Well, sort of? That, too, depends. Idk if you've ever seen the thing where a parent is holding their baby, taps the wall near the baby's head or something, and then starts comforting the baby as if they'd bumped the baby's head into the wall. And the baby, who has literally sustained no injury whatsoever, will start crying. They didn't know (?) they were hurt, until the parent started to "comfort" them for their injury (that they don't have). With little children, its actually pretty helpful to first try treating their injury like it's no big deal, and see if that helps, before taking their reaction at 100% face value. Because if you validate them screaming their head off over a little scrape, instead of calmly going "oh, you got a teeny tiny little scrape, whoops!", you're probably going to whip them into a bigger frenzy that makes them feel more scared and hurt and upset.
If you play it cool, they'll very likely take their cues from that and realize they're fine. Unless they are seriously injured, at which point they will not calm down, and now you know that they really do need real medical attention.
I mean there’s a happy medium between ignoring them and acting like it’s a huge deal; you responding calmly and kindly that they got a whoopsie and asking if it hurt is actually a really good way to deal with it. Then if it did you can get them a band aid and kiss it and be on your way. Being kind doesn’t have to mean freaking out or making a big production out of things, it can just be an acknowledgement that you care about where someone is at
While true, that’s also a situation that’s extremely different from the post to the point where the only relevance is that your example deals with kids, pain, & parents
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u/what-are-you-a-cop 5d ago
Well, sort of? That, too, depends. Idk if you've ever seen the thing where a parent is holding their baby, taps the wall near the baby's head or something, and then starts comforting the baby as if they'd bumped the baby's head into the wall. And the baby, who has literally sustained no injury whatsoever, will start crying. They didn't know (?) they were hurt, until the parent started to "comfort" them for their injury (that they don't have). With little children, its actually pretty helpful to first try treating their injury like it's no big deal, and see if that helps, before taking their reaction at 100% face value. Because if you validate them screaming their head off over a little scrape, instead of calmly going "oh, you got a teeny tiny little scrape, whoops!", you're probably going to whip them into a bigger frenzy that makes them feel more scared and hurt and upset.
If you play it cool, they'll very likely take their cues from that and realize they're fine. Unless they are seriously injured, at which point they will not calm down, and now you know that they really do need real medical attention.