I never fully appreciated the “mama bear” instinct until the first time another kid pummeled my child in a Mommy and Me class. I recoiled in horror, immediately labeling the other child a terror and spending the rest of the class trying to keep a sizable physical space between him and my daughter.
Other parents have shared similar stories, some even blaming the other parent for poor parenting. By the time most of us have our second child, we realize that all kids have their moments, including our own, and ease up on the judgment.
But the sting when someone hurts your child never seems to dim. When my kindergartener tells me of kids excluding her during recess, I literally have to bite the inside of my lip to stop myself from saying something. I know it is normal for kids to exclude each other at this age and by tomorrow at recess it will all be forgotten. But in the here and now, my heart is bleeding for my child and seething at the other five year old who made her feel this pain.
It’s tempting to want to protect our children against the pain of life, some might even argue that it is our job as their parents. Others, like Wendy Mogel in The Blessing of a Skinned Knee advocate that “Pain is good. It will help them develop tolerance for the inevitable unfairness and messiness in life.”
So what is a good parent to do? Try to shield our children from hurt or let them experience it in it’s full glory so they get used to it? What do you think?
4 Comments
nothing hurts more than seeing your child hurt, either physically or, even worse, emotionally. there really is nothing much the parent can do if your child is not included. you might try inviting the child that is being mean to your child for a play date so they can see each other one to one. it may work or may not, but it will make you feel better if you do something.
if there is physical abuse, removing young children from situation is best. if child is school age, perhaps telling teacher or principal of your concern is the path to take.
I think a mixture of protection and exposure is necessary the only thing you can do is your best I was bullied as a child and I find it made me a better person in the long run. My older sister was bullied and the consequences were dire to say the least. No book can tell you how your child will react to a certain situation and no child of yours will act the same as another. I honestly feel I would not be as compassionate and friendly now had I not experienced being bullied and left out I am truly grateful for the experience. My sister never learned to make friends or trust people she has spent her whole life trying to meet others imaginary and impossible expectations yet my mother did the best she could with both of us. In the end you do what you can and when the time comes that your kid is like hey you should have protected me from this and exposed me to that not the other way around all you can do is look at them and say I love you and know you did your best- don’t feel like fixin’ my grammar sorry folks
Just found your blog… very interesting concept! I’m pregnant with my first child, so I don’t have any personal experience with what you’re describing here. (Yet I’m so wordy that I’ll leave a long comment anyway!
Forgive me if I’m talking about things I don’t know… I’m sure I’ll learn my lesson soon enough!)
Though I’m not yet a parent, I can imagine how difficult it must be to see your child hurt in any way. I do think, though, there’s a difference between physical and emotional hurt. It’s not that emotional hurt is any less damaging… indeed, I’m betting it can be even more damaging over the long run. But I can see how, as a parent, there might be a need to intervene immediately when another child physically harms one’s own child (or when one’s child harms another child!), whereas the emotional hurt issue should probably be dealt with differently depending on the circumstances (was this a one-time hurtful comment or is it part of a pattern of emotional hurt or even bullying?).
I also think it’s important to teach children how to deal with being hurt, either physically or emotionally (not that I know exactly how to do this!). You mentioned the spectrum of responses: to “shield” our children or to let them experience the “full glory” of pain. I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess, as with many things in life, there’s a middle ground that’s unique for each parent and child. Ideally, it would be great to let our kids know that we support them but that we won’t always be there for them and that they have to learn how to handle pain on their own.
Obviously, though, the way we teach them this has a lot to do with where they are developmentally. The lessons in independence we teach our infants and toddlers (say, how to begin to move without our aid) are so different from the lessons in independence we teach our children (how to work with others while learning about the world) and our adolescents (how to function in society as an adult). Each of these stages require some amount of pain and some amount of support to allow the child to learn and to flourish. The “some amount” has to change as the child changes. This, ultimately, must be one of the most difficult parts of parenting: we start with the infants who need us for just about everything, but so much of our job is to allow them gradually to stop needing us.
Totally agree. I have felt the same way. very hard to see your child being hurt.