Hurt is something I think everyone can agree on. It comes in all ages and all sizes. Hurt doesn’t discriminate by age, skin color, ethnic group, or by sex. Hurt means pain, plain and simple, and it’s either physical or emotional.
When our children are small, it’s so easy to be a hero just by fixing their hurts. Most boo-boos are physical and only require a little rinsing with water, some of Daddy’s ‘red paint’ (Mercurochrome), and a Bandaid to keep all the blood safe inside so it won't all run out. Add a kiss, and it’s simple to be heroic when they’re small.
Bandaids
I fell down and got a boo-boo
On my elbow and my knee.
All the blood came pouring out
And it really frightened me.
Mommy plugged the hole up
When she put a bandaid there.
Now the blood is safe inside
And it won't go anywhere.
As our children get older, their hurts get bigger. These hurts are based more on feelings than the ‘fall-down-go-boom’ hurt. As parents and grandparents, our job becomes more difficult. Hurt now takes more of our time and requires a lot more listening and patience to find out what the hurt is.
We have to add other elements not needed with ordinary boo-boos. We have to explain things: not everyone we meet will like us; other kids don’t always play fair; the teacher is human, too —she does have a favorite student and it isn't you. We also have to teach the child how to help himself make things better.
It’s harder to explain that kind of hurt. Children want to know "why". Why don’t some children play fair? Why would someone say or do something to hurt them when they didn’t do anything to deserve it?
It becomes even more challenging, when teaching children that two wrongs don’t make a right and it’s wrong to retaliate. As grownups, it’s harder helping these hurts get better, and it’s not easy to be a hero any more.
We spend their entire childhoods telling them to be nice; be truthful; don’t hit; do unto others the way you want them to do unto you; if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all; and my personal favorite, and the one my mother used a lot when we were growing up:
“Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean.”
When you think about it, hurt doesn’t get any easier with age. It doesn’t matter how old we are, it still hurts to have someone say something mean to, or about us behind our backs, especially when it isn’t true. It also hurts not to get that promotion we’ve been working our butt off for. And it really hurts when the person we love, loves someone else.
Even now, as a grownup, I don’t pretend to understand the ‘why‘, and that makes it even harder to try and explain it to a child. Maybe we should tell them the ones who hurt them are so unhappy with their own lives that they need to make those around them just as unhappy, or maybe that they’re trying to boost their own feelings of insecurity by hurting others.
What it comes down to is a desperate cry for attention. Negative attention, even though destructive and self-defeating, is still attention after all. No one, young or old, wants to be ignored. Sometimes, the best thing we can advise our children or grandchildren to do is,
“Say nothing at all. Just walk away ...”