![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/JENNY005.jpg\")
<\/a>![\n<\/a>\nME: Dear Little Jenny, you were scared, weren\u2019t you?\nLittle Jenny: Yes.\u00a0 I was afraid I\u2019d forgotten something important.\nME: You didn\u2019t trust yourself to remember?\nL. J. NO. They were always angry at me, for something they expected that I didn\u2019t know about.\nME and now here am I, getting angry at you for being scared.\u00a0 I\u2019m so sorry.\u00a0 Your Mom did that to you a lot.\u00a0 First she had unreasonable expectations and that made you scared.\u00a0 You had a right to be scared: it\u2019s very scary to be expected to do something & not know what it is & then when you didn\u2019t do it she got angry.\u00a0 So then the next time it happened you were scared and she made you wrong for being scared. That was very unfair of her.\nL. J.\u00a0 It was?\nME: YES.\u00a0 It was not at all fair to expect adult behavior from a little girl, to expect you to know things she hadn\u2019t told you, and then get angry when you couldn\u2019t perform.\nL. J. (Big sigh)\nME: I tell you what, Little Jenny, I\u2019ll be in charge of remembering what to do.\u00a0 It\u2019s not your job at all.\u00a0 Let me take care of it.\u00a0 Sometimes things don\u2019t get done because they weren\u2019t on the list.\u00a0 That\u2019s not your fault.\u00a0 And I may feel sad or annoyed that they didn\u2019t get done \u2014 and that\u2019s not your fault either.\u00a0 In any case, if something doesn\u2019t get done it\u2019s not the end of the world.\u00a0 I can handle it.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll try to remember that you get scared in such situations and I\u2019ll reassure you that it\u2019s not your fault.\nLittle Jenny comes to hug me and cries.\u00a0 I hug her and say \u201cThere, there\u201d and \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Written in January 2003) In a panic.\u00a0 Sitting here with a cup of tea to be with it.\u00a0 The usual breathless dissolving feeling in my upper body.\u00a0 It began when I couldn\u2019t find the list.\u00a0 I kept telling myself there … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/JENNY0051.jpg\"){kind=link}
\n<\/a>
\nME: Dear Little Jenny, you were scared, weren\u2019t you?
\nLittle Jenny: Yes.\u00a0 I was afraid I\u2019d forgotten something important.
\nME: You didn\u2019t trust yourself to remember?
\nL. J. NO. They were always angry at me, for something they expected that I didn\u2019t know about.
\nME and now here am I, getting angry at you for being scared.\u00a0 I\u2019m so sorry.\u00a0 Your Mom did that to you a lot.\u00a0 First she had unreasonable expectations and that made you scared.\u00a0 You had a right to be scared: it\u2019s very scary to be expected to do something & not know what it is & then when you didn\u2019t do it she got angry.\u00a0 So then the next time it happened you were scared and she made you wrong for being scared. That was very unfair of her.
\nL. J.\u00a0 It was?
\nME: YES.\u00a0 It was not at all fair to expect adult behavior from a little girl, to expect you to know things she hadn\u2019t told you, and then get angry when you couldn\u2019t perform.
\nL. J. (Big sigh)
\nME: I tell you what, Little Jenny, I\u2019ll be in charge of remembering what to do.\u00a0 It\u2019s not your job at all.\u00a0 Let me take care of it.\u00a0 Sometimes things don\u2019t get done because they weren\u2019t on the list.\u00a0 That\u2019s not your fault.\u00a0 And I may feel sad or annoyed that they didn\u2019t get done \u2014 and that\u2019s not your fault either.\u00a0 In any case, if something doesn\u2019t get done it\u2019s not the end of the world.\u00a0 I can handle it.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll try to remember that you get scared in such situations and I\u2019ll reassure you that it\u2019s not your fault.
\nLittle Jenny comes to hug me and cries.\u00a0 I hug her and say \u201cThere, there\u201d and \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Written in January 2003) In a panic.\u00a0 Sitting here with a cup of tea to be with it.\u00a0 The usual breathless dissolving feeling in my upper body.\u00a0 It began when I couldn\u2019t find the list.\u00a0 I kept telling myself there … Continue reading