The cry of a child (and women) is often a request for help — a request for help in the most simple, accessible and understandable language for everyone.
For example, a child has fallen and is in pain. A child may cry not only from pain, but may worry that something terrible and irreparable has happened to him.
In these cases, most families have rituals to calm the child. For some, the ritual is to blow on the bruised area. For others, kiss the bruised place. In one girl, it was necessary to seal the bruised place with a band-aid. If the child is tired, he becomes capricious, cries, whimpers. In this case, it should simply be sent to sleep.
If a child turns to you for help by crying, you should not rush to feel sorry for the child. They turn to you for help, not for pity. If you react with pity to “Sob-sob”, crying will soon turn from instrumental to manipulative, and the child will learn to turn to you for pity, learn to feel sorry for himself and play the unfortunate victim. Do you need it?
Our reader writes:
We’re going in the car. Parents are in front, behind me and Sasha in a child seat. Suddenly I hear: «Sob… whine.» I expected to hear: “Sasha, what happened to you? Why are you crying like that? — with female compassionate intonations and eyes, but something else happened: dad, without even turning around, calmly asked me: “Sasha dropped the toy, pick it up, please!”. Everything. Sasha’s parents do not regret. He is not a victim, but the same person, only a little younger. And he gets plenty of attention and care.
One more situation. The cub (1 year 9 months old) played, ran from one room to another — from dad to guests and back. And suddenly he comes into the guest room and cries:
— Hhhhhhhh…
Dad looks out from the next room:
Sasha, why are you crying?
“It hurts,” Sasha replies, holding his head.
“He hit his head on the table,” I prompt.
— Sasha, show me where you hit?
Sasha points to her head, the crying subsides slightly.
— Come here, show me the place where you hit.
Sasha enters the room, looks around. He has no time to cry — he thinks, remembers. After a couple of seconds, he points to the edge of the table, touches it with his palm. He leaves calmly, continuing to stroke the bruised place.
“It’s not surprising,” my dad says to me already …
And I know that they pay attention to Sasha — but they never regret it. So this time — dad responded, helped to work on the mistake, and the kid now knows that running under the table on foot as before will no longer work, otherwise «the table will hit the head — you will be a ball». The situation from «I’m playing, it hurts» turned into «I was running, I ran into a hard table — it hurts.»