Kids Crying (long)
dreadiemama
member
For New Years I got a look into the future. DH and I went to a party at my BILs house and most (if not all) of his friends had kids ranging from ages 3 months to 7 years old. It was fun and really gave me an idea of what those types of holidays are going to be like down the road.
Anyways. My husband is a notorious rough houser and the kids loved him. It was cute but the thing that annoyed us both is how much the kids would start crying. At one point my nephew slipped when he was running (age 4) and fell. He was hysterical for like 10 minutes. At another time two boys that were about the same age, a little older maybe, bumped into each other. One started crying and a few seconds later the other one did too.
Oh I should mention that they have carpet... so it wasn't like they were falling on the concrete or anything.
Maybe I'm a complete b!tch but I don't remember myself or my siblings crying over stuff like that when we were that age. When my niece (on my side) was 5 I remember that she got kocked in the head with a door accidentally. She didn't cry, but told her mom that she hit her head on the doorknob. Karla (SIL's) response was "oh no. Is the door ok?" My niece started laughing and that was that.
I want to do attachment parenting... but this kind of made me rethink a lot of advice about "let kids cry stuff out" or not being letting them be too clingy. These might just be personality traits also. Idk. Thoughts?
Re: Kids Crying (long)
Young kids cry. That's how they express their emotions a lot of the time, especially when there's a huge group of people that can be pretty overwhelming (like at a holiday party). Add in lack of sleep and an overdose on sugar, and I find that kids pretty much cry over every little thing. DD1 is 6.5 years, and when she's overtired (like pretty much all weekend since we were with family), she cries because she lost a game or bumped her leg or whatever. When I'm overtired I feel like crying when something goes wrong. Some kids are more sensitive than others too.
Personally, I hate rough housing. My mom never allowed it, and I don't allow it either. It's too easy for someone to get hurt, and I find adults don't always stop when a child has said they've had enough.
I think you're being pretty harsh. These were little kids crying because they got hurt. It has nothing to do with them being clingy or not crying it out.
Charlotte Ella 07.16.10
Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
Yeah all of this. DD is 15 months. She falls a lot. Usually she just hops back up and toddles away. When she is tired she is extremely sensitive and a normal fall turns into much more. I am sure with the amount of people and other kids this was magnified as well. I can imagine kids who are normally going to bed between 7-9 are especially sensitive at later hours in the evening.
How do you define roughhousing? DD loves when we pretend to drop her or I chase her around and grab her and tickle her. I don't think a little roughhousing is harmful but it can quickly escalate and kids may be done while the adult is still playing around. If the kids kept crying and getting hurt why did the rough housing continue?
Also, remember that children lack the skills to express how they feel in words. Their vocabularies are much smaller than our adult ones and they don't really know how to say "I'm tired, I've had too much sugar I feel extra sensitive." Instead they cry. That's okay and it's best you get used to it now. Making children feel ashamed for their inability to express their emotions is totally inappropriate.
Also, I can't imagine asking if the door is okay before checking on the well being of my kid. That is just baffling.
Hmm... I guess I define rough-housing like chasing around, fake wrestling etc. My husband didn't participate too much in that sense. It was more like 4 kids trying to climb all over him and him running around with them. He does wrestle around with the kids on my side of the family.. but they have older siblings and that's how their parents play with them.
Like I said. It was mostly the kids tripping and falling on carpet while running around, which was outside of his control, that caused them to start crying. After the 15 minute meltdown was over they woudl go back to DH and start playing with him again... Then a few got really mad when he said he wouldn't play that game anymore. so I don't believe it was that they were done with the game but couldn't express it.
This was around 6 or 7 pm at night.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that type of roughhousing as long as it's controlled and the kids actually want it.
Even though it wasn't THAT late, the environment is different, sugar was surely involved, they were running around and climbing and really, kids just cry. I don't coddle DD every time she falls but I usually ask "Are you okay?" and she'll either hop up and continue on or run to me and sign/say owie. I respond accordingly. Sometimes she cries in her carseat, sometimes she cries when she's frustrated, sometimes she cries when she's tired and sometimes she just cries to cry. It's all totally normal.
Maybe the kids were scared, maybe they were embarrassed, or hyped up on sugar or maybe it actually hurt. I don't know but it just seems pretty normal to me.
I think you're being a bit harsh, and most likely not accurately remembering life at that age. And it's ridiculous to compare different kids reactions, maybe the doorknob bounced and it didn't hurt. Some injuries hurt more than others, maybe he fell and twisted his ankle so even though it didn't look "bad" it really hurt?
And I think PP had a good point that this is an big event with more people, perhaps poor eating, less sleep and lots of stimulation. It leaves kids amped up and they react more strongly than otherwise would. I don't think there's anything abnormal with a 4yr old crying after falling. Or a kid crying because someone else is - perhaps the other child crying scared/upset him?
Also, research shows children who had parents quick to respond to cries as infants are actually less clingy than those who are left to cry. And some kids are more sensitive than others. My nephew cries a lot and is especially sensitive to other kids getting upset. My niece, his sister, not so much.
If responding to cries in a loving manner makes my kid communicate more, even if that includes crying, Im all for it. That doesnt mean that I wouldnt guide him into more effective communication skills as he gets older.
They were at a party, and Im sure all the kids were over-stimulated as well. Even if it was happy stimulating, that turns quickly.
Last night at dinner my tough little dude who never cries threw an absolute fit when he barely bumped his head. He was tired and not feeling well.
I've never let my girls CIO.
I think SOME kids "over cry" at a situation because Mum's swoop the minute LO gets even the slightest hurt and they learn that any bump is worthy of a major emotional outburst.
So I've always tried not to mollycoddle my girls, or over-react to every little hurt and I'm more inclined to say, "you're ok, just a little bump, let's go and..." then I am to say, "Oh my poor darling, look what happened, are you ok, let me snuggle you better."
But if they're upset and need a cuddle, then that's what they get, and really that's what AP is, responding to the needs of your child, not hard and fast rules about always snuggling them.
Having said all of that, there are times when my girls take a tumble in a way that makes me wonder how they haven't been knocked out and they just bounce straight back up. There are other times when the slightest bump ends in a major meltdown. How do I know what kind of pain they're experiencing? Maybe today they're just feeling fragile?
Kids have meltdowns over stuff. It's super easy to judge another kid's meltdown, but really if you expect your kid to always be easy-going and completely relaxed and never cry over some really minor thing then you are in for a long hard road.
FWIW my friend has always had her kids CIO, and is pretty harsh with them, and grumbles at them if they whinge or cry, or if they cry because they want her attention, and they are the whiniest kids I have ever been around.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
I don't think you can blame attachment parenting because you feel some kids cry too much. I think it's kind of unfair to judge them all like that. It just really gave me a bad feeling reading through.
I know plenty of kids raised with spanking who cry over many things. Some kids are sensitive and letting them cry more won't change that.
EDIT I just want to add that PPs said things I was thinking except they said it better.
It wasn't my intention to blame attachment parenting. In truth, I have no clue how many of these parents raise their kids.... and I really don't know that much about AP really anyways. It seems to be much like anything else, there is a main idea, and how parents interpret that is up to them. I've met some AP parents that downright spoil their kids (let them have whatever they want, never say no etc etc.) and some that use it mainly as a guide for loving reactions to their children. Kind of like those relationship books that teach you how to have productive fights with your husband. or something like that. Bad example but same main idea... I hope.
I understand a lot of the points that people have made. I guess it was just interesting because my sister lives far away so I don't get to see her kids very much.. and my SIL's kids are little tanks. Seriously, they pick themselves up from stuff that I would probably cry over.
I was annoyed at the time because I guess what I interpreted the situation at the time was kids being trained/taught (again, bad wording I don't mean it this way) to cry over every thing because mama instantly says "omg, are you hurt? Are you ok?" When said kid probably wouldn't have thought anything of it in the first place otherwise.
It was an interesting thing to watch and definitely not something that i experienced myself growing up. ATM I'm trying to find a healthy balance between adapting things that I know made me a stronger person but not repeating my parent's mistakes.
I guess that's the hard thing about parenting. You make decisions the best that you can... not knowing how it will affect your kids later on in life. Especially since everyone is different. A lot of things that I am ok with in my childhood would probably not have been beneficial to another person.
I really like this response; thank you for sharing! I've always thought based on my experience (babysitting and watching my little cousins growing up) that after a fall or a bump, most kids seems fine UNTIL someone comes running over with the "OMG ARE YOU OK?!?!?!?!" At which point, they begin wailing. I absolutely think that if your kid is upset, comforting them is the way to go, but from what I've observed, parents get more upset than the kids because they have this knowledge of all the things that *could* happen and it scares them more than the initial event scared or hurt the child.