How do you explain to your child that you are sick?
Parents will tell their children that being sick is a bad thing, and making illness particularly terrible so that children can pay attention to hygiene and develop good habits.
But is it really good to make the child afraid of getting sick?
My children have often been in and out of the hospital since childhood, at the beginning of last month was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment, at the end of the month they were sick again, and now the family is most afraid of the child's illness, I believe that no one wants to see the child lying on the bed dying, so when explaining the illness to the child, our emotions are also unmistakable, thinking that being sick is the wrong thing, it is something that should not exist, and it is a deeply resentful thing.
Because the child is sick, so I can't go to the kindergarten, when I do a little drip in the hospital, the child looks up and asks me: Mom, is it bad to be sick, is it because I am sick, so no one plays with me, and I can't go to the kindergarten.
Looking at the child's lonely expression, at that moment I found that the child blamed the illness on his own responsibility, thinking that he did not do well enough to get sick.
At that time, I really regretted that I should not let my child fear the fact that I was sick.
But it is really difficult to talk about illness, even if we all know that life, old age, illness and death are just the norm of life, so how to tell the child about illness in a warm way?
When her daughter suffered from allergic shock, cold limbs, and breathing difficulties, a mother sat in the back of an ambulance, she felt the fear of the child, so the mother told the sick daughter a story about love and protection with love and tolerance to comfort the child, she told her daughter: "The cold is because your snow angel is coming, he is wrapping his wings around you and protecting you." This helped my daughter understand and survive that terrible time of being tormented by illness.
This great mother was the famous British writer Maggie O'Farrell, who later wrote this heartwarming story from the perspective of an ordinary mother and published her first children's novel, "Guardian of the Snow Angel", for which she also won many international awards such as the Maugham Literary Prize, the British National Book Award, the Costa Book Award and so on.
In this story written by the author to her children, I feel the mother's love and tolerance for her daughter, and I also feel the truth of life that she wants to pass on to her daughter: illness and setbacks are inevitable, but they can be defeated.
So what exactly is this story about?
It's fascinating at the beginning: you didn't wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, but you don't know why?
The little girl in the story, Sylvie, wakes up in the middle of the night, and she finds that the room seems to be colder than usual, and she sees a man with a pair of huge wings sticking out on his back, and she talks to him carefully.
It turned out that he was the snow angel who protected himself, and this snow angel was created by Sylvie last winter.
The Snow Angel said: We have never disappeared, we will always guard you, as long as you need it, we will come back.
During the conversation, the Snow Angel noticed that Sylvie had a fever and went to wake up her mother, who was suddenly awake in another room, but did not know why she was awake, and subconsciously went to see Sylvie.
When the Snow Angel leaves, she tells Sylvie that by the next morning, Sylvie will forget about it.
But Sylvie hadn't forgotten that she always remembered the Snow Angel, she missed the Snow Angel, she wanted the Snow Angel to come out. So she climbed up to the tall tree, but the snow angel did not appear, and finally climbed down slowly by herself. She went on a swing again, walked around the room with her eyes closed, sat on a tea tray and slid down the stairs, accusing her of being a bully in front of the school's strongest boy, but the snow angel still didn't show up, wondering if she had had a dream.
One day in the late summer, Sylvie was swimming by the sea, and when she felt like she was about to drown, a wave held her up and rescued her.
Soon she was riding her bike down the steep hill again, only to suddenly find that the brakes were broken, and this time a strong wind blew Sylvie aside and caused her head to fall on a pile of leaves.
At this point she understood that the Snow Angel had been guarding her, and would only appear when she really needed him.
When winter comes, she meets the snow angel again, and she tells her wish, she hopes that everyone she knows can have her own snow angel.
The next day, as Sylvie had wished, it was snowing outside, and she brought in all the people she knew, lay down in the snow with them, and moved her arms and legs to create their own snow angels.
Haven't you suddenly woken up in the middle of the night, but you don't know why? That's the snow angel coming to see you!
This is a story about love and protection, and this heart-warming mother tells the things that are difficult to say into a warm fairy tale, so that children can see hope and love in the story of healing hearts.
It turns out that illness is not terrible, there are always people silently guarding us, as long as there is hope in our hearts, we can overcome difficulties.
After reading this story, I thought that in the future, I would also use this way to tell my children about things in life, in our story, maybe there are snow angels, maybe there are rain mothers, maybe there are naughty slugs.
By the way, this "Guardian of the Snow Angel" is the "Little Lighthouse International Award" classic bridge book of CITIC Publishing House, this set of books is created by 29 winners of many international awards, recommending parents and children to read such classic children's literature together, because these excellent children's fairy tales will subtly help children build a beautiful spiritual world, nourish children's hearts, make children's hearts become rich, and then easier to feel the beauty of life.