Listening to your body?
When is sick sick enough to let your child stay home from school?
It can be a challenge to figure out whether your child has a desire to simply stay home, read a book, be pampered or is getting sick!
Our daughter has provided us with many lessons over the years, but this one is very clear.
At times I thought that she was well enough to go to school, or it wasn’t all that convenient for us to have to arrange things so she could be home..and it didn’t look all that bad…
Well, we’d be shown our error pretty quickly.
later that day she would phone from school, needed to be picked up and for sure was sick for a few days at least.
She simply listened to her body, something we taught her to do.
And she is always right.
It is us adults who don’t always want to believe her.
Tough it out, you can go to work with a cold, a starting flu, can’t you?
For us adults it is often an attitude we pay for later in life with illness or ailments because we neglected to listen to our bodies for so long.
I had a back problem for many years.
Every year I put out my back at least once and pretty bad too.
Had to crawl to the bathroom on hands and knees, could get up for a week or so.
With massage therapy, painkillers, musscle relaxants.
And yes, a week to ten days of laying low, reading, sleeping, being cared for.
It got to the point where I “went down” for ten days more than once a year.
And my wife wasn’t happy with that. Having to catch everything behind me and care for me as well, while I read, slept and rejuvenated.
I tried to figure it out and realized that I didn’t allow myself to take time for myself enough to rest, enjoy and recharge. My back made sure I did. And who can feel guilty laying there like that?
Once I had figured out that my back was giving me - undeniable- signals that I wasn’t taking care of me, that my balance was out of whack too much, I changed.
1. I changed my thoughts.
I told myself that I would never need to put out my back again. (Instead of havig a weak back that goes out every once in a while)
2. I changed my practice.
I do my exercises regularly aimed not at my back alone but at my whole body. Yes at tiems it takes quite more discipline than I would want to have!
3. I listen to my body.
I started to look for signs that I was either doing things that were not good for my back or getting stressed out.
4. I take my body’s signals seriously.
I take days off, relax and do nothing and deal with the ingrained thought patterns of guilt when they come up. Just recognizing that my trained thoughts need to be replaced with once that help me find and keep a more healthy balance.
It is now almost 4 years since I put out my back.
Yes, it is a source of information for sure and sensetive at times.
But I listen better when the signals come.
And I haven’t been forced to lay on my back and do nothing again.
Now I take the time to do that without pain en fully enjoying it .
And my wife is happy that I do.
I prevent myself from forcing her to pick up my pieces, my neglected balance.
And that is better for all of us.
Listening to your body helps.
Are you listening?
And are you teaching your child to listen and take the signals of their body seriously?
Parenting can be difficult. When illness isn’t handy right now or we hear our mother’s voice in the back of our mind with a different way. And especially in overcoming our old ways of thinking that made us “tough” but neglected parts of our health we need to look at.
Listen to your children.
They may have a valuable lesson for you too.Our daughter certainly had for me.
Our daughter certainly had for me.