Filling Your Child's Emotional Tank

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Kassandra Malik, One of Thousands of Family Coaches on Noomii.

It was 2 am and baby Shay (my 2 month old) was fully awake and playful… I on the otherhand was not! Finally when I thought she was sleepy I laid her in her crib and she woke up immediately and started crying… as soon as I picked her up she was fine and back to sleep. This went on 2 or 3 times. Exhausted and frustrated, in my mind I thought why are you being so needy! But then I realized she is not being needy she just needed her emotional tank to be full…

Here’s the analogy I like to use.. just like we need to fill gas in our cars for them to run smoothly we as human beings need the same thing. Many parents may think that there child is “craving attention” or is “needy” but in reality that’s not the case.. and it tends to happen at the most inconvenient times like when we are on the phone or busy trying to do something important. If we take the 5 or 10 minutes it takes to soothe our child it will be of great benefit in the long run.

If we don’t do this regularly the child will eventually stop trying to come to us as parents and as they grow will try to find ways (people or things – good or bad) to self soothe. Or they will try to get our attention in negative ways because any attention is better then no attention at all.

So take that 5-10 minutes and spoil your child it’ll be worth it in the long run!