Ninety Seconds of Emotion

I was talking to one of the teachers at my children’s school a few years ago as she dealt with a very upset toddler.   She casually said, “the average emotion lasts less than ninety seconds.”   I’ve been watching both children and adults ever since that comment and it’s proven to be a very astute statement.   Children get angry or sad or upset throughout the day but every time it happens to them, it’s over with fairly quickly—or at least it is if you don’t make a big deal out of it as a parent.

As adults we develop a special skill called “agonizing” that enables us to loop through an negative emotion again and again, causing it to feed back on itself and build up the initial feeling into something far bigger and more ominous.

I’ve tried so hard to avoid the perils of depression with my daughter’s sight problem.   She has lost over ninety percent of her vision (at least) as of right now and getting it back will be a long process involving multiple surgeries, lots of time, contacts or glasses, drops and activity restrictions.  Most of all it’s going to be an enormous effort of faith and hope to emotionally make it through it all as the parent my daughter needs me to be.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been given the privilege of spending more time on his iPad over the holiday break.   He was playing an app this morning I didn’t remember so I asked him when he got the app?   He replied, “I’ve had it for a hundred years.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter will gladly help you with something if you ask her.   She will probably offer to help you if you don’t ask her.   Today my mother and I wanted to see how well she sorted some things by color and shape.   We presented the test as a job we needed help with.   My daughter said she’d be glad to help and as she started sorting out the yellow shapes she commented, “I help with everything.”