Bandaging the Boo Boos

It is amazing what you can get from seeing the world through the eyes of a child.

We are two weeks into the summer holiday.   No, I did not make a mistake! We are just two weeks into the holidays.  My child said good-bye to her old school on July 2^nd.    As a lot of our readers know, I am temporarily living in the United Kingdom. The school year for United Kingdom students who are privately educated ends the first week of July.  But before you start feeling sorry for them, the state (public) school children don’t actually get out until July 18^th. So we count our blessing.

This summer, we have a big task ahead of us.  We have to heal the scars of a horrible year of bullying and help a six-year-old understand that she is not leaving the school because they don’t want her but because we feel there is something better out there for her.

Part of healing is having the ability to talk about your emotions.  Over the last week, we have been taking long walks and talking.  I have decided not to censor her words. I am a bit amazed that she knows a few naughty adults words. I am not correcting the words: hate, mean, evil, horrible, stupid, idiot or even the adult words. She, unfortunately, experienced these words in her Year One of the school from this little girl.  I listen and comment when she requests it.  We have labeled out walks healing walks.

 

So that our walks don’t continue to be so focused on hatred and how she was mistreated in the past, I decided to add a little photo therapy to our walks. I don’t think there is, technically, any such thing as photo therapy.   It is just what this mother feels will help. We need to move on to other things and not wallow in the past.

While we are still talking about this child, with the photo therapy, we are less focused on that and more focused on something positive.   Our adult words have faded and we are no longer using the word hate. It has been replaced by: I don’t like her and I am happy about going to another school.

I am not saying that I have cured her. I just listened and did not censor her emotions.  I also added something positive so we don’t have to be so focused on the negative.

 

What is photo therapy?

I handed my child the camera of her choice and said, “Today we are going to take a picture of something to replace all of our mean and hurtful thoughts and feelings.”

“Mommy that is impossible to do.”

I answered that she is probably right but let’s see if we can find a happy place in our walks and talks.  We need to find a way to help ourselves start to feel better and look forward to all the good things that will happen this summer.  So our journey began.

She would tell me something that hurt her about this child and we would find something beautiful to replace it.  Soon, we were just talking pictures and the child’s name was not mentioned at all.

Today, I would like to share with you some photo therapy from the eyes of a six-year-old.

Hope your Sunday is filled with love and happiness!