“‘Promote coping and competence’ seems to mean training children to expect little and demand less. Competence is not promoted by coercion. And coping is about a problem being stuck instead of being in the process of being solved.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
In The Reflective Parent, Regina Pally rightly points out that children say and do things for reasons inside their own mind, and that our conjectures about what is going on in their minds can be mistaken. So it is well worth “[s]tep[ping] into the mental shoes of your child and see the world through their eyes, not just your own eyes” instead of just assuming that you already know what is going on.1 Reflecting can help parents gain empathy for their children and make fewer snap judgements. I found some of the vignettes charming. So in the reflective spirit of the book, let’s look at what happened on Jeremiah’s birthday trip2, and highlight how that situation might go differently in a family taking children seriously.
Imagine being Jeremiah. It is your special day—your fifth birthday—and you are soooo thrilled, because today is the day you have been looking forward to, it feels like forever! Today, you are going to see your absolute favourite animal, the gorillas, at the zoo. You are bursting with joy and excitement and anticipation! It is like a dream come true!
You and your family arrive at the zoo and start going from one habitat to another. Lions, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, meerkats… (How many more non-gorilla animals does this zoo have?!, you wonder.) All you can think about is seeing the gorillas. The anticipation is almost unbearable! But just as you are finally (finally!!) about to reach the gorillas, Grandma says she feels faint.
So you all sit down on a bench hoping that Grandma will feel better. (A delay in reaching the gorillas!) You hope that this might be merely a temporary setback. But no. Grandma wants to go home. And without further ado your parents declare your promised birthday outing over.
Wait! WHAT?! Noooooooo, you think. No gorillas?! But you promised! And it’s my special day! This cannot be happening! My birthday is ruined!
To you, this turn of events feels like a catastrophe. You burst into tears.
Now, one might expect the adults present—there being three of them, all presumably in possession of driving licences, smartphones and problem-solving faculties—to come up with some sort of solution. One parent might, for instance, drive Grandma home while the rest of the family continue the birthday expedition. But apparently that simple solution never occurs to anyone.
The parents are “very warm, empathic, and understanding” but they are anxious for Grandma, and appear not to notice that they are breaking their word to Jeremiah, and not to reflect on how the problem might be solved without ruining Jeremiah’s special day.
Let’s pause here to put ourselves in Jeremiah’s shoes. Imagine you are Grandma’s friend Hester, and that your friends have promised you a special birthday treat of tickets to the opening night of Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne. This will be your first ever trip to Glyndebourne, to see your favourite opera, and you and your friends have the best seats, right in the centre of the front row of the stalls. You are absolutely thrilled. The special day arrives, the car is packed with Champagne and every delicious delicacy known to man, you have your spectacular ball gowns and black tie eveningwear on, and off you go. Arriving at Glyndebourne, you marvel at the beautiful grounds, and the beautifully attired operagoers, and the picnic tables with the white tablecloths, while you sip a small glass of vintage Krug until it is time to take your seats. But just as the 5-minute bell has sounded and you are making your way into the opera house, Grandma feels faint. Your friends pat you sympathetically as they bundle you out, back to the car, saying they understand your disappointment, and they helpfully suggest you do some breathwork to get yourself under control on the way home.
It is completely implausible, isn’t it? Taking Hester straight home without so much as discussing alternatives? Expecting Hester to master the art of suppressing her disappointment through strategic breathing? That would never happen to an adult.
But Jeremiah is five, and apparently five-year-olds don’t merit the courtesy we’d extend to adults. His wishes, it seems, don’t count.
Imagine being married to someone who makes decisions affecting you without consulting you (let alone reaching agreement with you about what should happen). Imagine that that power your spouse has over you is state-sanctioned and legally enforceable. But he is “very warm, empathic, and understanding” when he is overriding your wishes. A great comfort.
Imagine your boss cancelled your holiday at the last minute, murmuring empathetically, “I do understand how very disappointed you are.” Would you be satisfied with that warmth and understanding? Or might you prefer some attempt at making amends?
Our story continues with Jeremiah, quite understandably, still crying in the car on the way home. What does his mother do?
To his mother, Jeremiah’s devastation is what parents call a teachable moment—the perfect opportunity for some coercive education. In effect: “I’m about to make you feel worse about feeling bad.”
“You know, Jeremiah,” she begins (and nothing good ever follows “You know, Jeremiah”), “we all understand how disappointed you are about not seeing the gorillas. But every person has to learn how to get themselves to stop crying even when they are upset, even if it is for a good reason.” (As if such feelings are signalling something shameful that needs to be silenced, instead of a problem to solve.)
Every person must learn to stop crying when upset? Really? Has anyone informed the therapists? The poets? The emotional fluidity coaches? That chap who was crying on the BBC after Rangers lost 6-0 to Club Brugge recently? (Though in his case Belgian beer may have been involved.) Apparently we’ve all been doing feelings wrong. Civilisation depends on everyone learning to bottle them up and keep a stiff upper lip. (Makes you wonder how bad the author thinks most people’s lives are, that she thinks everyone has to learn to suppress their feelings. What a bleak view of the human condition!)
And just to be sure that the lesson is seared into Jeremiah’s disconsolate soul, the mother cites Cousin Gregory as a shining example: “Your cousin Gregory had to learn it. Dad had to learn it. I had to learn it. I think you are old enough to start to learn how to do it.”
Ah yes, the old “everyone else manages perfectly well” gambit. Nothing quite like a bit of comparative shame to cheer up a devastated five-year-old on his birthday.
She means well. But what is Jeremiah to make of this? That his upset must be squelched, that his longing is somehow a failing, and that even on his birthday he must try to be more like Cousin Gregory.
No doubt Cousin Gregory is grimly not crying somewhere, a model of emotional suppression. (One can be sure that Cousin Gregory will never need therapy or psychiatric services.)
“I think you are old enough to start to learn how to do it. I think it might help if you take five deep breaths. What do you think?”
Notice how this approach shifts the focus from resolving the situation to changing the child. To Jeremiah’s parents, Jeremiah’s disappointment is not a problem to solve but an opportunity for an unwanted lesson in emotional regulation.
Imagine the Rangers fan’s wife turning to him and saying, in a soothing voice: “You know, darling, I understand how disappointed you are about Rangers losing. But every man has to learn how to get himself to stop crying even when he is upset. Your brother had to learn it. Your father had to learn it. I think you are old enough to start to learn how to do it. I think it might help if you take five deep breaths. What do you think?”
Would that be held up as a model of tact and empathy in a marriage guidance book? I think not. Yet it is the height of compassionate parenting?
Some do find breathwork helpful, but it is no solution to the anguish of a broken promise on a five-year-old’s special day.
“Promote coping and competence” seems to mean training children to expect little and demand less. Competence is not promoted by coercion. And coping is what people do when a problem has become painfully intractable and stuck instead of being in the process of being creatively solved. What was needed was not a lecture on emotional suppression and coping strategies but a little creativity and optimism that problems can be solved. One day, no one will be advocating promoting coping instead of actually solving problems.
What, then, might Jeremiah be learning from how the three adults navigated this?
That problems are not soluble. Pessimism.
That life is suffering. That emotions require control. That feelings of devastation should be suppressed. That not even those who love you want to hear about your anguish. The best you can do is use some mechanical coping strategies.
That integrity—keeping your word—is unimportant. No need to apologise and make amends if you break your word. Trust no one.
That adults’ wishes matter, children’s do not. That those with the most strength and power get to impose their will, and the weak must swallow their disappointment. One day, when you are grown up, you will decide.
That “warmth, empathy and understanding” is hollow. That love comes laced with coercion. Keep your guard up. Coercively control, or be controlled. There’s no such thing as a happy relationship. And it is fine to shame those who love and depend on you. Meanspiritedness.
That life requires endlessly sacrificing your wishes for others. Self-sacrifice. Resentment. Painful people-pleasing. For ever.
That wanting is risky, hoping hazardous, dreams—just for fairytales: lower your sights and squelch your heart’s desire to avoid disappointment. Birthdays are best approached with extremely low expectations. Cynicism. Why bother?
And perhaps most poignantly, that being taken seriously is something that happens to other people—grown-up people—people who aren’t you.
The truly maddening thing is that none of this was necessary. Problems are soluble!
In the scenario given, both parents are on the trip to the zoo, so one very obvious solution would have been for one of the parents to drive Grandma home while the others carry on to the gorillas; the driver could rejoin them later.
If the zoo was a very long way away, or in a situation with only one parent, how about Grandma take a taxi instead? If I were in Grandma’s shoes, I’d be mortified at the thought of cutting short my grandchild’s long-awaited birthday adventure before the highlight—surely there’s no need for that.
I should have thought that Grandma herself would have ordered an Uber if her condition necessitates such a drastic change of plan. And yet, in the given scenario, the adults seemingly make no effort whatsoever to find a solution that will not adversely affect Jeremiah. The child, it seems, must simply bear the brunt of the situation. His wishes, apparently, do not count.
Perhaps it’s worth asking: Does Grandma need water, or a bite to eat? Has this happened before? Might she have forgotten her medication? If so, next time, let’s make sure that she has taken her medication before the trip. Or maybe, in future, let’s not try to combine Grandma time with a child’s much-anticipated zoo visit, especially if Grandma’s health makes longer days tiring.
What if Grandma needed medical attention? Well obviously, one parent could drive her to hospital, the other continuing on to the gorillas with the children. (Though when a nearly-90-year-old relative of mine realised that he needed somewhat urgent medical attention, he rang 999 himself on his own iPhone and wouldn’t hear of anyone accompanying him to hospital.)
If the situation felt truly dire—life-or-death stuff—of course we would all—including Jeremiah, who loves his grandmother!—drop everything to get Grandma to hospital. (And in the context of a family taking children seriously, Jeremiah would know that he will get to see the gorillas one day very soon. And as often as he wishes. No rationing of loved ones’ heart’s desires here.) But that is not what is described here: Grandma merely feels faint and is yearning for her armchair.
Problems are inevitable. But problems can be solved. Birthday disasters can be averted. The promise could have been kept, the gorillas seen, Grandma cared for, everyone happy—and a precious child’s faith in the world preserved. Life can be delightful for children and adults alike if we take everyone’s wishes seriously.
But that would require seeing Jeremiah as a full person whose wishes actually matter—like Grandma’s do, in fact. And we can’t have that, can we? He might develop unrealistic expectations, like thinking people will keep their word or that his birthday wishes count for something.
Better to teach him about deep breathing. After all, with the way these adults handle things, he’s going to need it.
Notes
1. Be aware that she also talks about “balancing” (and whenever you see the word “balancing” in this context, you can be sure that what is being proposed is a heartwarming suggestion on one side of the scale, ‘balanced’ with a knife through the heart on the other) “balancing emotional attunement and sensitivity with setting firm and age-appropriate limits, and by balancing understanding and validation of feelings with establishing boundaries as to how the child can express those feelings.” (Regina Pally, 2017, The Reflective Parent, p. 6)
2. Regina Pally, 2017, The Reflective Parent, Chapter One: 10 Principles of Reflective Parenting, p. 19
See also:
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 2025, ‘Reflections on a botched birthday’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/reflections-on-a-botched-birthday