Are You All Right?

You're at the playground and your child falls off the swing.
You're driving down the street and you hit a bicyclist.
You're walking through the mall and you see somebody lying on the floor.


What do you do?  If you're like most people I know, you ask the person "Are you all right?"


Please don't.  Nobody wants to tell you that no, they're not all right.  They might not be all right, but it's often not until a few hours or even days later that the pain becomes too much, and a visit to the emergency room reveals something wrong.  I have had the experience of falling or otherwise having accidents, and people have immediately asked me if I was all right.  They didn't take me to the hospital and wait for the results of the x-rays.  They didn't check for welts and bruises to develop, or even wait to see if there was any blood.  When they ask you, "Are you all right?" they're not really asking you to give them a report on the extent of your injuries, but they're asking for permission to walk away and forget about you.  If you tell them you're all right, you let them off the hook.  They may later argue that you absolved them of all responsibility when you told them, five seconds after your accident, that there's nothing wrong with you.  If you continue to experience pain and later turn out to have a broken bone or chipped tooth, they will resent you for changing your mind about the accident.  Perhaps they'll even think you're lying and making up a new problem that wasn't there immediately after the accident.


This is all especially true with children.  They may be unwilling to tell you they're not all right, because they feel like they've failed or been a loser or given the "wrong" answer.


The best thing to ask somebody who has had an accident is "Are you hurt?"  Doing so trains the child to take time and think systematically about how everything feels, and it trains you to be more compassionate toward others.  It also gives the child or injured party permission to be honest.