Sadness - in Childhood

In Childhood

'Being sad is a common experience in childhood. If faced openly, sadness can help families become stronger and more able to handle painful feelings'. On the other hand, some families may have the (conscious or unconscious) rule: 'No sadness allowed...we were not allowed to be sad...a matter of family pride'. The problem may then be that 'that screened-off emotion isn't available to us when we need it....the loss of sadness makes us a bit manic'.

Sadness is part of the normal process of the child separating from an early symbiosis with the mother and becoming more independent. Every time a child separates just a tiny bit more, he'll have to cope with a small loss. He'll have to get sad for a little bit'; and if the mother cannot bear this, 'if she dashes right in to relieve the child's distress every single time he shows any...the child is not getting a chance to learn how to cope with sadness'. This is why 'trying to jostle or joke out of a sad mood is devaluing to her' or him: 'we need to respect a child's right to experience a loss fully and deeply'.

At the same time, it seems clear that 'Sadness, however, seems to require a great deal of strength to bear', and a child in self-protection may develop 'hyperactivity or restlessness...as an early defensive activity against awareness of the painful affect of sadness'. This is why D. W. Winnicott suggests that 'when your infant shows that he can cry from sadness you can infer that he has travelled a long way in the development of his feelings....some people think that sad crying is one of the main roots of the more valuable kind of music'.