You know what really pisses me off, why does my mum or in laws feel the need to tell my kids to stop crying.
Stop crying that’s not worth crying over!! Really pisses me off. Then I defend the kids and it turns into a huge argument
Who are you to tell my kids how to feel!
Then they tell me to not be so sensitive. Im not even that sensitive
17 Replies
Different generations. My mother still goes on about taking drink bottles out with us. Apparently it wasn't done in their day...
My mother in law was the worst, though. Told me repeatedly I should basically beat toilet training accidents out of my son & kids should be raised in fear of beatings or yelling so they behave perfectly.
I could go on...
I basically tell them 'we know better these days' 'that's not helpful' 'we won't discuss this again'. Then go on with my life.
I tell my daughter to stop crying. She cries to garner sympathy at times. However, more often, her crying is genuine but over smaller things and was becoming so frequent it was starting to impact on her social situations at school.
Learning how to manage emotions is an extremely valuable skill, whether it's crying, anger, anxiety or any other emotion.
Viewing crying as weak is wrong. Shaming someone for being sad or depressed is wrong. But learning better ways to regulate emotions or respond to small stressors is important.
Are your parents/in-laws being cold/judgemental, or trying to help your child differentiate small issues from big ones and be able to regulate their emotions?
I said it to my kids when they were younger if they were crying for no reason, especially if we were at someone's house or out in public. I think it just goes hand in hand with teaching appropriate behaviours like manners, politeness, being considerate, loud voices and where to use them etc. I wouldn't say stop crying if they hurt themselves or genuinely sad. They need to learn how their actions affect other people.
Well ‘don’t be so sensitive’ is the adult version of ‘stop crying’. Basically, your feelings annoy me, stop having them lol
My daughter and son cry at the drop of a hat the moment they hear No, or it's time to get ready for school, or bath, or anything else they don't want to do .... Some kids are just big ass sooks
I think you need to pull right away from them. My mum is like this and no so much with the crying comments but everything else like I’m a kid and not capable. Mind you I have raised my 3 kids on my own without the help of anyone or ever left my kids yet they all throw comments and their opinions. I moved away and I keep everyone at a distance now and feel so much better. No one has a right to say that to your kids. If they want to cry let them. You are the parent here and their comments aren’t needed. If you want to cuddle then when they cry, you do that. Don’t allow them to guilt you or make you kids feel like they aren’t allowed to show their emotions. It pisses me off too. You aren’t alone.
I will start by saying that I do get where you're coming from.
There is a generational element here, a lot of people from our parents generation have no emotional regulation skills because they grew up being punished for having normal human emotions, they grew up with skewed ideas of discipline and they grew up in an era where children were to be seen and not heard. So when they see children expressing emotion, having autonomy, choices and opinions, they can struggle to understand the concept.
I also will not stand for my mother/MIL undermining my parenting approach, so if they started pulling old school crap when I had things handled - I would not be thrilled.
Having said that, I also think some modern kids are over indulged and they end up lacking any kind of resilience as a result. I have a friend for example who's kids are all extremely sooky and dependent because they have learned that anytime they turn on the waterworks, mummy is at their beck and call. Every time I hang out with her, I'd say 80% of the time she is fussing (and I mean really fussing) over her crying kids. I purposely only catch up with her now during school hours because all I want to do is tell her kids to get a grip and stop crying because they are often being so ridiculous.
Your last paragraph contradicts what you said before. Her parenting is a good example of the whole letting kids express their emotions no matter how small or large their problem is. There needs to be a line somewhere. You can't say the old way was completely wrong and then go on to complain about your friends kids, they are literally the result of your second paragraph and only the old school way of telling them in an honest way to stop is going to help in that situation. Teaching kids that it's not ok to cry all the time is not a bad thing, if the parents don't do it the real world will.
Teaching emotional regulation will teach them not to cry at everything, that’s exactly what emotional regulation is. Part of that though, is definitely ignoring and not feeding in to the crying that’s for attention/manipulation/exaggeration etc. I think this is where some crunchy parents have gone that far and the kids are running the show.
Telling them to breathe and stop sometimes is ok. It isn’t the same as just saying stop and be quiet every single time though. If everyone’s only telling them to stop their reaction, no one is teaching them the skills they need to handle it.
Commenter here:
My point kind of got lost in my response (I was half asleep when I wrote this lol).
What I was getting at is that there is a healthy balance to be found between toxic old school ways and over indulent gentle parenting, sometimes past and present generations don't see eye to eye on the matter.
I mean, there are some aspects of old school parenting that we now know are undeniably psychologically damaging that i wouldn't let anyone impose on me. My mother for example, still firmly believes that a crying child is a naughty child who needs to be smacked in order to become a decent member of society. Emotional displays to her are just totally unacceptable.
I actually pointed out to her once that her logic was flawed because we used to get smacked a lot as kids and my brother grew up to narrowly avoid prison time and still to this day has a loose relationship with the law.
Instead of accepting that there is better ways of disciplining by modern standards, she knuckled down and insisted that she simply didn't smack my brother enough 🙄
But I think it also needs to be acknowledged that some modern parenting techniques can be equally as detrimental if practiced to the extreme, just in a different way. My friend's children are proof of that.
OPs parents/inlaws might all be mean and stuck in 1950 like my mother or maybe they're otherwise loving, decent grandparents who are possibly noticing that their grandchildren don't have a lot of resilience. It's just worth considering...
I thought you explained yourself well initially. People were just being difficult
Not difficult, just confused. I would say all that too like stop, have a breath, use your words but that's also telling them to stop crying. So I don't understand how one is good and one is going to turn them into a psychopath with no emotions. I'm just glad that I had my kids before things got too complicated, my youngest is 19 now.
Because you’re choosing your moments, I’m sure you don’t do that every time. Old school way was an aggressive ‘stop it or I’ll give you something to cry about’ and it was a threat. There is no help to handle emotions there, just training how to put on a front and not to show them. That is what causes all the broken adults.
That's not entirely true. I grew up in the 80's and my Mum never threatened me like that and she was old school. You can be old school without the threats or physical punishment. I don't even remember being smacked. None of my friends Mum's were threatening or anything like that, the only Mum I remember fitting that stereotype is my Aunty. So it certainly wasn't all parents that were like that, you can't blame that generation for so called broken adults.
You can definitely blame those parenting practices.
Kids grow out of it. Well mine did lol. They used to cry over spilt milk, now they have developed more complex language to express their emotions. I disagree with the need to tell them to stop crying and my parents/grandparents did not do this. The only time this would be an issue is if they were crying all the time over the slightest thing. Then I would question what was going on e.g. is it a tactic to still try to get something.
These are your kids and if it does not seem excessive simply put 'I will raise my kids, my way'
I have said to my nephew once or twice "Come on mate, stop crying" because the situation called for it.
I've said the same thing to my own kids on occasion, again, because the situation called for it.
For the most part, yes, we should all try to be sensitive and emotionally aware of an upset child's feelings, along with being comforting and supportive.
But I think there are also times where a firmer, no nonsense approach is necessary. I actually don't think we need to validate every single emotion children experience because not everyone they meet in life will accommodate them that way.
Edited to add: While I can see that your mum and inlaws probably are overstepping a bit and they sound like they don't have a great level of tolerance for children - this is coming from two different sets of grandparents.
Maybe your children do cry a bit excessively?