Children need to learn how to work through sad times

All children experience sadness at some points in their lives. Most often, the sadness follows the death of an important person or beloved pet or the loss of a prized possession. Sometimes it is the result of criticism or a perceived inadequacy.

A broken toy leads to tears and the inescapable thought: "I did it! Why am I so dumb?" The loss of a special blanket or stuffed animal is like losing a part of one's self. The loss of a loved one is, too, and may also come with self-reproach and guilt: "What did I do wrong?"

Criticisms and slights or teasing can be devastating for young children. Their self-esteem is not yet firmly established and is therefore vulnerable to everyday events.

While difficult for parents to deal with, sadness in a child is an inevitable and necessary emotion.

If you watch a child when she is sad, you may notice that her body almost seems to shut down. Other demands and emotions are either pushed out or assigned secondary importance to give the child a chance to slow down, to withdraw and reorganize. The guilt and self- absorption that often accompany sadness need to be sorted through and put aside. During periods of sadness, children are learning to cope with disappointments or grief. They are mustering defenses and developing techniques for handling vulnerability in the future.

Children of different temperaments are likely to show their sadness in different ways. The most common expressions are irritability, tantrums, angry outbursts and aggressive behavior. These are aimed at the outer world.

Some children turn their sadness inward: They may not eat, and their sleep may be disrupted. They may seem pale or despondent.

If a parent reacts with frustration or by becoming overprotective, this can prolong the period of sadness. Sometimes this changes the sadness from a self-contained feeling into misbehavior designed to test these changed responses from parents.

Seeing a sad child is painful for parents. They naturally want to protect their children from sadness, but often they cannot. Many times a parent's own sadness arises from the loss of a child's innocence or, in these times, the impossibility of protecting a child from a less-than-perfect world.

Children may be better served when a parent can take a child's sadness seriously, before trying to make it "go away."

Here are some other ways parents can help a sad child:

-- Examine your own natural tendency as a parent to suffer when your child is in pain. Do you see her pain as your own failure? Do you feel that you must protect her from these feelings? Try to understand your reactions; she needs to know that you can stand to hear how badly she's been feeling.

-- Don't rush in and overpower your child. Leave her time and space to try to handle her sadness on her own. If you rush in, you may not allow time for her to feel that she is being heard and accepted. She is learning to cope. She will have to deal with disappointment and sadness eventually, and it is not too soon to begin.

-- Encourage your child to say what she's feeling out loud. The relief she'll feel will reinforce future communication.

-- Listen. Don't try to read her mind. You may want to tell her that you know just how she feels, but no one ever really knows this. Listening and wanting to understand are enough.

-- Talk about a child's sadness without trying to fix it. You rarely can, and you risk giving her the feeling that you can't face her hopelessness. A child may not begin to revive until she knows you see just how serious her feelings are.

-- Avoid the extremes of either hovering over the child or of making light of her sadness. Both are likely to devalue her feelings and her efforts to handle them.

-- Share your own sadness and let her know you can handle it. Adversity can be an opportunity to model ways of coping for your child. -- Understand the difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is an emotion; depression is an illness. Although feelings of sadness come and go, depression settles in and makes it hard to see what is really going on. Everything seems joyless and without purpose. A depressed child sees herself as "no good," grown-ups as "no help," and the world as "no fun." This distortion of a child's perceptions may interfere with concentration, friendships, even eating and sleeping.

A child who is depressed deserves prompt evaluation and treatment by a child psychiatrist or psychologist. Children have so much important growing and learning to do that they cannot afford to be drained and derailed by this readily treatable condition.

Questions or comments should be addressed to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow, care of The New York Times Syndication Sales Corp., 122 E. 42nd St., New York, N.Y. 10168. Questions may also be sent by e-mail to: nytsyn- families@nytimes.com. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column. Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow regret that unpublished letters cannot be answered individually. Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child's health or well-being, consult your child's health-care provider.

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