Mary Rose explores the emotional life of children and the importance of paying attention to their feelings.
Emotions: We all have them. They can be more powerful than even the strongest argument at times, and as intimidating as a high-powered, word wizard lawyer. When the ocean of emotion swells, anyone can be brought to their knees.
Without a well-developed capacity to cope, children in particular can react will tempestuously, as emotions are unpredictable and powerful. Having said that, when dealing with something of this nature — when control is almost impossible — we must realize that is not for us to control the emotion itself, but instead, how we react to it. Tricky stuff.
To feel is to jump into the magical rabbit hole of self, where an endless chasm of possibility and vulnerability awaits. To a child, this can be extremely scary. We often shy away from our feelings, are even encouraged to suppress or ignore them, hoping in vain that this will make them go away. But like a child in the midst of a tantrum, ignored emotions often become louder.
Mine sure did. I remember as a child being told to keep my feelings to myself. To “stop being so sensitive”. To me, the rest of the world was totally in denial. I saw that living without expression of emotion is like trying to imagine water without wetness. My keen sensitivities were my special excellence, but it seemed very few people saw things the way did. This made me hyper-emotional as a young woman. I went over the top with everything in a vain attempt to make others feel and see things the way I thought people should. Of course, I have since learned that behaving like this is selfish and childish, but understandable considering all things.
I remember one time when I was about six years old, someone fell and scraped his knee on the playground. I didn’t know the person that well, but ran over to make sure he was okay. I said nothing but sat there with him until he was. It was the only thing that felt right.
I believe all children have heightened sensitivities and to deny them their intense feelings paves the way to chaos in their minds. Not only that, but it leads them to believe that they are alone in their sometimes chaotic inner world. I refused as a child to do this — to deny feeling — even though most grown-ups around me seemed to think that the fallen should pick themselves up without aid or sympathy from others. Needless to say, up until I found bodybuilding, long distance running and competitive swimming, I related to very few people.
Being an athlete allowed me to remain in touch with the most human part of myself — the part that feels and sees even the tiniest emotional and physical changes in myself and others. It gave me relative control over the way I reacted to things, and also, it allowed me the freedom to feel as intensely as I wanted to, in the privacy of my own mind.
Like temperatures, we feel others’ electrical fields (which we emit chemically and hormonally when we feel stuff). Depending on the degree, these fields have an effect on us. Without even knowing it, we constantly give off energy and, in turn, we take in energy.
When a child is having a tantrum, for example, the desire to block it out can be strong: To ignore it until it passes. But it is important to realize that when a child is emoting loudly, he or she is doing so out of desperation; essentially begging to be seen and heard. While it’s wise to allow intense emotions to pass into less intense ones before communication is attempted, to be dismissive altogether when emotions run wild is never a good idea.
Ignoring or dismissing children in emotional distress destroys their ability to trust both their own senses (their inner world) and the fact that others (the outer world) care about what they think and feel. It reinforces the “suck it up, deal with it” mentality, which children are not emotionally equipped to do. They need to feel connection from real people, in real life. The fact that so many people find themselves feeling emotionally confused, disconnected and even depressed in their adult lives, I believe, is largely due to the fact that our society values cold stoicism and interprets empathy as weakness.
Children are feeling barometers. They are unlimited thinkers as well. They need structure in thought, to help them understand the patterned, logical parts of world, but we are mistaken if we think we can use logical processes to compartmentalize emotions. The emotional realm demands a different kind of attention and respect.
One day, while working at a daycare facility, one of the children was inconsolable. The mother looked frazzled. She looked at me with a mixture of helplessness and hope, and said, “Do you want to try. Nothing I do works.” I got down on my knees — on the child’s level — and waited for her to see me through her glassy eyes. Not really knowing what I was doing, I listened to my emotional intuition, smiled and slowly touched my finger to hers. She stopped crying and looked at me. I looked at her with all the love and kindness I could imagine and let this feeling pass into her eyes. Her face soon mimicked mine, as did the mother’s. The situation went from stormy to calm, just like that.
It was a little weird, but at the same time, perfectly normal.
Someone from the outer world (which represents as cold, scary, sad and unpredictable at times) came into the child’s inner world and gave her company there. The inner and outer worlds merged, as her cries were heard by someone other than her mother (who are so close to their children that there is sometimes no discerning between the emotions of mother and child, which in turn, makes everything a mom does a little redundant…sorry moms…but I speak from experience.) But in this situation, I intuitively added to the calm mama love vibe with nothing more than genuine presence, and that’s all children really need: to feel accompanied, not shunned for feeling, ignored in being, or pacified with an endless conveyor belt of artificial distractions.
Authentic, kind and simple gestures contribute to the greatest feelings, and they ripple out the most powerful thing a human being can experience: The emotion of love.
My sincere gratitude goes out to Life As A Human author Donna Leskosek. You helped me to define something indefinable inside of myself. I am not what anyone would call a professional with regards to child behaviour or psychology, but I am a mother, which by proxy, and with focused intention, does make me what I like to call a novice expert.
Photo Credit
“Cloud where the alphabet song lives” benprks @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
Dear Mary Rose,
I am glad that anything I said resounded with you. I have long believed that there are people who are simply more in tune with the needs of others and who are able to by just being present provide comfort. I have enjoyed your writing very much. Wishing you many blessings and much joy
Donna L
thank you Donna 🙂