(no subject)

[boxofdelights]

Child comes home in despair, says zie is failing at everything important, everyone hates zir, zie wants to die.

You say: you see this really hurts.

You say: the suffering zie experiences is not a good-enough reason to attack zir family members.

You say: if there's anything you can do, you will.

Child is in misery. You can't help. You do not understand.

You say: suppose the worst that can happen happens. If child fails at this, child can do that. No matter what, child will survive. Child will be happy again.

Child says you don't know what you're talking about. Child hates being zirself.

You are at a loss. Child has been triply blessed by being born a first world citizen, in the upper class, to parents who care more about zir happiness than what zie can do for them. Child has been doubly-triply blessed with zir gifts of health, intelligence, and the personality that makes teacher after teacher dote on zir particularly out of a class of similarly bright charming UMC children. Child is so lucky to be zirself.


Coincidentally, an lj-friend wrote about her blessed child suffering from a disappointment. I responded:

I'm kind of emotionally retarded, so I don't have any advice, but I can offer sympathy: when you raise kids who aren't afraid to feel what they feel, they feel some really uncomfortable stuff! I find it useful to acknowledge to myself, that I can't fix this, and to the kid, that this really hurts.

I usually say something like, this is the sucky part of being a human being, and not a superhero: sometimes you lose. But the important part is: I get that this really hurts. If I could make it better for you, I would.

My kids are 13 and 17, they're still way more emotionally volatile and expressive than I am, I still find this difficult and uncomfortable. But I haven't frightened them into stifling themselves, so... I think I did as well as I could.

Comments

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. sometimes there really are no easy answers or remedies. some things just suck. at least for the time being.

maybe child just needs to wallow, not solve the problem for a while. i don't really GET that emotionally, because i'm not like that, but i know so many people who don't want solutions when they're acutely unhappy with something, they just kinda want to grieve and rant for a bit.

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

I know this sounds dumb and reductionist, but maybe they're not getting enough sleep?

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

Also a good idea to check if they've eaten and drunk enough today.

It's not really reductionist. Their distress is real; it's just that when your body is running on empty, distress is magnified and hits harder than when you're in good condition. So a tired/hungry/dehydrated child who feels that failing math means THE WORLD IS ENDING will still be upset after they've slept/eaten/drunk but will realize their life is not permanently, completely ruined.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Some children, especially teenagers, are just like that: growing up, hormones, testing and finding out boundaries, exploring and creating their social selves. OTOH, I was like that, and it was the onset of life-long depression. If it's occasional, probably normal.

I respect anyone who parents; I'm too selfish. I love teaching, but I love sending the children home afterward.

[snippy]

What I told mine was that they had a special opportunity to learn how to take care of themselves when they feel like this. After all, they're kids: they're not going to lose a job or ruin a marriage/partnership right now. They can try lots of things to see if any of them help them feel better. Music, dancing, exercise, a walk, some special food, a favorite movie or book, taking a bath, chopping wood, being alone, being with people--try them all out and figure out what works for them.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

What snippy said. Usually, all I do is express empathy and ask if there's anything I can do. Being a teen is tough. They don't have any experience with the long view, and every little decision or failure looks like it will affect the rest of their lives. Sometimes it does! But I tell my kids that life is long, and there are many paths.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

It's really great and worth mentioning that I love that you let your kids be sad when they are sad. When they were little you helped them recognize what the feelings were called, and didn't try to make your feelings their feelings and their feelings your feelings. So there they are, growing up feeling the hard parts when they happen, and there you are coaching and witnessing, and sometimes the witnessing is all you can do ... and it matters.

You know all this already. But I wanted to say it anyway.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Yes.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I love your response to your friend. And I think that "as well as one can" is about it on parenting. Just treating your child's concerns and self as real, until it gets too annoying and you have to excuse yourself.

I love your amazing children, BTW.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

in my not-yet-parental-opinion, that's the hormones of being a teenager. everything is so so so amplified. it's hard on them, it's hard on you.

i think snippy's got a great idea, though. i plan on stealing it.

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Totally identify with all of this. Tristan is often falling into slough of despond, and I must work hard not to take this on as my own problem. Mostly I try to convey to him that all feelings pass - painful ones, and, alas, also pleasurable ones. No matter how you feel and how it makes the world look, wait a while; it will be different soon. It's a trap to get into the content with them because they will find arguments to support their black view of things. I just sympathize and say, it will pass.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

We all work so hard to help our children have lives that are so much better than ours were, and they're so brilliant and creative and funny and so on, and they have access to so much more than we did, and somehow they still have all these frustrations ... well, there is just no end of frustrations in the world! For my children, if they really work themselves into a state then often all that will really do the trick is to sleep it off. It also helps to know that unlike me (at least from my perspective :-)) how long it's been since they've eaten can have very strong effects on their moods.

[bheansidhe.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this is at all applicable to your child. But when I was that age, I was acutely** aware that I'd been blessed with stable home life / more intelligence than 90% of my peers / non-war-torn country with plenty to eat, etc. And that made me feel that my failures were somehow even more horrifying and damning - that I could have so much going for me, and still not succeed.

**This wasn't a fault of my parents; I was just smart enough to look at the world and realize how blessed I was compared with large swaths of everyone else.