Dear Editor,

“Stop the fussing! I don’t want to hear any more complaining.” But as soon as the words left me, I regretted them.

I was speaking to my five-year-old son, who was ‘complaining’ about a little girl in his class for what felt like the hundredth time. I had just picked him up from school and was exhausted, and I just wanted to hear that he had a good day. But as soon as I hugged him he started offloading, and in that moment I did not have the capacity, mentally, to listen.

As he got in the car, I apologised to him profusely for not listening, and in that moment, it connected. This is one of the core problems with Jamaica. Many Jamaicans are raised in homes where we are encouraged to be silent, to not express ourselves fully, to not complain, and to portray a positive disposition at all times.

As a mother, I too am guilty of it. “Speak in a normal tone!” and “Stop the fussing!” are words I frequently say to my son. But, as a clinician, what am I really telling him, and what is he deducing from these interactions with me? As parents, how do we impact our children and their future mental health?

So I asked my son how he felt when I told him to stop the fussing, and his response was life-changing. “I feel more sad than before, Mummy.” I followed up by asking why he stopped fussing when I requested, and he said that if he does not stop then I am going to shout at him, and he does not want that, because he does not like that.

For me, this was monumental — my child changing his behaviour essentially out of fear of my reactions. I wonder how many children in our country stay silent out of fear of how we will react to them. Children who are silenced, who become adolescents who are not heard, graduate to adults unable to express themselves. A culture suffering silently, too afraid to speak.

My son was a reminder that this begins in childhood. “Children should be seen, but not heard” is an old Jamaican saying that persists on our island today. Maybe more mild in reprimands like “Stop the fussing!” but still ever present. As parents and clinicians we need to find out if our children feel seen and heard by us because children who feel unseen turn into adults who refuse to be seen. They refuse help because they do not know what it feels like or how to accept it.

The reality is we need to teach our children to open up, to fuss, to come to us with every problem they have without shutting them down. Instead of telling them how not to behave, we need to model positive behaviour they want to emulate by listening, openly communicating, and being engaging. We first have to demonstrate the qualities we want to see in them. We have to be the change.

“Tell me more about that,” “Did that bother you?” “What can I do to help?” “I’m listening to you.” These are the statements that we need to normalise with our children.

Fussing is essentially healthy, it is how our children navigate their emotions. It is their way of telling us they trust us to share what they are going through. Many mental illnesses begin in childhood. We as parents and clinicians have the opportunity to change this. We can change a culture and how we interact with our children before it becomes too late.

So let’s do it. Let’s break cycles and allow our children to graduate from becoming adolescents and adults who are unable to be open about their mental health. Let us show them that we want to hear everything they have to say from now — even when it seems like they’re fussing — so that when it really matters they will come to us.

Amanda Fraser

Regional clinical psychologist

South East Regional Health Authority

amandagfraser@gmail.com