Today I was trying o to comfort my daughter who woke up late at night.

She was really mad for some reason and nothing I did seemed to work. Oftentimes I end up putting her back in her crib because she is my only kid that wants to fall asleep being left alone. I think she usually feels uncomfortable when being held and likes to fall asleep laying flat on a comfy mattress instead.

But tonight that was not the case.

It was then that I knew the i just had to stay with her while she was having a bad moment and eventually she got better. Sitting by her comforting her while she was crying was really difficult. I had to practice a lot of patience and turn off my list of things I still had left undone around the home. I knew that by giving her of my time I was showing her love. I wanted to help her feel and get better.

That’s when it hit me how so many times as a parent, I try and find quick solutions to my kids unhappiness. Whenever they are sad oftentimes I try and find a quick fix that will help solve the problem. To me this was a realization that sometimes I need to be ok with letting time pass by, I need to let my kids be sad.

Children are naturally very happy. They get excited about so many things. They remind us to live in the presents and enjoy the smallest of things. From an airplane flying by, to a train crossing. To when they find a leaf, or splash in a water puddle. They love rainy days and sunny days. They enjoy snowy days and windy days.

As parents we are happy when they are happy. Their happiness is ultimately the reasons we make so many sacrifices for them. When they are happy and taken care of we also can sit at peace and have more time to take care of our needs or what we need to do on our to do list. But kids also need to know that it’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to have a bad day. It’s ok to not feel well. It’s to take the time to heal from something. it’s to experience all emotions. Whether that emotion  is anger, happiness, fear, or sadness. We do our kids a disservice when we teach them to swipe their feelings under the rug. We also set them up for a lifetime of therapy and learning how to cope with emotions as adults. Therapy is still great and I highly recommend it for everyone. We moms and kids need validation in knowing that it’s ok to feel. The more we are ok with our emotions the calmer we will actually deal with them. The more we express when something makes us anxious, angry, tired, frustrated, the most we also teach our children to recognize when something isn’t right.

These are the elements of what emotional intelligence is:

• Self-awareness.
• Self-regulation. …
• Motivation. …
• Empathy. …
• Social skills.

It’s equally important we learn and study these skills ourselves so that we can teach our kids emotional intelligence from a very young age.

I won’t lie, sometimes the kids make it really hard to be around them when they are feeling grumpy. They’ll say no to anything I say. They’ll refuse to do the things they usually love the most. Sometimes they’ll try and take out their frustrations on each other. Or they will go provoke someone around the house. But I guess it’s about teaching them how to cope with pain rather then expecting it to go away right away. I am learning myself to deal with my own emotions in a positive way, and along the journey I am trying to teach them who have never walked this earth before, how to deal with their own. They will master it with time and experience. Knowing good healthy coping mechanisms will set them up to keep wanting to work at it in the future, and they will at least start adulthood with a leg up.

So today that was a lesson and reminder for me to allow my time to stay mad, or sad, or blue, until they finally are ready to move on and go on with their day. And that I cannot expect happy faces all the time or quick solutions to all go back to normal.