How do you not "read" into things

[Mijia]

My question is how do you not "look" for things or "read" into normal child behavior? I think my child will have a tendancy to this and I hope she will (given our history) but I don't want to "create" false ideas. I have been "lurking" on the site alot but I finally have two things that happened.
My 23 month old last night really really frightened me. She woke up at 3am for no reason and as she was laying in my bed in the dark she popped her head up and looked over my shoulder and kept pointing. I wouldn't turn around until she starts saying "gammie! gammie!" (My 95 yr old grandma she calls gammie or anyone else whose extremely short with bright white hair) Nothing was behind me except for a window.....hmmm
Second thing is she keeps calling large trees "boats". She knows fully the difference between boats and trees as we have a fiberglass fishing boat and pecan trees. But one day she pats the tree and says "boat" I said "no honey thats a tree" she smiled at me and said "yes tree...good boat". For whatever reason it jumped in my head about my side being Whalers and his side being german immigrants. We live very far away from the ocean or any wooden boats. I thought it curious.

 

[Karoliina]

Hello Mijia,

I don't think you will "read" into your child's "normal" behaviour easily - because you are concerned of that. But you make a good point. I think what your daughter has said is interesting, and I think you should write it down for further reference, but you're right that just because of this you can't say for sure she sees spirits or has built a boat out of wood in a PL.

But it's great you're aware of these things and can thus pay attention to this kind of small details - they can become many and together build up an interesting story. :thumbsup:

Let us know if your daughter continues with her notions. When she gets a little older, she might start talking more, drawing pictures and showing interest in PL related things. For example I had wanted to borrow books about old wooden ships from the library when I was so young I can't remember this myself (my parents have told me this).

Keep us posted,

Karoliina

 

[tanguerra]

I would not worry too much Mijia, as Karolina says, as long as you are aware of it. If your child has a past life type recall there is nothing to be upset about and no reason to overeact either way. It happens and it is not all that uncommon, so why fuss?

I would suggest that just because you could not see 'Gammie' does not mean that all that was behind you was the window. It could well be that the grandmother was having a bit of an astral jaunt while sleeping and your daughter could see her quite clearly. (I trust she is OK?) Children are often much more sensitive to these sorts of things than adults. My grandmother used to visit me from time to time even after she had passed on when I was a little child. It didn't frighten me. I liked it. I was very fond of her. There is no reason to be afraid of an incident like that. I am sure the spirit of the child's grandmother would mean absolutely no harm to either of you. If the child was not afraid, why should you be? I would suggest it is better not to teach the child to react fearfully to incdents of this nature, but just to be calm and relaxed about it. (Same with spiders, mice, etc. although I know it is not always easy to control our own instinctive reactions to things out of the ordinary).

As to the tree it could well be that in a previous life your daughter knew all about which trees were good for making boats and was simply sharing this interesting piece of information with you. That may have been a life as a whaler, Native American, German boat builder or who knows? Do you have any idea what kind of tree it was? Just curious.

Perhaps when she is a little bigger and speaking more she will be able to add more detail with this type of observation. Or, you could have asked her to draw a picture of the kind of boat she meant when she got home, that sort of thing. As Karolina says, keep a little journal where you can note these sorts of things down now and again. It may be very interesting to her later.

But again, I would not make a whole big deal about it. My daughter works in child care and there is one little kid who keeps talking about her 'other family' and 'when I was big' and 'when I was the Mummy' and so on. I advised her just to go along with it and say 'Oh yes, then what happened?' just as you would with anyone telling an interesting story without either making a fuss about it or contradicting the child and saying 'no that's impossible' and so on.

 

[vicky]

Hi Mijia and welcome to the forum.

I think its great that you are aware. I was the opposite and didn't believe in reincarnation. When my son started talking, I missed about three years of it because I had no idea he was even talking about a past life. Now he is 7 and is beginning to forget.

I'd say that you know your child better than anyone in the world. As your child gets older, you will be able to determine whether she is lying about something, making up a story or misrepresenting the truth to get out of trouble or what have you. Mothers know their children and watch them perhaps more intensely than even they are aware of. So, if the things she has said give you pause, then those two things are different from all of the other things she says.

That said, there isn't a lot else you can do other than pay attention, write it down, let her know you are listening and also ask open ended questions. When my son would talk, I tried to avoid asking him things about his previous life that I wanted to know the answer to. When he talked, he seemed to have an agenda, like there was something specific to talk about or that he needed to work through. Like tanguerra said, I'd ask open ended questions to get him to talk more.

Favorites of mine are:
Then what happened?
How did that make you feel?
Oh? Tell me about that.
Why do you think that happened? or any other why question
What was that like?

The list can go on. You will think of the right thing to say when the moment comes. There is also a thread on this forum about How to tell if your child is talking about a past life. I think there are 4 signs. You can do a search within this forum and find it.

You're doing a great job. Being open to the whole idea will put you miles ahead.

BTW, I too got the boat builder impression from what she said and I also assumed gammie was on a little astral traveling trip.

Vicky

 

[Mijia]

Thank you

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. Looking back I realize I did over react a little when I got frightened. I was mainly already nervous that her father wasn't home yet and I couldn't get him on the cell. I do want to be open-minded and I will write everything down b/c it may never make sense until way down the road. Grandma is fine but sleeping most her days away. I didn't know about "astral" travel. But it makes sense with some things that grandma talks about "in her old age". My sister (the skeptic) pointed out that my daughter may have been read the story of the Noah and the Ark in her Montessori school. Good things to keep track of. I guess it shows how one comment can go different ways. Thank you again!

 

[tanguerra]

That's great Mijia.

They say that old folks do a lot of astral travelling (they sleep a lot in general) and do a lot of sorting out of their lives, their memories (all those stories about the old days!) and so on in 'preparation for departure' so to speak. I would say this is most likely what your daughter was seeing. Kids can be very sensitive and open to these things and of course, there is nothing to be afraid of.

Good luck with your explorations. Very interested to hear from you about anything else you would like to discuss - for instance I would be interested in some of the things Gammie might be saying 'in her old age' if you think they might be relevant to this forum.