by Jan Hunt
Crying is a signal provided by nature
1. A baby's first attempts to
communicate cannot be in words, but can only be nonverbal. She cannot put happy
feelings into words, but she can smile. She cannot put sad or angry feelings
into words, but she can cry. If her smiles receive a response, but crying is
ignored, she can receive the harmful message that she is loved and cared for only
when she is happy. Children who continue to get this message through the
years cannot feel truly loved and fully accepted.
2. If a child's attempts
to communicate sadness or anger are routinely ignored, he cannot learn how to
express those feelings in words. Crying must receive an appropriate and
positive response so that the child sees that all of his feelings are accepted. If his
feelings are not accepted, and crying is ignored or punished, he receives the
message that sadness and anger are unacceptable, no matter how they are
expressed. It is impossible for a child to understand that expression of
sadness or anger might be accepted in appropriate words once he is older and
able to use those words. A child can only communicate in ways available to him
at a given time; a child can only accomplish what he has had a chance to learn.
Every child is doing his best, according to his age, experience, and present
circumstances. It is surely unfair to punish a child for not doing more than he
can do!
3. A child who has been
given the message that her parents will only respond to her when she is
"good" will begin to hide "bad" behavior and
"bad" feelings from others, and even from herself. She may become an
adult who submerges "bad" emotions and is unable to communicate the
full range of human feelings. Indeed, there are many adults who find it
difficult to express anger, sadness, or other "bad" feelings in an
appropriate way.
4. Anger that cannot be
expressed in early childhood does not simply disappear. It becomes repressed
and builds up over the years, until the child is unable to contain it any
longer, and is old enough to have lost his fear of physical punishment. When
this container of anger is finally thrown open, the parents can be shocked and
perplexed. They have forgotten the hundreds or thousands of moments of
frustration which have been filling this container over the years. The psychological
principle that "frustration leads to aggression" is never more
clearly seen than in the final rebellion of a teenager. Parents should be
helped to understand how frustrating it can be for a child to feel
"invisible" when crying is ignored, or to feel helpless and
discouraged when his attempts to express his needs and feelings are ignored or
punished.
5.
. We are all born knowing that each and
every feeling we have is legitimate. We gradually lose that belief if only our
"good" side brings a positive response. This is a tragedy, because it
is only when we fully accept ourselves and others, regardless of mistakes, that we can have truly loving relationships. If
we are not fully loved and accepted in childhood, we may never learn how that
feels or how to communicate that acceptance to others, no matter how much
therapy or reading or thinking we may do. How much easier our lives would be if
we had simply received unconditional love from birth!
6. Parents wondering
whether to respond to crying might give some thought to their own responses in
similar situations. Parents may consider it appropriate to ignore a child's
cries, yet feel intensely angry if their partner ignores attempts to have a
conversation. Many in our society seem to believe that a person must be a
certain age before he has the right to be heard. Yet what age would that be?
Infants and children are not any less a person just because they are small and
helpless. If anything, the more helpless someone is, the more they deserve to
have our compassion. attention, and assistance.
7. If children are taught by example that helpless persons deserve to
be ignored, they can lose the compassion for others that all humans are born
with. If, as helpless infants, their cries are ignored, they begin to believe
that this is the appropriate response to those who are weaker than themselves,
and that "might makes right". Without compassion, the stage is set
for later difficulties or even violence. Those who wonder why a violent
criminal had no compassion for his victims need to consider where and when he
lost that compassion. Compassion is there at birth, and does not disappear
overnight. It is stolen, through unresponsive or punitive treatment, drop by
drop, until it is gone. Loss of compassion is the greatest tragedy that can
befall a child.
8. When a child learns by her parents'
example that it is appropriate to ignore a child's cries, she will naturally
treat her own child the same way, unless there is some intervention from
others. Inadequate parenting continues through the generations until new
experiences come about to change this pattern. How much easier it is for a
parent to have learned in childhood how to treat his or her own child! Perhaps
the cycle of inadequate parenting can begin to change when bystanders no longer
walk past an anguished child without stopping to help. This may be the first
time the child has been given the message that her feelings are legitimate and
important, and this critical message may be remembered later when she herself has
a child.
9. Crying is a signal provided by nature
that is meant to disturb the parents so that the child's needs will be met.
Ignoring a child's cries is like ignoring the warning signal of a smoke
detector because we find it disturbing. This signal is meant to disturb us so
that we can attend to an important matter. Only a deaf person would ignore a
smoke detector, yet many parents turn a deaf ear to a child's cries. Crying,
like the loud detector sound, is meant to capture our attention so that we can attend
to the important needs of the child. It just makes no sense to think that
nature would have provided all children with a routinely used signal that
serves no good purpose.
10. Parents who respond only to
"good" behavior may believe they are training the child to behave
"better". Yet they themselves feel most like cooperating with those
who treat them with kindness. It is as though children are seen as a different
species, operating on different principles of behavior. This makes no sense,
because it would be impossible to identify a moment when the child suddenly
changes to "adult" operating principles. The truth is much simpler:
children are human beings who behave on the same principles as all other human
beings. Like the rest of us, they respond best to kindness, patience and
understanding. Parents wondering why a child is "misbehaving" might
stop and ask themselves this question: "Do I feel like cooperating when
someone treats me well, or when someone treats me the way I have just treated
my child?"
No comments:
Post a Comment