It's amazing how many times we tell our kids to stop for various reasons—from comforting pain to losing our patience. Regardless of why, one thing is true: we want them to stop crying. We don't want to see them in pain or hear more crying for another hour. Maybe we've had it with their defiance and tantrums.
While it's natural, crying can make other people so uncomfortable that they will try to get the person to stop. Sometimes it's out of concern for the upset individual, but at other times, attempts to stop someone crying are self-serving, aimed at decreasing discomfort for the speaker.
Help them manage their emotions.
"However, if you jump in right away, she'll lose confidence in her ability to solve her own problems," says Dr. Dunlap. Avoid the urge to tell them to stop crying—which will probably just trigger more tears, says Parents advisor Michele Borba, Ed.
Why are boys told they shouldn't cry? Throughout history, emotional tears have been considered a weakness in many cultures, and it is often seen as a more feminine thing to do.
This is a view we hear often, and my research agrees with this panelist's opinion to a point: constant suppression of a child's emotional life is harmful; crying and expressing feelings are important social-emotional skills.
Whether to comfort or to discipline, telling your child to stop crying isn't the way to go. Holding back tears restricts her emotions. She misses out on learning opportunities to manage her feelings. And it's ineffective—rarely does a child stop crying when told to.
While ignoring a child might “work” in some sense (they may stop performing the undesirable behavior), it can come at a very high cost to the child's self-esteem. What to do instead: Connect before you correct. A child often isn't mentally capable of hearing instruction or correction when they're acting out.
Ignoring is usually most effective for behaviors like whining, crying when nothing is physically wrong or hurting, and tantrums. These misbehaviors are often done for attention. If parents, friends, family, or other caregivers consistently ignore these behaviors, they will eventually stop.
If we ignore our children's big feelings, we are teaching them to suppress their emotions. If our children see that their tears and fears are too much for us to handle, they learn to be afraid of their emotions and try to keep them down.
Crying is ok.
It's a very healthy and necessary way for children to express their feelings, and we don't need to make them stop. By telling them to 'stop crying' we send the message that their feelings are not important, not valid, silly, and annoying.
There are many reasons why someone might cry; often, it can be relieving to express sadness, joy, anger, or frustration. If you feel better after a good cry, this may be because crying releases endorphins and can reduce stress levels. There are many benefits to crying instead of holding your tears in.
However, research suggests that it is not only okay to cry in front of your kids, it can actually be beneficial for their emotional development.
According to Psychology Today, when we are constantly telling our children to stop crying we are suppressing their emotions and indirectly telling them that they should not feel. This can be harmful.
With so many believing it, it must be true, right? According to research, no, you can't spoil your baby by picking them up, cuddling, or meeting their needs as soon as they cry. In fact, not only will you not spoil them, research has found many benefits to picking up your child whenever they cry.
In conclusion, letting a baby cry for too long can have negative effects on their physical, emotional, and cognitive development. It can cause increased levels of stress hormones, which can have negative effects on the baby's brain and immune system.
Crying, difficult as it is to hear, is a normal way babies communicate hunger, discomfort, distress, or a need for your attention. Most newborns reach a crying peak at about 6 weeks. Then their crying starts to decrease. By 3 months, they usually only cry for about an hour a day.
It is generally recommended that parents allow their children to cry it out for 19 minutes when they are trying to sleep. This method is based on the philosophy that children will eventually learn to soothe themselves to sleep if they are left to cry for a short period of time.
You may think that making the crying stop will also stop your child (and your heart!) from hurting, but when you tell your toddler, “Stop crying!” or “Don't cry!” they'll immediately think that you don't understand how they're feeling. Their message is therefore likely to become louder and more persistent.
Others, however, argue that picking a baby up reinforces crying, and that parents should leave the child. Now researchers say they have found that leaving infants to cry has no impact on their behavioural development or their attachment to their mother, but may help them develop self-control.
She noted that infant cries have evolved over time to be maximally annoying, “to capture our attention more than other things in the environment.” That makes sense, because babies need adult attention to get their basic needs met, and ultimately to survive.
Today's psychological thought largely concurs, emphasizing the role of crying as a mechanism that allows us to release stress and emotional pain. Crying is an important safety valve, largely because keeping difficult feelings inside — what psychologists call repressive coping — can be bad for our health.
But over time, repressing your tears can lead to cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension — or even cancer. Yikes. So if you need to bawl and are able to take a minute, it's in your best interest to go ahead and cry before going back to your regularly scheduled programming, says Dr. Van Groningen.
They may then use techniques such as active listening, validation, and reframing to help the person process their painful emotions and gain insight into their experience. Therapists also recognize that crying is not always a sign of distress but can also be cathartic and lead to personal growth.