Hi and welcome to the boards !

I am sorry your daughter had her finger hurt, and hope it is not serious. In my humble opinion , I think perhaps, since you state you teach your daughter to be careful, and are protective of her, that when she gets hurt, your first "knee jerk" reaction could be subconciously thinking "she didnt listen when I have told her to be careful" etc. Sometimes when things happen that are out of our control, rather than have appropriate reactions, we might express an inappropriate emotion.

Above posts have great responses and suggestions. I would suggest counting to 10 before making any comment when your child has hurt herself. In your mind - think "STOP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not angry with her, I love her." That might "trip" that trigger from feeling angry to feeling compassion.

With that said, I do think that anger is appropriate at certain times when we see our child get hurt - and we know its just a scraped knee - because they were doing something they know not to do ! I know I have felt anger when my son has broken rules and gotten a "boo boo" while doing something wrong. I dont think that makes us bad parents. We want our children to learn from their mistakes, (of course praying nothing serious happens to them !), and to say "WHY on earth did you jump off the back of the sofa" would not be a bad thing to say - it shows they did something unsafe, got a "boo boo" as a result, and hopefully they won't do it again.

I think if you have shown anger when she has gotten hurt (like today), and you get upset with her, and then have trouble with the hugs and such, perhaps you could look at other areas in your life and see how anger affects you. Many many people DO have a problem discerning anger, fear, frustration etc.

Good luck ........and another thought - after you have had some time following an incident like this, perhaps a special cuddle time - with you telling her how sorry you are she was hurt, how scared you were, and that sometimes when you get scared seeing her hurt, it may seem like you are angry, but you aren't..just as a reassurance to her that she can tell you if she is hurt.