= I’m struggling to understand why this is a big deal for you

= It’s overwhelming when everything is a big deal for you 

= Distracting you from tough emotions comes easy to me, as I do this to myself

It's not just you. I picked up this language when I started working in a child care centre (18 years ago!). That's how I would respond to children when they had tough emotions and thats the same kinda language I see professionals/parents using for children. I don't think its helpful to tell parents "dont say that, say this instead". Because our responses can reflect unconscious parts of ourselves and our own inner child wounds, as a bit of a default, so once we realise that we wont ever have perfect responses, we will create space to get curious about our responses. Getting curious about our responses is way more important than forcing ourselves to have perfect responses.

So in this example, getting curious about our response might mean to reflect on;

• What part of this situation am I struggling to understand
• How am I feeling in my body right now
• What beliefs might be driving this response

As professionals, when we create space to do this with our own interactions with children and families, we then can create space for parents to do this, we can act as a guide through this process, rather than tell them what they 'should' and 'should not' say to their child, without providing them any avenue to learn more about themselves and their child.

This is why I created my Play Prescription® approach. It's not that we need to just 'educate' parents. Getting to know our inner child is part of the journey in understanding and connecting with children.