How Children Learn Emotional Buoyancy

One of my earliest memories is of a small, plastic mouse figurine. I remember it as yellowish, but otherwise not cartoonish at all, about the size of an adult thumb, hollow, molded from the sort of thin, brittle plastic that characterized "Made in Japan" trinkets of the day. In other words, it wasn't a valuable item, but my love for it, made it precious. 

I carried it in my pocket most days, fingering it throughout the day, sometimes bringing it out to share my meals or to have a little chat in the squeaky voice with which I'd imbued it. One day I carried it out of the house with me. I walked up the Beale's driveway, then cut through the Saine's backyard to get to my friend Jeff's house, who lived one block over on Winston Street. I showed Jeff my mouse, who I'd named, obviously, "Squeaky," and being a good friend he played along with me, finding the charms in it that only lived in my own mind.

Jeff had this cool set of paint pots that I'd seen advertised on television. They were designed to be "spill-proof," a feature that was meant to appeal to parents, but that we considered a "modern marvel," like waterproof watches and push button telephones. At one point, in a moment of whimsy I threw the yellow spill-proof paint pot into Jeff's lawn. He ran after it, returning to show me, angrily, that it had gotten dirty. "There's dirt in it!" he growled. I had placed Squeaky beside where we had been painting on the patio table. Jeff snatched it up, dropped it to the ground, and stomped on it, crushing it to tiny yellow shards.

Memories from before five-years-old are notoriously foggy, but I still remember that moment of disappointment and violation as if it were yesterday. I can still summon up that image of Squeaky in pieces on the pine needle bestrewn slab of patio concrete. The tears were instant. I ran. I ran across Jeff's lawn, through the Saine's backyard. I ran up the Beale's driveway, across the street and through my own front door, bawling all the way. I honestly don't remember whether or not I told my mother what had happened. I must have, but the rest of my memory of that day involved feeling that sense of loss and disappointment,  living with it. I don't remember being angry at Jeff at all. Instead I thought about my own culpability. I'd let myself down and Squeaky had paid the price. 

I have no idea how long it took me to "get over it," although the fact that I can write about it today, more than a half century later, tells me that it will always be with me. That feeling was sharp and painful. It overwhelmed me at first, but slowly, over the course of the rest of the day and into the next, it became more and more bearable until, by the end of that second day, I was once more back on Jeff's patio sharing his spill-proof paint pots.

My feelings are something with which everyone can identify, but my experience of processing it, of contextualizing and learning from it, is something that I fear many children today miss out on. Adults today are far more ever-present than they were when I was young. For many, an emotional moment like this would have been hijacked by a concerned adult, naturally upset that their child is upset. They strive to distract them, to help them, to hurry the process along. These kinds of things too often result in protective-defensive conversations between respective adults with the prospect of punishment or at least a good scolding up for consideration. All of this robs children of essential learning about themselves and their emotions: that I will and can get beyond it. The feeling must be felt, of course, but it will diminish, and I will come out on the other side, knowing more about myself and how to deal with disappointment.