We are in lockdown. This is the fact for Denmark, where I live. We might have many to come.
We are getting more deaths every day, and more sick
people every hour. It is such a huge thing.
The thing I wanted to write about was not the virus as such, but what has come
with it.
I spoke to a lot of friends who are home with the kids. Most of them not even a week, and it is hard work. Being inside with kids for days without anything but home is not always fun. I know I am going on week four now.
I have been homeschooling my daughter for a long time, so we got used to being at home. I am not one to go traveling or to be extroverted, so we have so many things we can do.
I talked to one woman, she is usually very extroverted, traveling and loads of things the kids attend, like swimming lessons, riding classes, dance and so much more. Her son takes football very seriously. They are very active people, and this lockdown is hard on them.
Today we spoke, and she told me she found out she didn’t
really like her kids. She loved them because it was her kids, but she did not
like them as people. I found this so interesting.
She had this idea about how her kids were and have often defended their actions
even though I strongly disagreed on her handling of the situation.
These days at home as a whole family without travels
or activities to entertain them was a sure eye-opener. She had seen her
children in a whole new light. Not in a light she liked.
When we talked, she was in tears telling me how horrible she thought it was and
how she felt she had given them better values.
I just listened and told her this lockdown would give us all some space from all the things we do every day to see people in a new light with a new insight. I told her she loved her kids, and they needed more of her time than just less than one hour a day. They needed her embrace and her love, and this was her chance to fill them with all the things she couldn’t during the hectic days.
This virus and lockdown have given us the chance to
rediscover our children and ourselves. It has allowed us to bond on such a deep
level that it is a tremendous gift.
The love we might have forgotten in the hectic lives we live and the activities
that fill up the deep loving space between parents and children. We are given a
chance to talk and be there for them.
An exercise I use every day is this: I stand in the doorway or sit on my daughters’ bed. I give her 5 minutes (often longer) to just say anything. Some days she talks about pop music and Minecraft, other days, her worries and anger. Some of it might seem useless to me, but that is what fills her up. Don’t talk, just listen. Feeling her feelings in what she chooses to say, and just being there as a mother, someone who loves her.
I hope you spend time with your child if you have the chance. Just look at the kind of person they have become.
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