28 | SEPTEMBER 26 • 2024 J N H ere is a question I answered in my new book, Questions and Answers with Rabbi Leib Keleman. My 3-year-old daughter wakes up at night several times a week crying hysterically, only wanting Mommy or Daddy. One of us goes into hug her, sometimes stays or gives her a drink and then leaves. The sit- uation is not getting any better. How can we teach the child to self-soothe? The world can be a frightening place, espe- cially for young children who can exercise so little real control over their environment. One of a parent’s responsibilities is to make the world less frightening and help children feel secure. Even if there were some way for me to get my child to lie quietly in bed without my needing to attend to them, that wouldn’t necessarily accom- plish the real goal, which is to help children move from feeling fundamen- tally insecure to feeling fundamentally secure. Often, when we talk about teaching children to self-soothe, what we really want is to get our children to be less bothersome and demanding and leave us alone. Self-soothing is a hard concept to understand. If a child in the night is frightened or in pain, how realistic is it that they will conquer their fear or learn how to manage pain all alone, without our presence, affection and emotional support? Adults have a hard time learning how to manage fears and pain without support from others. Do we really expect this of a 3-year-old? Empathizing With My Young Child Imagine the following scenario: You are injured and in pain, a lot of pain. You have been prepped for surgery, and you are lying on a gurney awaiting your turn to enter the surgical theater. Would you be anxious — perhaps even frightened — at that moment? Wouldn’t it be easier for you to man- age your pain and fear with a loved one standing by you, holding your hand and saying soothing things? Would you feel as calm if you were all alone and trying to self-soothe? If a child has a bad diaper rash or a new tooth coming in, that can be painful. If there are noises in the dark or the child has a nightmare, that can be frightening. Why would we assume the child doesn’t want and legitimate- ly need the same sort of support we would want and need if we were in pain or frightened? If we were lying on the gurney await- ing surgery and a loved one told us that he was going to leave us alone now so we could learn to self-soothe, how would we feel about that? It’s hard to get out of ourselves and into the child’s experience, but these sorts of thoughts can help. I’ll share what my wife did with our babies when they would cry at night. If the child just whimpered and wouldn’t stop, she would pat him and rub his back. If the baby became hysterical, she would take him out of the crib and hold him until the sobbing stopped. Then, she would either rock him, walk around with him or lie down in her bed with him until he fell asleep. She would give him the same sort of comforting presence that she would want if she were terrified. What about self-soothing? If I con- tinue to soothe my children, how will they ever learn to self-soothe? People do learn to self-soothe. How does it work? I’ll use a metaphor. The grooves cut into a vinyl record replay the same song every time you spin that record. Similarly, the emo- tional experiences we have as children, whether we are being tortured or comforted, cut deep grooves into the human psyche, and those songs play back over and over again throughout the adult’s life. If a child was always comforted when he was frightened or in pain, if some- one came to him, held him and did everything she could to try to relieve Empathize with your young child and let them know all will be OK. Training a Child to Self-Soothe continued on page 30 Rabbi Leib Keleman Special to the Jewish News OUR COMMUNITY PARENTING