Markus received his trophy at the awards banquet for baseball tonight, and then it promptly broke when he took it out of the box. He was so upset, of course, and I tried to 'validate' his feelings when he told me about what happened. In the past I would have just tried to quiet him down by telling him that it was okay, we could glue it at home with some super glue. But instead this time, I just listened and tried to reflect back to him what he was saying, just as the book I read for book club last month - "Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child," suggested. I read the book a few years ago but had forgotten how much kids need to be heard and not just have their problems fixed for them right away. Also, they need to know what to do with their emotions. After I listened to him for a minutes, and we talked about what he was feeling, he stopped crying and said, "Can we glue it when we get home?"
