood them, it’s just too much to handle. We need to give them space, no explanation, no questions and no excuses. They need a break to make sense of things for themselves and any question or explanation in that time won’t make sense to them. Once they are ready we can explore the situation with them. It depends on the child if they want to play it out, talk about it, draw it, or ask questions… or even make silly jokes about it. Children can have their own way to understand scary situations.
P.S. I am all fine Alhamdulillah, nothing big happening, and the only reason my child had to witness the ordeal was because of late school start today. These kind of overwhelming situations will come in every child’s life. We just need to stay attuned and try our best to help them learn and grow. I will be gauging the way my kiddo wants to understand it, or perhaps it’s all gone and over by the end of the day. Nevertheless, nurturing and reassurance would be needed and that should be given. I will try to provide that insha’Allah, because that’s what a parent should do.
My little something for the 😊
