Broken-ness and Children

Just came back from that wonderful class that I wrote about in Car Irony. Tonight at one point we talked about how broken-ness leads to opening up the heart and making a person whole. The text we read talked about how it is important to go into that feeling of broken-ness.

I tend to try to facilitate that with people when they are sad. With adults it often helps because by agreeing with their sad feelings or broken-ness I am validating their feelings rather than trying to convince them to be happy right away (although often perhaps they'd prefer that).

But I'm not always sure the right thing to do with kids.

I remember a time when I was taking care of a very young child, too young to speak much. Her mother left her with me without saying goodbye. I knew the child would be in my care for several hours and I was angry with the parent for leaving her in a state in which she so clearly was upset. (This was not your average cry-when-mom-leaves. This sounded to me like a cry of someone who was seriously missing a feeling of security in her life.) So I held her for a long time and kept repeating that yes, mommy was gone but that she would be back and talked about the things we would do that day until she returned.

It was fairly useless. She just kept crying and exhausting herself. Someone else finally came in and gave the kid a piece of candy. She brightened up right away.

What am I to do with that? If she could be comforted so quickly by sweets... was my approach wrong? Was I wrong to be angry at the parent? I wanted to be honest with the child and not, as you might say, sugar-coat her pain. But are their times when we need to be comforted by things that petty?

I remember once when a friend in college had a breakup and all of her girlfriends showed up with an ice cream tub and lots of spoons. I guess sometimes Ben & Jerry's is the best you can do for yourself. But even at those times, when people indulge in food because times are hard, the food is an EXPRESSION of the pain. It's not just a distraction of the experience, but a kind of sad celebration. Alcohol is often used for that too.