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It was all I could do not to smile at the sweetness of my 12-year-old daughter’s innocence.  She was in tears, and I knew they were as genuine and heartfelt as any I had witnessed.  They were the tears of her childhood giving way to her adolescence, as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. 

It all began before dinner, one night this week.  My daughter came home from religious school and, instead of sitting down at the dinner table, she said to us in panic, “I can’t handle it,” and ran off to her room.  

I sat down to eat because I knew she usually needed space at times like this.  Besides, I figured I needed to be well-fueled before I heard about the “grave injustices” which usually consisted of her complaining about the way her younger brother and cousin behaved in the car on the way home.

This time, though, while my timing was still good (at least I got that right), my interpretation why she was upset was way off. This time, her indignation was aimed at injustice, and it was right on target. 

Sobbing almost uncontrollably (reinvigorated by my arrival, of course), my daughter railed on the injustices she had been exposed to—thoughtfully--during the day.  As it turned out, these were no petty-playground-politics on her mind—it was the pain of the human condition.

She was beginning to see what she had never noticed before.

First off, there was the horrific earthquake in Haiti and the slow response of the world (could it ever be fast enough?).  Then, there was the charged, emotional political studies discussion, which she understood in concept, if not with strong recall of the details.  And then there was more:  terrorism, books for literature ("Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," "My Sister’s Keeper"), the discussion about an historical hi-jacking of an airplane and the separation of the Jewish passengers (who were not freed when the rest of the passengers were freed), and there was the Holocaust survivor on that flight who had to endure yet another horrifying episode of extremism.  

“The world should be happy, Mom.  There should be more nature,” she said, sobbing.  “Instead, there's more pollution. It's just not right.”  

The list went on, awareness after awareness creeping over her face, her eyes  shocked by the truth of the horrors in the world. The eyes of my child were going through a transformation – morphing – from innocence to understanding.  

She cried for an hour about all that was wrong in the world.  And you know what I did?   

I stayed.  

I stayed with her and let her talk, and cry, and emote and feel the pain. I didn’t try to fix it.  I didn’t soothe her, or tell her it is all okay, because she was right.  It’s not okay. I held her only when she wanted it (she would cradle for a moment, and then push back and give more examples). I let her begin to come to terms with a broader view of the world as it is.

My daughter is generally a very positive kid—we’ve always called her our “Sunshine.”  She’s not been outrageously sheltered, and she has taken part in many discussions about sad and/or devastating realities around the world.  But on this day, a new glimpse of understanding clicked in.  I had the privilege to bear witness.  

I watched her grow before my eyes.

Sometimes, as parents, as friends, and spouses, even as a child to our aging parents, the best thing we can do for the people we love is to just stay with them. People need to tell their stories, to share their truths.  And sometimes, they don’t need to hear our perspective, or our version of the story.  

The kindest gift we can give is to listen, to bear witness to their joy and their pain, to let them have it all for themselves.  

Elaine Taylor-Klaus is an Atlanta-based Life Coach and co-founder of Touchstone Coaching.  She is also a regular columnist for ShareWIK.com.

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