Modeling is Powerful

The following is a story from when I was operating my family child care program.

My father passed away and in the course of grieving, I coped by having a picture of my father on the side of my refrigerator.  One day one of my kids asked me what I was doing with the picture.   I explained that when I felt sad or lonely and was missing my father, I would take the picture out and look at it to feel better.  Over the course of the next several months, I would talk to the kids about my dad and refer to his picture.  One day when I was feeling sad, one of the kids suggested that maybe I needed to look at my dad's picture so I would feel better.  Wow! I thought by modeling my own feelings, even the uncomfortable ones, and showing them a way to cope, I have now taught them a life skill.

About a year after my dad passed away, one of my kids' (4 yrs old) grandfather passed away.  On his first day back at child care after the funeral he brought a picture with him of his grandpa and asked if he could put it on the refrigerator so he could look at it when he got lonely or sad.  Again, I never expected my willingness to expose my own emotions and share them with the kids would lead to them developing the ability to cope with such a huge transition in their life.  I still get teary when I think about that little boy bringing his picture in to place on the refrigerator.