Crying

This is a topic I have wanted to write about for quite a while, as it is something that comes up frequently around here.

When we hear someone crying something often happens to us inside: our heart might begin to race, we might begin to feel like we want to cry, we might suddenly feel like we have a problem to solve, etc. I'm sure it is a little different for all of us. However, the bottom line is that it does something to us. It makes things feel unstable, even if just for a few seconds.

When our children were babies we were all taught to respond pretty quickly to their cries, at least of course until we had a better sense of their cries. Some of us are better at this part than others and some baby's cries aren't always all that different from one need to the other, even though the books always say they will be! At any rate, we all began our parenting lives by responding to the "cry".

I think in many homes the response to the cries continues to be about the same. We answer it in hopes to fix it and selfishly at times, simply to make that feeling we have inside go back to how it was feeling before the crying started.

A few years ago I was talking with the director at my son's school about his tears at the beginning of his school day and often at the beginning of anything new. He was 3 and being away from me was somewhat new for him. The director assured me that he was doing great at school and would sometimes let out a big sigh after he would cry. It was almost like he was saying, "OK, now that I have that done with, I can move on." The director brought up a great point that he wasn't necessarily sad about going to school or trying other new things, he simply felt some anxiety and crying was his release of this.

I thought this was brilliant and I have really watched closely with other children in other situations when they cry to see if this might be true for them as well. The more I observed, the more I saw that this was true and all of us adults were misreading it all along. We were trying to help the crying child by comforting him or her. I have never been a teacher to try to rescue children from their feelings. I have always realized that we all deserve to feel our feelings, but this perspective from my son's teacher was still incredibly enlightening.

Young children do not always have the words to express their feelings. And even when they have the words they may not have the wisdom to be able to express that that is what they are feeling. I think a lot of times when children feel anxiety, sadness, and even anger it is very confusing to them, especially when it is coupled with excitement.

I am thinking of a child getting on the bus the first few weeks of school for kindergarten. This is something this child has looked forward to for a couple years. She is excited and really likes school, yet she does feel some anxiety because it is away from home and mom. These feelings together can be very confusing to a child: Which way should she feel? Which one should she listen to more? The worried one or the excited one? A young child cannot usually put all this into words. It comes out in tears. It's her way of releasing these feelings so she can move forward with her day. As a parent watching this it can be hard to not try to "fix" it; however, there really isn't anything to fix.

I am not of course recommending that we ignore crying. We need to be in tune to our children by spending time with them, observing them, etc. We need to know what is happening in their lives so we can help identify their feelings. We can help them put words to these emotions and let them know it is OK to cry sometimes. Many of us could vouch for how good a cry can feel every once in a while. So, continue to be there for your own children and the children you work with, but try to remember that crying may serve many purposes. After all we strive to understand our children the best we can and this bit of insight brings us just a little closer to that!