Why It’s OK for Your Kid to Cry

I was at the store the other day, and a little girl, about four or five years old, fell down and scraped her knee on the way in. The mom looked at her unsympathetically and sternly said, “Quit crying!” The girl whimpered and looked down at her bloody knee and back up at her mom with tears in her eyes. “You’re fine,” her mom responded, and they went on into the store.

Ok, I hate to say this, but I’m guilty. 

I don’t know how many times I have said to my kids, “Quit crying!” 

Whether it’s because of an argument with a sibling, or an injury I didn’t feel warranted a flood of tears, over the years I have not been the most sensitive mom. Pull up those bootstraps and move on, I’ve always said. It’s a lot more disturbing seeing someone else doing it than it is doing it ourselves.

But something has shifted in me as time has gone on. As I’ve said before, going to counseling changed me. I realized I was just parenting the best I knew how, but that wasn’t God’s best for me (or my children).  

The day after my last session, I was doing some journaling just to get out all that I was feeling. I was writing about my day, and this is what I wrote: 

Prayed a lot today. Ran. Listened to worship music. Journaled. Felt sad. Felt content. Felt happy. Felt discouraged. Felt anxious. Felt excited. Felt overwhelmed. Felt tired. Felt energetic. Felt thoughtful. Felt irritated. Felt thankful. Felt proud. Felt humbled. Felt in awe. 

All those things I felt in one day. I don’t think I’m a crazy emotional person, I think we all go through the gamut of emotions on any given day. Probably women more than men, but regardless, I don’t believe we’re robots. And I think most of us don’t even realize we are having these moments, because we whiz right past them, moving on with our day.

I often get irritated with myself when I’m feeling down in the dumps. I tend to feel like I need to “push through” it. I feel like I’m wasting time if I’m bummed out by something. Better to be positive, right? But I’ve realized that God made us with this range of emotions for a reason. I think He truly desires us to experience each emotion, whether it’s sadness, anger, excitement, exhilaration, despair, or something else, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. After all, aren’t we created in His image? Doesn’t that mean He also carries an array of emotion at His core? 

I think He wants to walk through those emotional moments with us because it is in those moments that we truly feel Him. 

Maybe instead of “pushing through,” we need to let these feelings sit and marinate and fill us with the flavor of God. Because if we don’t allow ourselves to truly experience the full depth of God, how are we going to spread that depth to others? 

What a disservice we are doing to our children if we tell them, “don’t be sad, ” or “don’t cry.” Why did God give us tears? Jesus wept. There must be a reason we were given tears. Instead of fighting them, we should allow our kids to feel what they feel and not reproach them for that. Instead, we should be encouraging them to acknowledge what they feel and to ask Jesus to walk with them through that. Because isn’t that what we want for them as adults? Don’t we want them to run to the feet of Jesus when they are faced with a challenge? 

Whether it’s excitement or sadness, what they feel is significant. If we squelch the expression of their emotions, we are creating future adults who struggle to be truly authentic and free. As Frederick Douglass once said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Amen to that.

This morning, I showed my kids THIS video about what Samaritan’s Purse is doing for refugees in Greece. As we watched it together, I cried. I could have hidden that from my kids, but I wanted them to see what moves me. I want them to know that I feel things deeply, and that what they feel is valid and true and important. 

This doesn’t mean we have to be driven by our emotions. It just means we need to allow them to be what they are, instead of trying to tuck them away in hiding.

Friends, if you allow your children to feel deeply, they will understand what Jesus felt when He looked at people who were without guidance and quietly wept. You are giving them one of the very best gifts a parent can give a child: a glimpse into the heart of God.