Performative Grief

Nobody teaches children to perform their grief. Nobody has to. They learn quickly that grief elicits sympathy and sympathy elicits comfort or compromise. I recently watched my one-year-old grandson, having just been scolded for touching what he knows he must not touch, bury his head in his hands, then covertly peek out to make sure his mother and grandmother were witnessing the incomprehensible depths of his sorrow. Sometimes kids are at their cutest when they are at their naughtiest.We all know