As parents, we look closely at what we teach our children and worry about how to do so that they become healthy and happy adults, and we often don't notice that we can learn from them, too, and much. Why there are things of childhood that we should not lose if we want to be happy adultsBecause children are much healthier than us in a few ways, do you dare to behave like a child?
1. Overcome
Yes, children have tantrums that sometimes seem to last an eternity, but the reality is that they do not spend, at most, a few hours.
When something bothers or hurts them, when they get angry, children are able to overcome much faster than us, to turn the page more easily. "Now I am fatal, now I am phenomenal, which is better", and ready.
If adults were able to give a folder like this when they were upset, we would be much happier (and psychologists would have less work, of course).
In Babies and more How to help your young child manage his emotions 2. Forgive and forget
They forget before, they forgive better. Although you have the feeling that if you do not tell him to ask for forgiveness, he will never do it. The question is that when they forgive, they really do it, in a much healthier way than we adults do.
Children when they forgive move on to something else, leaving the subject of forgiveness aside and settled. However, adults tend to go to that topic again and again, it is hard for us to let it be.
And that coming and going what he does is open the wound again and again, preventing us from continuing, stabbing that forgiveness we gave.
In Babies and more, you are wrong ... and me too: how and when to ask our son for forgiveness3. Laugh, laugh and laugh
Children really laugh, often and abandoning themselves to that laugh. A good sense of humor is a protective factor, a vaccine and at the same time a tool to overcome mood alterations.
Also in consultation I have more than proven that when a patient is able to laugh at what is happening or thinking it is because he is able to take perspective and that is, without a doubt, an essential step to feel better.
And if that were not enough, laughter is related to better self-esteem, less stress, more creativity, better learning ... All advantages.
As bad as the day has gone, there is something you can laugh with: look for the fun side and you'll notice it in your mood, you'll see.
In Babies and more Life with laughter is better: how to favor children's sense of humor 4. Curiosity
Since they are born, when they look from their crib, when they start crawling and want to explore everything, when they walk and run they peel them to new places ... Children are curious, want and seek to learn, experiment, try.
That curiosity implies activity, both physical and cognitive and if there is something that makes our brain not oxidize it is to keep it active, give it food, propose challenges, exercise it.
So don't lose your curiosity: search, research, learn new things, no matter if you are 5 than 55 years old, that will keep you active, alive. And hey, you discover something new that you love and never imagined you might like. Isn't it a wonder?
5. Try
Children do not stop to think if they meet all the requirements for something, if they are suitable or if they will be able to: if there is something that interests them, they do it, or at least they try.
Older people often stop trying ... and with that we stop doing and miss many experiences that would undoubtedly be enriching.
You may not be the best at it, maybe the first time (and the second and third and the nineteenth if you hurry me) you do not go fethe, but ... so what? Why not do it anyway?
Adults gradually lose the ability to enjoy trying to try because we focus on the objectives. But to try is to learn, as much of the task as of ourselves and our abilities, do not leave it!
6. Express feelings
If there is something that adults stop doing (and then take us to the psychologist) is to stop expressing our feelings, to tell others how we feel or what we need.
Children when they are sad do not make an effort (herculean) to hide their feelings, they just let it out. Mind you, it is not about now that we go without filters or self-control for life and start crying at the gas station because we have been strained.
The healthy thing about this that children do is the fact of allowing themselves to feel and externalize it: we adults keep many things about our feelings, things that end up doing mountains and that lead us to feel frustrated or overwhelmed.
Going loose little by little is much healthier, even with filters.
7. Defend your needs
When children need something they tell you, clearly also, and that is something that many adults lose and leave us with a poor, very poor, assertiveness.
What is the assertiveness? The ability to express our needs while caring for the feelings of others; is knowing how to ask without demanding or restricting, while we are empathic with others.
Assertiveness is related to strong self-esteem, for starters, so do as your child and ask for what you need, it is not bad: if it really is important, what wrong do you do with asking for it? It is your right, do not violate or violate it!
8. Reinforce yourself, tell yourself the good of yourself
Have you ever heard your son get great and say, loudly, something of the kind “How good I am doing this or that thing”? The children they reinforce themselves constantly, they say good things to themselves, and that is wonderful for their self-esteem.
What I see in consultation is usually the opposite: adults, what we say is rather the negative, what we have not given up, what we don't like, what we don't want…
The self-criticism, that evil voice that we have in our head and that reminds us of everything ugly, accompanies us often, and it is time to silence it. We are going to do like the kids and love each other, look at those things that we do very well (or regular, but ... and how well we have had fun, what?).
9. Be flexible
If we were to summarize all that children do and that as adults we should keep in one thing this would be "Be flexible." No, I do not mean that we try to reach, by crouching down, with our hands on the ground (although everything is putting on), but to be flexible on a cognitive level.
As we mature we become less and less flexible: we are increasingly bothered by changes (site, plans ...), it is increasingly difficult for us to adapt to them.
However, children show wonderful cognitive flexibility, do not cling to ideas, contemplate other options, accept changes, experience ... And that makes them adapt much better to the world.
Does the world really end if we don't go to the beach tomorrow? Can't you think of another plan? If things do not go as expected, look for new options, put them into practice and enjoy them, because time passes, and living frustrated or angry is not fun.
Play, experiment, laugh, cry if necessary, look in the mirror without fear, do what you want ... be like your child in those things, and you will be happier.
Photos: Pixabay.com
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