My mom came over today.
I had just walked back from the park with my son and was dying to use the restroom. I walked in, put Frank on the floor, and told him I was sorry but really needed to use the restroom. Usually I give him a bigger warning but I didn’t think I could wait this time. So I left him on the floor with his grandma and went.
Frank cried. Sometimes he does when I leave.
When I came out of the bathroom, I sat on the floor and rubbed my son’s back. I told him I hear him and I see how sad he was that I left.
My mom turned to me and said, “I don’t think this RIE stuff works.”
This is not the first time she has said this phrase to me.
She explained that he was crying when I left. I said I heard. She said because she respects my parenting she didn’t do anything. So I asked her what is it that she would have done differently. She said she would have distracted him.
Why?
To stop his crying.
Now before I go on, I want to point out my mom has the best of intentions. She loves her grandson. And I love her dearly for trying to learn about this parenting philosophy because she sees how important it is to me. (I love you mom)
But here is the problem my mom is facing: crying makes her uncomfortable.
And I don’t blame her. Crying makes me uncomfortable too. As a matter of fact, I bet you it would be tough to find many people who didn’t feel weird when they heard crying, especially a baby crying. Our instincts tell us to help, help by making it stop.
But maybe our job is not to try and fix it. My son is sad because I left. Why do I need to stop his feeling sad?
When I am sad or upset and I sit with my husband to tell him what is bothering me, I don’t know how I would feel if he started waving something in front of my face or singing a song to me. Actually that’s a lie. I know how I would feel. I would feel angry and disrespected.
I want a shoulder to cry on. I want a listening ear. That’s what I crave when I’m sad.
Do babies deserve any less?
Well maybe they do. Maybe we should stop their crying. After all, feeling sad is… sad.
So let’s stop his feelings by distracting him. Let’s send him the message that this feeling of sadness he is experiencing is wrong, that he needs to ignore it, it needs to stop.
And it’s easy to distract a baby, simply wave something in front of their face.
The consequence of course is that I am now conditioning my baby to ignore this weird feeling. When my baby becomes let’s say seven years old, waving a toy might not be powerful enough. Maybe now when he’s feeling sad I will turn on a movie for him or give him ice cream. That is stronger than simply showing him a new object.
What happens when he becomes a teenager and starts feeling sad? What will he turn to that’s more powerful than TV in order to distract himself? I can think of a few things teenagers turn to to distract themselves from daily life, can’t you?
Am I implying that distracting my son so he stops crying will make him a drug addict? Of course not. But why aren’t we teaching our children how to handle healthy emotions? And why not start when they are young, really young? There is nothing wrong with feeling sad. As a matter of fact, children and babies are naturally inclined to release their feelings so they can move on.
As Patty Wipfler from Hand-in-Hand parenting explains:
“Children’s systems are built to offload feelings of upset immediately and vigorously. But our training as parents is to stop them from offloading their feelings! We are taught to give them pacifiers, food, rocking, patting, scolding, and later, time outs and spanking, if the crying or screaming goes on for more than a minute. We are taught to work against the child’s own healthy instinct to get rid of bad feelings immediately. So our children store these upsets, and try many times a day to work them out, usually by testing limits or having meltdowns over small issues. If they can’t offload them during the day, the feelings bother them in the night.”
So crying is uncomfortable. I agree. Guess what, it is probably uncomfortable to your child as well. So let them cry and get over the big wave of emotions they are feeling. Then you both can move on.
Just to clarify however, I do not believe in the ‘cry it out’ method. When I say, let them cry, this does not mean leave them to cry alone and afraid while I wait in another room for it to stop. Respectful parenting is not about ignoring these feelings. Our job is to be present, and to support our child through it.
My presence is incredibly important during this time of big emotions. That is why when I got out of the restroom I didn’t pick my son up to rescue him from his own crying. I sat down on his level, told him that I was here, that I see he is sad, and that I understand.
I have this personal motto. I made it up when I was really young and used to use it whenever I got hurt. “Embrace and overcome.” If I fell or anything, I would tell myself embrace the pain and overcome. Then when I got older and was on the water polo team, I used it when practice was hard and my body was aching. Finally, when I was in labor with my son, I tried to remember this as well.
What’s my point with all this? Well this motto applies to crying and my son.
