Dear Janet. Thank you so much for all your inputs that are helping me so much in dealing with the everyday questions and challenges that are popping up with my 2.5 years old daughter Lily and also when observing other parents and their children.
I share Clynna’s issue about family members or friends laughing about what Lily is saying or doing. I think I would be ok with this if Lily wasn’t bothered about it because – as you say – these people are not daily child care providers, we only meet them once in a while, and their laughter is essentially a way of expressing positive surprise about her beautiful and creative thoughts and actions (e.g. that a dentist might be hidden in the teddy bear’s belly, that somebody could hide in the sky when playing hide and seek, her passion about a pink trolley case she is pulling with her everywhere, her repeated asking about whether she could get a chewing gum…).
But Lily actually does get very upset: she hushes, tenses up, hides in my lap, doesn’t want to continue what she was about to do, sometimes even starts crying.
In such situations, I continue to respond as I always do (like “Ah, you think there is a dentist inside? Ok.” or “No, today you already had a chewing gum, there won’t be another.”), I try to re-focus her on what she was about to say or do and, if she is really upset, say something like “It seems you need a break, shall we go to our room?”. Lately, back in the room, I told her that I see that she gets upset when people laugh and that I totally get her because I also don’t understand why they need to laugh all the time but that it is not easy to tell them to stop, that I am sure that they mean no harm and are just expressing their positive surprise this way and that it is maybe sometimes good to tell oneself “I don’t care about these people laughing and do my thing”. But isn’t this a bit too much serious talk with a 2.5 years old?
From your point of view, what would be best to do? Should I tell my friends and family members not to laugh (which I find very hard because they are quite self-confident in their behaviour and might feel offended) and if yes, how? I find this even more difficult than the kissing / hugging issue because it is seemingly less border-crossing (even though quite disrespectful in my view).
Should I avoid such situations to protect Lily from too much stress (because I get the feeling that it is kind of wearing her self-confidence) or is her reaction rather a sign of insufficient “exposure” to various people and their reactions (partly due to corona, partly due to our setup of moving back and forth between two countries since Lily was 1 year old)?
While our current life setup is how it is and I try to tell myself that as long as we are always there for Lily, announce changes, explain the situation and ensure continuous connection with other attachment figures (grandparents, godparents, a few children etc.) – at least through video calls – she should be fine, I still fear that these interruptions affect her somehow negatively…
Well, a lot of thoughts connected to each other…

I find this particularly difficult with my two children. I like to think we treat them with respect and value tham as a person and not by their looks. I get very uncomfortable when strangers come up to us telling us how cute they are and touching their hair without permission. I don’t feel confident enough to tell them to leave us alone so just say thank you and move away. I want to be a better roll model but as a people pleaser I’m not comfortable being rude to older ladies

Ps he is 4.

Janet, today my son came home and after a small fit of defiance started crying that no one at his daycare thinks he is cute. I have definitely overdone it. I’m wondering how to reverse the damage before it’s to late. I see the error in my ways but was also brought up on heavy praise (and heavy criticism). I’d like to break the habit and learn to rejoice in other ways. Please can you provide some guidance.

I still feel humiliated as well from the times I was mocked by my parents for when I was angry (usually because they were patronising me or forcing me to do something that was beyond my capability); it was a very lonely feeling. It never got better and now I’m grown up I’m permanently estranged from both of them. We need to be more careful how we treat children.

nono what happened was that she put her hand on two very short men that she mistook for children.

Agreed