I’ve blogged regularly on the subject of anxiety (Oy Vay: High Anxiety), the possible
reasons for the exponential increase over the last several years of the
culture’s anxiety and possible ways to approach it holistically. Most of what I write about has been in the context
of the adult population. This post
mostly concerns children and young adults.
Once upon a time, and long long long ago, generations of
parents cultivated in their babies and young children the art of self
soothing. This was a spontaneous and natural
response on parent’s parts, probably learned from generations before them,
involving bed time rituals to settle their kids: warm, relaxing baths,
melodically read bed time stories, oils massaged into their
necks and temples and sung lullabies.
It was (subliminally?) considered an unconditional love time when the central nervous system settles
down for the night, the mom and child’s breathing rhythms match up and synchronize
and a sense of calm, all-is-well-in-the-world takes precedence. Everybody in the home would dial it back a bit and
a sense of safety, oneness and wellbeing was shared.
There is a natural response to the sun setting, darkness
moving in, and the universal signal by our circadian rhythm to quiet and
sleep. There are many variations on
this. In a darkened bedroom, a parent
sitting with a child listening together to the crickets or bullfrogs outside,
something they do in the summer months when the windows are open, the curtain
fluttering languidly against the sill. Sometimes
there is a few spare murmurs between them on the mutuality of the share. Night sounds. Sounds
that becomes associated with rest, repose and comfort. Subliminal images and an ambiance that
trigger in oneself from an early age that all is well. It just as easily could be
the urban sound of cars moving on the street outside, an occasional muffled horn sounding
or the magical non-sound of snow falling, collecting on trees or
pavement. There is a sense of safety in the
nightly being tucked in in a particular way and the comfort of no light, maybe sounds
of family moving in a kitchen, inaudible voices in conversation or other household
members making their own sleep preparations.
I think these night-time rituals must still go on to some
extent in most households across the world; how could they not, they bring delight and peace to all. But it is
a different world we live in now, and the children are anxious. There is a
trend of popping Melatonin for 12 year olds and kids reporting they can’t go to
sleep for hours after lying down. The members of today’s nuclear family often
each have a bedroom of their own, thus the comforting sounds of a sister or
brother in a bunk above snoring lightly aren’t present to a sibling as they
find their way to sleep.
It’s a more complicated world, with more tenacious tensions.
And somehow, parents (for all the reasons mentioned in my other posts dealing
with anxiety) aren’t managing their own tensions well, which obviously
osmotically affects their children. Adults perhaps don’t have a sense of their
own containment or a value for the sublime and ephemeral markers which produce
a perfect repose. It may be akin to the
difference of writing a letter by hand instead of sending an email or singing a song instead of
playing it on a CD player, or reading a story aloud instead of hearing it on an
electronic device. Something of great
value transpires in the direct human expression that will never be matched
otherwise by anything else. Children
energetically require this. And they are
missing it.
So, we have children experiencing adult challenges (like
insomnia) and being treated like adults in how it is remedied. Especially babies and
children need to learn the fine art of self soothing. And probably direct
information is not the best approach (breathing techniques, relaxation
exercises, etc). Accessing their
imaginations in a positive way around the ending of a day and the beginning of
a night, providing markers and repetitive opportunities to help them identify in their
own unique way that which relaxes them would be a tremendous act of charity they
will have their entire lives to draw upon. Parents realizing one’s own held tensions,
hypervigiliance, lack of trust of the unfolding of the day, of a childhood, of
a life is a big start.
For many families, child-rearing has become a very tense, uber-planned, perfection-oriented
feat to perform. When really, it is this
natural exploration of being in relationship with someone who has these huge
growth and evolutionary leaps over a twenty year period. Life moves extremely quickly when raising a
child, we want to grasp a knowing what to do when we’re stymied. Understandably. But this inability to have a spontaneous
response and reliance on contrived and strategized approaches can be
stifling, especially to an open perception, which is a child.
I have a sense this is anxiety producing for kids; this lack
of trust of the unknown which their parents and other adults around them
suffer. And nothing makes a kid more
anxious than (energetically) witnessing a suffering parent.
