One of my biggest pet peeves is parents or grandparents that freak out because a kid fell down and bumped their head.  Do they really think that running 100 miles per hour across the room yelling, “Oh my God! Are you OK?” is going to help?  I think not.

My son is crawling now.  He is learning how to move his arms and legs in sequence to move across the room very successfully.  However, he has not mastered the art yet.  He always pushes himself farther than his capabilities.  He will try to pull himself up onto things.  He will try to put his weight on one hand while reaching up for the dog’s collar with the other hand.  Sometimes he gets off balance and topples over.  Most of the time he bumps his head pretty hard!  But he rarely cries when I am the one that saves him from his fall and I think I know the answer why…  I don’t get excited.  I don’t run across the room.  I walk up to him and hold out my hand.  He grabs onto my finger and he rolls himself back onto his belly to go at it again.  I know it hurts because you can see it in his face, but he doesn’t scream.

I’ve seen other friends/family who take a huge gasp of air and run across the room asking him if he is OK…and he cries!  I think he is more scared of the large person moving at a high rate of speed towards his little face!  Maybe he is scared that there is something really wrong with him?

Last year, before my son was born, I was operating a table saw.  I was building a fence in our back yard andwas cutting a piece of wood.  I did not notice that there was a staple in the end of the board.  When the blade hit the staple it ripped off a chunk of wood along with the staple and hit me right between the eyes!  It hurt!  I buckled down and stayed calm.  I knew I was OK, but it hurt! Bad!  I was fine until I reached up to rub the area between my eyes.  I pulled my hand back and it was covered in blood.  I got scared!  I pictured a huge gash down my forehead!  I ran in to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.  By this time I had blood running down my forehead and dripping off of my nose!

I washed the area off to find this little teeny-weeny cut.  I got all excited for nothing! 

Maybe, just maybe, when you go running toward you kid after they fall and bump their head they are picturing the worst…just like I did when I saw so much blood.

So my advice is to stay calm.  Don’t get your kid excited by getting excited yourself.  Getting excited does nothing, but make your kid scared!  Staying calm reassures them they are OK.