Dear Coffeemee,

I'm sorry to hear you and your child are dealing with a health issue. That can present a lot of challenges to the family, especially when the child's emotions about the illness come out as anger.

Ultimately, your child wants you to know and understand his or her feelings, and it's your attention that will be most powerful force in helping him or her through the feelings that have been stored up about the health issue. Bringing your attention to your child, even when you're not sure what to do, is a good move.

There's nothing 'wrong' with feeling angry over a health issue, or sad or disappointed or frustrated. Health issues can make both kids or adults feel many different ways. The important thing is just to set aside time to really listen to what it is your child is feeling, to "make room" for those feelings to just be, and to really hear them. You don't have to fix what your child is feeling, or try to change it, or explain it won't last forever. Just listen. Hear how hard it is for your child. And just let it be hard. Make yourself into a warm, supportive place for your child to just feel whatever it is they need to feel around this medical problem and still be accepted. Remember, all emotions are acceptable, even though all behavior is not. Your child may need a reminder that you can love them no matter how they are feeling, angry, happy, sad--you love them, not the emotion they happen to be showing at the moment.

Once your child has fully expressed the anger over the situation and feels heard, the grip of those feelings will loosen and your child will feel lighter, more flexible and more hopeful.

Check the resources below for examples of how this can work and some other ideas that might help with medical issues.

Let us know how things go!

Julianne Idleman
Hand in Hand Parenting
www.handinhandparenting.org