When a crying child is a sign of good parenting

Key Takeaways

1. Children have meltdowns over small things because they process accumulated stress, making minor incidents trigger big emotional reactions.
2. What’s the difference between suppressing emotions and reappraising? Suppression hides feelings while reappraisal acknowledges and manages them.
3. Parents say “you’re ok” when children cry because adults feel uncomfortable with crying and want to stop pain, often repeating patterns from childhood.
4. How to respond when your child cries: pause-breathe-empathize instead of dismissing feelings with “you’re ok” or “stop crying.”
5. Benefits of emotional regulation: better physical health, stronger social relationships, and improved academic performance.
6. How empathy helps children develop emotion regulation: validating feelings teaches them emotions are normal and manageable.

 

My daughter was having a meltdown this afternoon when I picked her up from preschool. A friend had ‘taken’ a creation she had made – a plastic bottle and a tube of cardboard, and it had broken. The friend fixed the toy and gave it back to us, but the crying didn’t stop. I leaned on the car, holding her, for a good ten minutes until she said she was ready to go home.

 

As she climbed into her seat she started crying again, and was still crying as I pulled out of the lot. My daughter has a special friend at school (let’s call him Louis). She said: “I just want Louis! I feel like I’m never going to see him again!”

 

Even though I knew she was going to see him at school the next day, I didn’t try to make her feel better. I didn’t say “You’ll be fine,” or “You’ll see him tomorrow!”, I just empathized: “Oh, that sounds really hard! You love to play with him and you really miss him, huh?” 

 

She wailed, “Yeah!” and cried even harder. Had I failed in my bid to comfort her? Should I stop on the way home and get her an ice cream cone? I know that’s not a good idea, but it’s tempting sometimes. 

 

When my child is upset, I start to wonder if I’m really doing what’s right. After all, if I’m doing things the right way, shouldn’t my child be able to regulate her emotions? How can she be so devastated by something so insignificant?

 

A few minutes later, she suddenly told me she saw some holiday lights: the tears were over and she started eating her apple.

 

Now that everyone is calm, I can reflect on the event with a clear mind. While sometimes it can be frustrating when our child seems to overreact, I managed to stay calm. I didn’t try to control her emotions with threats or bribery; I was able to empathize.  

 

But sometimes I do wonder: how did some of the other parents see me when I was holding my daughter in the parking lot?  Did they see a loving mother, or did they see a mother ‘spoiling’ her child by allowing her to ‘indulge in self-pity?’

 

Were they wondering why – since I’m supposed to know how to do this parenting thing – my five-year-old is still having meltdowns over a plastic bottle and a cardboard tube?  And sometimes, self-doubt begins to creep in. 

 

Then I remember: although it feels like I’ve been ‘doing the right thing’ for a long time, I know my child is still very young. I also know that doing ‘the right thing’ as a parent doesn’t make my child immune from sadness. Just because they cry more when we’re physically, mentally, and emotionally present with them doesn’t mean we’ve failed to help them. In fact, it means the opposite.

 

Healthy (and not healthy) ways to manage stress

We might think that the things that stress us out are much bigger and more important than a bottle and a cardboard tube coming apart. But to our children, these kinds of events ARE a big deal.  And it’s in learning to respond to stress about their creations breaking that they learn how to respond to the ‘big’ stressors of adulthood.  

 

So how do we adults handle stress?  Typically, we respond in one of two ways: we either suppress or reappraise our feelings. 

 

When we suppress our feelings – as we teach children to do when we tell them ‘you’re ok’ – we’re stuffing our feelings down.  We’re experiencing a negative emotion and deciding that it’s too difficult or scary for us, so we deny that we’re experiencing it.

 

Sharing intimate feelings is a critical component of adult relationships. When we suppress emotions, we may get to a point where we can no longer tell what we’re feeling. This makes it very difficult to have authentic relationships with others.

 

When we reappraise, we manage stress in a healthy way. To reappraise a situation, we consciously view it in a way that is less stressful. We aren’t ignoring our emotions – in fact, we’re acknowledging them. Then we reinterpret the situation and choose how to respond (rather than feeling like our response is determined by our emotions).

 

We can help our children develop emotion regulation by treating them with empathy.

 

And how do we feel when someone treats us with empathy?  When they show us through their words or actions that they truly understand our experience?  For a short time, it often causes us to feel the emotion even more deeply. We cry harder – because it feels amazing to be so fully understood. The same is the case for children.

 

Why do parents tell children ‘you’re ok’ when they are crying?

It’s common to hear parents telling their children, ‘You’re okay.’ after a fall or disappointment.

 

Children crying can make adults feel uncomfortable.

 

We’re accustomed to responding to our child’s tears by finding out what’s wrong and solving the problem. When our children are babies, crying is their only way to communicate. It’s essential for caregivers to respond. When the baby’s problem is solved—they’re fed, they’re safe, their pain stopped—they stop crying, and we know we’ve done our job. (And on the occasions when we can’t figure it out we worry that we’re failing.)  We’re wired to want to stop our children from crying. 

 

As our children get a bit older, we still want to protect them. It’s painful to see your child in pain. We instinctively want to make the pain stop, and since crying is an indicator of pain it needs to stop too.

 

Unfortunately, many parents grew up in houses where emotions weren’t allowed. Many parents grew up hearing messages like, “shut up,” “stop being silly,” or “big boys don’t cry.” We were trained to see crying as shameful; something to be hidden; as an emotional expression that could earn us “something to really cry about.”

 

Especially if we were socialized female, we may have grown up thinking it was our job to keep everyone else happy. A crying child provides obvious evidence that everyone is not happy.

 

For many parents, the automatic response – as we are being triggered and suppressing our own feelings – is to tell a child, ‘stop crying,’ ‘calm down,’ or ‘you’re ok.’

 

Unfortunately, it turns out that this approach didn’t help us to experience and regulate our emotions – that’s why we feel triggered by our children’s behavior. It won’t help our children either.

 

We might be able to get them to stop crying, but this isn’t real emotion regulation. The child has learned is how to suppress their feelings and put on a happy face.

 

Gentle parenting in practice

When trying to imagine what is the appropriate way to respond to my child, I often try to think about how I would respond to an adult in a similar situation.

 

So imagine you are on a bike ride with a friend. They take a corner too fast and fall. They scream and cry. It looks and sounds a bit different than if a child fell and got hurt, but they are definitely upset. 

 

The first thing most of us would do is go over to them and see if they are OK. We’d ask: “Where are you hurt?” If medical attention was obviously needed, we’d act. Otherwise, we’d give them a minute to figure out how badly they were hurt. We’d try to understand what happened: “It seemed like you turned a bit hard into the corner and the wheel slipped out from under you?”  If our friend doesn’t seem physically injured but is still obviously upset, we might say “That must have been really scary!” and if our friend really had been scared, they might even cry a bit harder when we say it.

 

But I can’t imagine anyone telling an adult friend in this situation: “Oh, you’re OK!  Look, it’s barely even a scrape! There’s nothing to cry about!” 

 

We also wouldn’t leave our friend behind or ignore their pain while they figured it out on their own (as we might think about doing after our child falls for what seems like the fiftieth time today). 

 

We would be present with our friend. We’d offer assistance. If we didn’t know what to do, we’d ask if there was something we could do. We’d express empathy. 

 

Our children are no different. They need our empathy to develop their own emotion regulation skills.

 

How will emotion regulation help our children?

Emotion regulation skills help children in three critical ways. 

 

First, emotional regulation makes children physically and mentally healthier. Chronic stress leads to physical problems that show up decades after the original stressor, like:

• High blood pressure
• Alcohol and illicit substance use
• Mental health challenges like depression
• Hormonal imbalances
• Weakened immune system
• Changes in brain development

 

Second, children who can regulate their emotions have better social relationships with peers.  It’s easier to like peers who can understand what their friends are thinking and deescalate conflicts.

 

Third, the ability to regulate emotions at a young age predicts later academic success – if only because it is associated with the ability to sit still in class and pay attention to the teacher.

 

How can we support our children in learning emotion regulation?

It may seem like children are ‘overreacting’ to slight injuries, and they need to learn to determine the seriousness of an issue rather than making everything a crisis. And a cracker breaking is not a crisis.  Yes, they do need to learn this skill! Children react strongly to issues that aren’t particularly serious in an adult’s mind—this is normal and expected. 

 

Try to put yourself in your child’s shoes for a few minutes.  You’re small and young and people older and bigger than you spend a lot of time telling you where to go, what to do, and how to do it.  Maybe you have a new sibling and suddenly you have to wait for everything all the time.  Maybe you’re in a new childcare setting, or with a new teacher, or you’re having trouble with a friend in your class, and things seem really hard.  Perhaps a sibling is poking at you all morning, and Mom said ‘no’ when you asked for more candy, AND THEN THE CRACKER BROKE!  

 

When our child cries over a broken cracker, it isn’t really about a broken cracker – it’s probably about all the other things they’ve struggled with that day.

 

Emotion regulation develops with age. Parents can support this process, over time. 

 

There are three primary ways children learn about emotional regulation:

• Direct teaching – when we tell them, ‘you’re ok!’ (or, conversely: ‘Wow, it looked like you were scared when you went down the slide so fast.  Would you like to come and sit with me for a minute?’)
• Parental modeling –how do you react to upsetting situations?  Do you swear at bad drivers – or wonder aloud if they’re from out of town?  Are you quick to anger – and slow to apologize?
• The emotional climate of the family – how do family members get along with the child and how do they get along with each other?

 

We can use each of these factors to help our children learn how to regulate their emotions with our support rather than our judgment. When we validate our children’s feelings, they learn: my feelings make sense. I’m OK. I’m lovable. That’s a message many of us desperately needed to receive when we were young. Because nobody told us our experience is valid, we struggle with our own emotion regulation today.

 

How mindful parenting helps children develop emotional regulation

The way to help children learn emotion regulation is to practice mindfulness in our parenting. When we are mindful, we can stop our automatic response and observe without automatically reacting or judging. When we respond to a meltdown with acceptance and compassion, we are working toward the long-term goals of supporting our child’s healthy development – and having a strong relationship with them. 

 

When our children stop crying on command, they’re learning to stifle, or suppress, their emotions. They’re learning that pleasing others is more important than honoring their own feelings. They’re learning to ignore their feelings, when what we want our child to learn is how to recognize and manage their feelings. Telling them they are OK – when they clearly are not OK at all – sends the opposite message.

 

That leaves the question, what should we do when our children are crying?

 

Four steps to take when your child starts crying

Next time your child is upset, try to avoid saying, “You’re OK.” Instead, try these steps: 

 

First, pause and watch (it might not feel like you’re doing anything, but this is really important!). The pause will give you time to check your own emotions and allow time for your child to react on their own terms – they may get right back up and return to play.

 

Second, set an intention. While you pause, take a breath to center yourself. Check in with your own feelings. Remind yourself not to say, ‘You’re OK.’

 

Third, take action. Go over to your child. Assess what your child needs. Sit with your child and demonstrate empathy. While you sit with your child, you can try to breathe deeply and audibly. This will help you stay calm, and your child is likely to notice your breathing (consciously or unconsciously) and imitate it without prompting. 

 

Instead of, “You’re OK,” try saying something that shows respect for the pain your child is feeling. You can (slowly and calmly; without making it seem like an interrogation) say whichever of the following feels most natural: “That’s a big scrape. Does it hurt?  Would you like a hug? Should we go sit on the bench for a while? Is there something I can do to help you feel better?” 

 

When your child seems ready, describe what you saw happened, “It looked like you tripped on that crack in the sidewalk.” 

 

Fourth, move on. After the crying subsides, decide what to do next. Your child may have an idea, but if not, offer some options. Ask if they are ready to play again or if they want to take a break. 

 

Gentle parenting is a long game. It doesn’t mean our children won’t have meltdowns – at home, at school, at the park, or at the grocery store (ugh – those are so hard, right?). 

 

Sometimes it might seem like our methods aren’t ‘working’ to support our kids in developing skills like emotion regulation.

 

We’re working with the idea that being a good parent means our kids won’t always be ‘well-behaved’ as our own parents would have defined it. 

 

We can try to stop thinking that a crying child means we’re messing up, and that we have to make the crying stop.  

 

We can have confidence that our child’s crying is a sign we’re doing this parenting thing right.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What’s the problem with telling kids to stop crying? 

When we tell children to “stop crying” or say, “You’re OK,” we unintentionally teach them to suppress their emotions rather than process them. Emotional suppression can lead to difficulty recognizing and regulating emotions later in life, making it harder to form healthy relationships and manage stress. Instead of helping children build resilience, this response may make them feel their emotions are wrong or unimportant​.

 

2.  How can parents help kids develop emotional regulation?

Parents can foster emotional regulation by modeling calm responses, validating their child’s feelings, and creating a supportive environment. Acknowledging emotions instead of dismissing them helps children feel understood. Teaching reappraisal also builds emotional resilience. A child who feels heard and supported learns that emotions are normal and manageable, rather than something to be ignored or hidden​.

 

3. What are the steps to respond mindfully to a crying child?

Pause (so you can respond based on your values, rather than reacting), set an intention for the interaction based on your values, offer empathy, and help them decide what to do next. These steps help children feel safe in expressing emotions while gradually building their ability to self-regulate.