What to say & do when your child feels SAD about their limb difference

Empathic parenting: a best practice
Helped, heard or hugged?
Before you respond
When you respond: offer choices
When they choose HUGGED
When they choose HEARD
When they choose HELPED
Offer a wide welcome for feelings
Read more

Empathic parenting: a best practice

Over the 25 years that I have been working with children as an occupational therapist and the 21 years that I’ve been raising my two children, I’ve read dozens of parenting books, looking for approaches and strategies that would support children’s emotional intelligence. Incorporating the use of empathy by far has had the most profound effect on my clients’s and my own family’s emotional health and well-being. While it’s challenging for researchers to study parenting strategies, in my personal and professional opinion, using empathy in raising children is a “best practice.” 

After implementing these concepts and practices in my own life and teaching them for many years to the parents of my pediatric clients, I have started to apply them to raising children with limb differences. As a child growing up with a hand difference, here are the empathetic practices and approaches that would have nurtured me when I was sad about my difference as a young one.

Helped, heard or hugged?

When we respond to our children when they feel sad with empathy, love, presence, and warmth, they get to feel seen and heard. This strategy isn’t mine – Jancee Dunn wrote in a NYTimes column (dated 4/23) about this genius empathetic parenting strategy of asking your child: “Do you want to be helped, heard or hugged?”

Before you respond

If possible, take a moment to pause and breathe. Is seeing your child sad painful? Do you want to make it all better? Give yourself empathy: acknowledge your own feelings, recognize that this is hard for you too. It also may help to take perspective; it’s 100% normal for your child to feel sad about their difference.

Consider what would be best for your child in this moment. Offer simple choices to your young child or guess what you think they need/want. Ask your older talking child their preferences, offering empathy, love, presence, and warmth.

When you respond: offer choices

Ask your child, “What would you like first? Do you want to be HELPED, HEARD, or HUGGED?” These work in any order. It’s ok if you have time for just one or two. We will delve into these in reverse order.

When they choose HUGGED

Use physical connection:

  • get close to your child
  • sit your child on your lap
  • hold their different limb
  • encourage them to snuggle a favorite doll or stuffed animal
  • if time allows, savor this precious moment of connection

If you have time, you can offer choice again: “Would you like to be heard or helped?”

When they choose HEARD

Invite communication:

  • Be fully present
    • Put down your phone & step away from distractions
    • Physically get down to their eye level
  • Respond with gentle acknowledgement
    • say: “mmm” or “oh sweetie”
    • nod your head” 

Invite their feelings:

  • Thank them for sharing
    • “I’m so happy you told me how you feel”
  • Use “feelings & needs” cards: this is a tool to help children identify how they feel & what they want. Ideally introduce these in advance. You can make or buy a set.

Demonstrate you understand:

  • Use reflective listening
    • “I hear you say that you feel mad & don’t want help”
  • Empathize: “of course …”
    • “of course you want to open the jar” 
  • Offer an impossible wish
    • “Do you wish you could use your light saber to …” 

When they choose HELPED

Analyze the Situation 

Is your child’s sadness mostly about social-emotional or physical issues related to their upper limb difference?

Social-emotional issues could be about:

  • self-awareness
  • self-concept
  • community connections
  • peer interactions
  • self-advocacy & problem-solving
  • mental health concerns

Physical issues could be about a physical aspect your child might want help with. Are there activities that they:

  • Want to be able to do
  • Want to be able to do better
  • Want to be able to do more easily
  • Want to be able to do with less discomfort or pain

Solutions may include:

  • adaptive devices
  • home adaptations
  • prosthetics
  • school accommodations
  • technology

We will delve into greater detail about these social-emotional or physical issues related to their upper limb difference in another post.

Offer a wide welcome for feelings

Allow whatever feelings arise for your child and offer them accompaniment as they feel. Offering a wide welcome to feel whatever they feel and accompanying them fully with your presence shows you accept them FULLY – not just when they’re happy. It also helps them manage “big feelings” when you’re not there.

Read the other posts in this series:


© 2024. Laura Faye Clubok, MS, OTR/L, On The Other Hand Therapy


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