Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant

*I need to be very clear from the outset that I would NEVER suggest leaving a child to cry. When we cry we need comfort, support and reassurance and so in this blog I am talking about the importance of not stopping our children crying, but rather understanding their need to cry (it’s natural and normal) and how we can help our children with this.  

Crying is typically seen as something which is negative; something that we do when we are sad, upset, angry, frustrated etc. However, there are times when we cry for other reasons and often a ‘good cry’ can actually make us feel better..!  

Can a ‘good cry’ really make us feel better?

Have you heard the saying “have a good cry and it will make you feel better?” well this is truer that you might realise.  When we cry, we release oxytocin and endorphins which make us feel better and help to ease physical or emotional pain.  

Some research around the reasons that we cry says that crying helps to connect us with others - it is an ‘attachment behaviour’. Think about it, if you see someone crying, your natural instinct is to go to them and provide them with comfort and support to help them through what they are feeling /experiencing. However, if they weren’t crying you wouldn’t see as much, or if any, body language to show you how they were feeling and that connection could be missed. 

Other research suggests that crying reduces some of the naturally produced chemicals in our bodies which are produced as a result of stress, again suggesting that having a good cry really can make us feel better, however more research is needed in this area to be more certain of this.

Why it’s good to let our children have the opportunity to cry…

We can often be very quick to jump and try to stop our children from crying.  This comes from a place of wanting to protect them - seeing someone cry (especially someone we love) can be distressing, we don’t like or enjoy it.  However, when it comes to our children we do need to be careful that we don’t stop them from showing their emotions and feelings, especially when we know that crying can actually help them manage this. 

We have all had moments where we have been overwhelmed by a need to cry.  This can be for a variety of reasons such as being in pain, feeling overwhelmed / frustrated / angry / sad, but we can cry happy tears too! Our children are no different - they can have an overwhelming sense of emotion (feeling it throughout their body) and don’t always understand what or why they are feeling like they do.  

Embracing that crying can be natural part of learning about emotions is important when supporting children in their social and emotional development.  They need to feel safe and secure in knowing that they can express their emotions and that this will be helped/supported by the adults around them. 

Do you cry in front of your children?

This can be a question which many parents and carers struggle with.  We don’t always want our children to see how we are dealing with our emotions and we absolutely need to be aware of how to do this (appropriate to their age and stage of development).  However, we all want to bring up our children to be empathetic and caring individuals and an important part of this is learning about emotions, which includes the fact that it is ok to cry.  If children see and understand why people cry, this opens up communication and helps them to know that it is ok for them to cry if they need to.  

When you can see that another child is upset, role modelling and helping your child to understand how to support and care for them is a key life skill – having empathy for someone is something which needs practice.  Children will watch and learn from how adults around them support each other and as their role model will look to see how you respond.

What can we do (or not do) when our little ones cry?

• Don’t jump in straight away to try and stop them crying.  Starting with an acknowledgment of the emotions they are feeling at the time is important. This can be something like “Oh dear, did you hurt yourself? Are you ok?”.  You can even say this if you know that they are ok - by acknowledging that they might not be means that you are making a valuable connection with them.  

• If your little one falls over, be careful to not step in with “Up you jump, you are ok, that didn’t hurt” as it might not have hurt physically, but they might be embarrassed or shocked so are crying because of this.  Instead, try saying “Oh no, are you ok? Do you need a cuddle/where does it hurt?” then take their lead, they might just need a quick check in or a cuddle, and then move on themselves.  It is important to connect emotionally initially before distracting or redirecting.

• Avoid statements such as “You don’t need to cry”, “You’re fine, you’re crying over nothing”, “There is nothing to cry about”.  While we might find that there are times when your little one is crying and you feel it is for no reason, there is something which is triggering them and it is not always the obvious! Be the detective - they might have come out of nursery and started crying because you haven’t brought the right snack, but always ask yourself, is this really over the wrong snack or is there something else that has happened and that’s really why they are crying.  It might that they had a falling out with a friend or they might have missed you and the reunion has triggered an overwhelming emotion! The reason for a child crying is not always the reason they say it is!

• Avoid gender stereotypes such as “Boys don’t cry”, “Man up” etc.  Boys (and men) need to be able to show their emotions to help with their own mental health and wellbeing.  Statements such as ‘Don’t be a girl” or “don’t cry like a girl” etc are detrimental and disrespectful and can have long lasting effects on the way that children view women and girls as they grow up.  Our responses always need to be considerate (regardless of gender) in order that our children to feel able to cry and show the emotions that they are experiencing. 

• Talk about emotions and how it might feel in our body when we experience them.  If your child can identify their emotions it will help them to understand why.  Having books which talk about emotions can be a great way to open up the conversations and also give your child a greater understanding of what different emotions feel like.

• Even with babies you can start from very young by saying things such as “oh you are crying, I think you might be feeling a bit tired let’s try to have a nap”, or “I hear you are crying, is it time for you milk? Are you hungry?” Then following up, “that’s better now you have had your nap, you were crying because you were tired.” This will help your baby to grow and develop with the understanding that their cry has been communication which has been responded to sensitively and emotionally.

Crying is a natural and normal way for us to express our feelings and emotions.  How we respond and react to someone, particularly to our children, can impact on how they learn to cope with emotions but also how they respond when they see someone crying.    

Some examples of books about feelings that we recommend are here

While you are here we have lots more blogs on various topics which you can find here, as well as our downloadable webinars on topics such as behaviour and emotions, sleep and toilet training.

Don’t forget that we offer parent consultations should you need support with anything from sleep to behaviour and so much more! Details of the packages we offer can be found here.

We also have a Podcast ‘From Newborn to Teen and Everything in Between’ which has an episode all about this topic, you can listen here.

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