Crying in loving arms.

 Like most deep dives I go on, this one happened in the dead of the night.

But instead of exploring the mysterious world of “scamdemic” folk who believe in “vaccine shedding” (honestly, I can’t even make this up), or googling how many Franklin books there are in the heartwarming series (FYI there’s at least 25), I came across something that felt really profound to me.

The idea of crying in loving arms. 

(Throwback to a baby in the oven, while on the beach!)

This is when your baby or toddler is fed and changed and has all of their basic, physical needs met, but they’re still upset. They aren’t unwell or too hot or too cold. They are just feeling big feelings. The idea is that you just simply hold them. That you don’t need to rock or bounce or feed them on and off for hours. That you just let them feel all of their big, huge, larger than life feelings, and to release them.

And you just hold them through it all.

You talk softly to them too. You tell them it’s okay to feel how they feel, and that you are there with them as they let it all out.

You don’t need to distract them or to zone in on merely stopping them from crying. This is about so much more than putting the plug in their emotions.

It’s kind of the opposite of that. 

You encourage them to feel all of their emotions and you hold space for them while they do it. 

It’s about not being afraid of the crying and not shutting down their crying as the ultimate goal.

I don’t know if this is right or wrong. And I definitely can think of different situations where this may be more appropriate vs times where I’d prefer not to do it.

But especially for our older children, I think this is really profound.

Out in the big, wide world we’re encouraged to not show our emotions and to actively suppress them. We don’t talk about our problems. We sweep everything under the rug. And when our children are sad, we are taught that we must fix their sadness.

So this is kind of the opposite to fixing their “negative” and “should-be-shut-down” emotions. I can certainly see how it would be frowned upon, particularly in public instances, where children being their true selves is very much discouraged. 

All in all, I just found this idea really eye opening and interesting, because I’d never thought about things that way before. And isn’t this what we so desperately want our children to do as they get older? To come to us with their big feeling that are leaking out? To release how they feel, safely, rather than pushing it down and down until there’s no way for it to get out healthily?

Just some food for thought.