Raising children safely
“Mummy, this is gravy, not sauce.” My firstborn is a bit of a smarty pants. Sometimes it makes me laugh; sometimes it makes me pause. And sometimes, if I’m honest, it makes me worry. Because I wonder if that same sharp mind and quick tongue will make it hard for him to fit in, the way I sometimes didn’t. When your mind works at a hundred miles per hour and your heart beats just as fast, you see and feel the world differently. You catch the undercurrents others might miss. You sense tension before it spills over. You want to fix things, but you don’t always know how. And lately, I’ve found myself holding my breath more than I’d like to admit. The terrible news from Melaka. The stabbing in a school just minutes away from our home. I look at my boys and think, how do we keep them safe in a world like this? Not just safe from harm, but safe in heart. Safe in mind. Safe in spirit. How do you explain to a child that the world isn’t always kind, when you still want him to see it as good? ...