Sadness

The Gist:

Seeing our child’s sadness can be painful for us parents.

We don’t have to fix it every time.

Sometimes all they need is solidarity and silence.

Watching a child melt into tears of sadness can be heartbreaking.

They’ve lost a special toy.

They miss their mommy or daddy.

My own kids’ sobs were often enough to send my heart racing and my gut wrenching as I tried to figure out how to make the feelings go away -- theirs and mine. Like other “negative emotions”, sadness can be hard for many of us to feel and harder still to watch someone else feel.

There’s something broken about it.

Vulnerable.

Fragile.

It reminds us that sometimes life kicks us around, and that can be super uncomfortable.

But the reality is that sometimes your child will feel sad. You might not exactly understand why. You might think that the thing they’re upset about isn’t worth being upset about.

And so you’ll be tempted to make it better. To fix it right away. To chase away the sad feelings.

And yet, what our child probably need from us in a moment of sadness is solidarity, support and maybe even silence.

They might just need us to let it be.

No amount of explaining of why they shouldn’t be sad or won’t be sad soon will make sense to them in the moment.

They might just need us to say: “wow, you are so sad” and then just sit with it.

Is this hard for you? Is sitting with the feeling of discomfort difficult in the moment?

I’d love to hear.

All my best -

Gabriele

PS. Check out this article on the difference between sadness and depression. If your child is experiencing sad feelings that last a long time and that don’t relate to a specific event or incident, you’ll want to look into that further and get some support for yourself and for them.