One thing I’ve learned is that children don’t always need solutions first, sometimes they just want to be heard.

A few months ago, my little cousin came home unusually quiet. Everyone thought he was being stubborn or dramatic because he refused to eat and barely spoke. The adults kept telling him to “stop behaving that way,” but nobody actually asked what was wrong.

Later that night, I sat beside him and casually asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He burst into tears.

Turns out, a teacher embarrassed him in front of his classmates that day, and he’d been holding it in the entire time. What shocked me most was when he said, “I tried telling mummy but she said I was overreacting.”

That moment stayed with me.

Children may be small, but their feelings are not small. Sometimes the difference between a confident child and a withdrawn one is simply having one adult who truly listens.