The Return of the Volleyball Bawler

By: Michael Pearl

As I sat on the sidelines of the volleyball court, I observed a good example of child training.

A young mother of three children was playing ball when she saw her eighteen-month-old daughter being steered toward the court by a small child about five years old. They were coming from across the grounds where the children had been playing. The little one was not crying, but all her body language indicated she had been in distress. When she got within hollering range the five-year-old began to explain that the little one had fallen on the ground. When the eighteen-month-old became aware that her mother was now focused on her, she began to cry in earnest. At this point I started taking mental notes. Would the mother train her child to be independent and tough, or would she train her to be a crybaby and a whiner?

As the mother stopped playing and showed some concern, the child increased the volume of her crying. When the mother hollered to her that it was alright, that she should return to her playing, the cry then became desperate and defiant. The demand in the little voice was quite evident. It was not an “I’m hurt and in pain.” It was a “You better pay attention to me, or I’ll make you wish you had.”

Watching this all-too-familiar proceeding, they had my full attention. Would the little girl control her mother? Would guilt move the mother to inappropriate action? The child was no longer hurting. She didn’t need medical attention. She did not cry until she saw her mother looking at her. Her crying increased as a means of enforcing her desire for attention. People were now looking on. How are mothers supposed to act in a situation like this? “What do they expect me to do?” The question a mother should be asking is, “What is best for my child?”

This mother has developed some wisdom from her previous children, so, as she left the court, she pulled a switch from a tree. The little girl, seeing her mother’s response, suddenly diminished her crying. By the time the mother got to the child she had stopped crying altogether. Mother made one token swat at the child and then spoke a word of exhortation, which included, “Stop crying and go back to playing.” The swat hardly made contact and did not invoke further crying. Quite the contrary, the little girl immediately dried it up and turned to play.

Now you may be impressed with this level of control. Many of you would be glad to have as much control as this mother. But I want you to know that this is only half training. While this mother was training her daughter to stop crying, she was also training her to commence crying and wait for a rebuke—only then would she stop crying. If you could end every whining/crying spell with a quick rebuke and a token swat, you would feel successful. But what if you trained her so that when she fell down or when there was a potential for being distraught, the child just got up, dusted herself off, and continued to play? Wouldn’t that be much better?