Comments on: I’ll hold you while you cry

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:32:35 +0000

Great thoughts (as always), Annie! I tend to take the same approach that you do – especially with babies. I think there’s a world of difference between letting a baby cry in a lonely room and letting a baby cry in the warm arms of a loving parent.

By: Candace @NaturallyEducational

Candace @NaturallyEducational — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:55 +0000

My daughter hates being held when she is frustrated. So, I have had to find other ways to support her. Sometimes, though, if she’s hurting her brother, I do have to remove her. She’s welcome back as soon as she’s ready to be gentle.

By: Zoey @ Good Goog

Zoey @ Good Goog — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:44:56 +0000

I have a real problem with telling my daughter to stop crying. Tantrums can be challenging, upsetting and even humiliating for the parent, depending on the situation. But even so, during a tantrum I think she needs more love and support not less. When she has a full-blown tantrum it generally stops being about why she’s having a tantrum in the first place. It could be because she wants something, she’s tired, hungry, frustrated at her inability to do a certain thing – whatever. But at the point it crosses over into a tantrum her emotions take over and it’s all about the overpowering, uncontrollable emotions and not whatever she was upset about.

I really want her to have a positive experience when she is expressing herself, both when she’s happy and when she’s sad.

One of the main things I do with her to help with tantrums is we go through photos and she points out which one’s are happy, sad, angry, frustrated etc so that she can start to put a name to her feelings and they aren’t so scary when they do happen.

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:08:17 +0000

I’ve been dealing with more tantrums in the last 4 months or so due to my son’s age (2) and I have, without thinking about it, gravitated to #4 when he’s upset for no apparent reason. If he’s upset that I’m not letting him do what he wants to do, I will comfort him but also make it clear that it won’t change my mind. I think it’s important to realize that children are extremely smart little people. They have figured out from experience that when they cry they get what they want. It’s a learned behavior from day one.

I cry – I get food.
I cry – I get a diaper change.
I cry – I go to bed.
I cry – I get a cuddle.

Can we blame them for trying to use it to get a cookie? Or more time playing at the park? I hate to use the word, but it’s an accurate descriptor – children have learned to manipulate situations. It doesn’t help that very young ones don’t know the difference between want and need. In many cases, I don’t believe #4 is always the best option, particularly for strong-willed children like my son who start resorting to hitting when they aren’t getting their way. I’m not going to hit him back, but I have to get the message across that hitting isn’t acceptable, which usually involves a form of discipline (not humiliation) like removing him from the situation until he’s calmed down.

By: kgirl

kgirl — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 12:47:42 +0000

I can’t speak to a situation where tantrums are chronic or indicitive of a greater behavioural issue, but for my own kids, who are not prone to tantrums (I can count on one hand the number of full-ons my kids have collectively had), it’s number 4 all the way. The first thing I try to do is remove them from the stimulus/situation causing the tantrum, but I have totally learned that what my kids need to do, is ‘express’ themselves for a little while, and then come into my open arms. When I recently wrote about how humiliated/angry I was when my 2 year old had a shit storm of a freak out in a restaurant, a trusted friend of our family’s, who is also a psychologist, told me that I should be consoled by the fact that my kids trust me enough and feel secure enough to express themselves and know that they will still be loved and not shunned. I was.

By: phdinparenting

phdinparenting — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:21:58 +0000

Thanks. They should be all fixed now. The combination of me migrating to self-hosted and Mothering reorganizing its own site meant that the links in this post took quite a hit!

By: Lauren

Lauren — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:03:26 +0000

Hi – the links in the Dealing with big emotions paragraph appear to be broken.

By: Bias against boys? | PhD in Parenting

Bias against boys? | PhD in Parenting — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:54:28 +0000

[...] them to express their emotions rather than keeping them bottled up [...]

By: Rashel

Rashel — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:44:46 +0000

Aletha Solter! I read one of her books on this topic (couldn’t remember her name, though) just before DC #2 was born and it made a HUGE impact. Wish I’d read for my first born because the difference is incredible, if not violent. Thank you for the reminder!

By: Marion Badenoch Rose

Marion Badenoch Rose — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:57:18 +0000

Aletha Solter talks about “the broken cookie phenomenon” – when a toddler or child starts to cry or tantrum after something that seems very minor to us – like the last cookie is broken. From an Aware Parenting perspective, the child is using this as an opportunity to heal from accumulated stress, tension, or trauma. When we set “loving limits” – eg, “I see you want another cookie, and there’s no more cookies now, except that broken one,” rather than trying to fix it (go to the shops) or distract, or ignore the child, then the child is free to release all those pent-up feelings.

If the parent can remember that the feelings aren’t really about the cookie, but about something else that the child was not able to express at the time, and give the child their loving presence, then the child will have a cry or tantrum and emerge bright and clear and present, more relaxed, and wanting to connect. Most of all, the child learns that we support them, however they are feeling.

It’s just like when we are upset and the last straw is our husband making some comment about our cooking, and we explode – it wasn’t really about the cooking, but it still means we need to express the feelings and for them to be heard with loving respect.

Children aren’t really so different from us – they are most in need of loving support when they are feeling upset.