| 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. |
Crying is a
signal provided by nature.
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| 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?"
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