Should You Embrace A Crying Toddler?
When toddlers cry, parents naturally want to come to their rescue. But why are we told to wait and let them “cry it out?”
When toddlers cry, parents naturally want to come to their rescue.
Childhood psychologists have recommended we allow the child to cry for a certain amount of time before intervening. If we don’t allow crying, it can train them to cry to get what they want. But is the whole “crying it out” practice done for all the right reasons?
Are parents denying their distressed children the care they deserve?
Social Animals
Most social animals in nature embrace their newborns longer than humans by comparison. They also answer the call of their young ones.
For example, If a cat hears its kitten crying, it will instinctively come to its rescue. Dogs, birds, bears, deer, monkeys, chimpanzees, elephants, and many more animals naturally try to calm their crying young.
Furthermore, when an elephant is born, the herd blows its trumpets in anticipation just before the birth. Several elders of the elephant tribe will surround the mother during labor. Once the baby is born, the members reach out with their trunks and touch the infant elephant.
Elephant affection is partially a way of showing the newborn it is welcome in this world and is safe. Without that comfort, the baby elephant would grow cold to the next generation of newborns. In addition, elephants would eventually all go extinct as their social behavior helps protect them from predators.
“It is known that the mother-infant bond is regulated by emotions in primates — for example, mother separation from live infants causes anxiety in the mother.” Some animals have bonds so strong with their young that they will carry their corpse for days, weeks, or sometimes months after their child dies. [Livescience.com]
So if social animals come to the rescue of their young, and have emotional bonds even after death, then why do humans stand and watch an infant or toddler cry?
Archaic Humans
In a recent PBS NOVA documentary, researchers examined 23,000-year-old footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico. These prints show evidence of human activity in the American continent from nearly twice as long ago as previously thought.
One set of peculiar footprints shows an adult walking for some distance, then, as if out of nowhere, a second set of prints appear. The second set is smaller and child-size. But why do the impressions appear together in this open area? Did an alien craft drop off the second person? No.
Rather, evidence suggests that the second set of imprints belonged to a toddler that the mother was carrying. At some point during their long journey through this open land, she had to tend to her child. So the mother stopped and placed her child on the ground for a moment. From there, only the mother’s footmarks continued as she apparently picked her back up for their journey. [PBS-12:15]
The imprints of New Mexico reveal that archaic humans used to carry their children for some time into their toddler years.
Dr. Gabor Mate discusses how we raise our kids and the effects of ignoring children in need.
Modern Cultures
It’s only in modern times that humans no longer carry their children everywhere they go. This naturally causes separation anxiety in children as they part ways with their birth mother. As working parents strive not only for family but careers, mothers have less time to hold their children. This means that others will need to help watch the child as the parents pursue their endeavors.
Leaving a “clingy” child with a stranger, caretaker, or family member, isn’t possible in today’s society. Caretakers often watch more than one child to make ends meet for themselves. The business of childcare does not seem to include long periods of affection.
Essentially, because working parents know they will leave their children with others for the day, they must train the child to be independent early on. The way to train a child independence seems to be to ignore their cries for help to a certain point. Once a child establishes that they can’t scream to get their way, they can confidently be left in the care of others.
But is this practice healthy? Neglect training might feel necessary to ensure the caretaker does not get overwhelmed by a “needy” child. But are we sending the child the right message when we ignore their cries for help?
We often forget that humans are in the great-ape Hominidae family. But when we look to nature and see social animals nurturing their children better than we do ourselves, where does that leave us? Compared to colonial animals, we seem to be beneath them.
We don’t like to be called animals, but do we deserve to be called humans when we don’t display acts of humanity to our own humankind?