My son got a splinter in the arch of his foot.  It wasn’t very big, but it went deep under the surface of his skin.  After lots of hugs and kisses, I gave him an ice pack to hold on his foot while I went to gather our splinter-removal supplies (sharp tweezers, some Thieves oil*, and an adhesive bandage).  My son immediately started to cry that only Dad could remove his splinter.  Apparently, I was not allowed to touch it.

So even though his foot continued to hurt, we waited until Dad came home.  When my husband returned, we again brought out the splinter-removal supplies, but it turns out the issue was not that Dad was a better at splinter removal than I am, it was that my son really didn’t want anyone digging at his foot.  He knew from experience that this process often hurts.

It took both my husband and I to finally remove the splinter; me to hold my son’s foot still, and my husband to pull out the sliver of wood.  We thought that would be the end of it.  But it wasn’t.  Not by a long shot.

Our son screamed and screamed.  He wanted us to put the splinter back inside his foot.  He insisted that the only way he was going to stop screaming was if we reinserted the splinter at that very moment.  He jumped up and down.  He yelled.  He cried.  He threw himself onto the floor.  He went digging through the trash can (which was thankfully mostly empty) to try to recover the discarded splinter.  It went on and on and on.

Half an hour later, he was still extremely upset.  I knew he didn’t really want the splinter back in his foot – a completely irrational request.  He wanted to have a foot that didn’t hurt.  And at the moment, the memory of us digging for the splinter stood out as far more painful than the splinter itself.  He wanted to go back to the time of less pain, he simply didn’t know how to express it.  To him, the answer was to put the splinter back.

While I think it often helps to simply be present with a child’s sadness (see HERE), after such a long period of time I decided to try another tactic.  I pulled out a new box of adhesive bandages and asked, “Will this help to take the ouch away?”  My son studied his foot with a serious expression for a moment, then replied, “I need all of them.”

So I put a drop of Thieves oil* on his foot to prevent infection, then I handed him the box of bandages.  By the time he had placed 10 on his foot, he was no longer even sniffling.  As he applied the twentieth bandage, he focused intently, determined to find a way to make them all fit as he explained, “Each one takes away a little bit of ouch.”  And by the time he stuck all 30 onto his foot, his ouch was gone and he was laughing at the silly bandage lump that protruded from where his ouch had been.  He could hardly wait to hobble out of the bathroom and show his brother and Dad his bandage stack.

When children have big feelings, they express them in any way they are able.  While I could have argued with my son about the absurdity of his demand to reinsert a splinter into his foot, it wouldn’t have dealt with the feelings at the heart of his request.  I also could have limited him to one bandage, maintaining that using more would be a waste of resources, though again it wouldn’t have empowered my son to take charge of the situation and to find his way back to feeling better.

There are times when explaining things with a rational perspective is helpful and instructive, and I know that my children benefit and learn from those times.  There are other times when I simply have to trust in the feelings behind the words as the truth that my children are trying to express, no matter how irrational their words might seem.

By listening to the meaning behind the words I truly communicated with my son.  It reminded me of the truth that one of the most important parts of parenting, and life in general, is approaching things with an open heart.  When we listen with our hearts, we can hear things that we might miss if we focused solely on the words.

*You can read more about the essential oils I use HERE.

What completely irrational requests have your children made of you?  How did you respond?