Lessons with my six year old daughter

Today began fine. I was a wee bit tired but nothing unmanageable and then my little six year old started with a fuss about a hug, then her singlet, then her dress, then her hair and then her Mum yelled at her. Not my best work. I wasn't feeling so fine anymore. I was feeling rather stressed. It occurred to me that maybe I should have been calling her out earlier in the week when she was telling me "I hate you", "You're the worst mother", "why do you only make yuck dinners!? When I grow up I'm only going to feed my kids delicious food." Some of what she said during the week (repeatedly) doesn't seem unreasonable but she was only saying it to share her upset feelings and get a reaction. Unfortunately for this little daughter, I had delayed reactions and it wasn't until this morning that my capacity for spiteful children's words had reached overflowing. I apologised for my yelling at her. She looked at me sideways while colouring. I took the time to do a gentle yoga routine. My little daughter came to visit me part way through my debriefing stretch. She shared this picture with me.

Firstly this side of her decorated but broken heart. These images are not new to me. She has excellent communication skills at describing the depth and width and breath of her frustration, disappointment and anger.

On the flip side was a pictorial description of me yelling at her, her standing, then her crying and again her broken heart. I willingly and openly received her pictures. "I'm sorry Mum" she also said. I also asked " Do you know what happens to my heart when you yell at me all week?" "It breaks" "No it doesn't. My heart gets dark spots on it." She wasn't too impressed and went away. I finished my yoga. Laying in Shavasana and relaxing state and time to breath and let go, I wondered what can I do to help her see how her actions affect others? And instantly the spirit answered with this cool image: A cloud and a heart to which I would add dark spots, until my rain loud was so dark it just had to rain down.

My little daughter received it well. She didn't like what I had to express in picture form on scrap paper but she received it and even coloured it in. I had words to use to her in her moments of hating beans or peas or the moment the pink hair chalk didn't really look pink in her very dark hair. Simply I expressed to her "do you want my cloud to get heavy and rain down on you?" And she rethought her choices. She was definitely allowed to express her frustration and she was definitely allowed to problem solve. What I was thinking later after lunch today was how the restoration, restored our confidence and ability to ask God for what we need. No one can tell us that angels don't come and imploring heaven for information we really need doesn't happen because it did happen and it does happen. It happened in a groove of trees, it happened at conference just past with the release of the new declaration and it happened this morning for me while I was doing yoga. My six year old told me her heart was still broken because of me. I asked her how she could help it to heal. She definitely thought it was always broken. I assure her there was one person who could help her and it wasn't me. I asked my little girl to ask Jesus what she could do to have her heart heal. I haven't heard about her broken heart again today among many other pursuits today she willingly ate her disgusting beans, she then chose blue chalk for her hair instead of pink so that she could see the colour and she was super happy when I photographed her pictures to store the memory of her feelings long term.