Why is everyone trying to heal their inner child?

In an economy where trends are changing more quickly and there is always something new to buy, is this popular narrative of healing the inner child just another way to indulge in retail therapy? And among Gen Z in particular, why is the narrative so popular at all? I spoke to Beatrix Aileen Sison, registered psychologist and play therapist, to help dissect the issue.

The uptick in the popularity of Sonny Angels and similar ventures may be, to the regular eye, a bit out of place. Online threads have netizens expressing bizarre reactions and doubts about the product’s credibility, with some claiming the doll’s trademark half-nakedness is at best odd, and at worst creepy.

Regardless, it’s difficult to deny the longevity of the Sonny; one will find it clipped to bags, held gingerly between fingers, and sticky-tacked onto a phone case. “I’m looking at (the Sonny Angels) online. So you have a collection of this?” asks Sison on the phone. Sheepishly, I laugh. “I have one,” I say, looking at the four on my desk.

To Sison, the former president of the Philippine Association for Child and Play Therapy, the inner child is the part of you that was either nurtured with positive experiences, so is at present a creative and playful child; or it experienced trauma or negativity and is now wounded. We enter young adulthood unknowingly carrying the weight of what afflicted us before. Consequently, we get distracted by the humdrum of life and neglect what our inner child wants us to hear.

Sison still emphasizes the value of paying attention to and validating one’s feelings to help heal your inner child. Indulging in things like Sonny Angels and more carefree activities is simply a kind of play to fuel our wise inner child—especially useful in relieving the very real pressures of our careers, post-grad plans, and growing up in general. “Every age,” she says, “needs this kind of playfulness in us, because this is our way of coping with stress and maintaining work-life balance, that quality of life. I don’t see anything wrong with it, unless you’re overspending on it— an excess of it isn’t good.”

I wonder: if every age needs play, what is the youngest generation doing for play?

Twelve-year-olds brand themselves with one of the many niche aesthetics that TikTok offers: It Girl, Sad Girl, Vanilla Girl, even Coastal Grandma. Gen Alpha kids are hyper-aware of what’s in and what’s out, whether it’s memes, songs or dances. Online, the generational gap blurs, because slowly, everyone starts to consume the same content. It’s becoming more and more apparent that these children are growing up much too fast.

@bretmanrock

How i decide which Sonny Angel is going into my sonny angel bag

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Sison affirms this and tells me the obvious reason why: these generations had early exposure to technology. Whatever these young girls see on TikTok becomes their worldview and metric for what they think they should be—for example, a “clean girl” doing Pilates and drinking two coffees a day—and so they grow up faster. Their playfulness is “being fast-forwarded,” she comments.

“Consuming this kind of content doesn’t equip them to deal with stress.” These young girls are aspiring for things their minds and bodies aren’t ready for, and it begins to distort the way they see themselves. “It’s very unfortunate because women of all ages feel this way,” she says, “and it starts so early.” This poses a much bigger risk for young Gen Alphas on unmonitored social media sites, even ones that may seem secure or have parental controls. They become so much more susceptible to online harassment and abuse.

As these children grow up, having skipped the part of just being a child, enjoying and not worrying about the way they look, there may be an effect on their self-esteem and confidence. The content they consume but cannot yet process—of these perfect aesthetics, unreachable and unrelatable lives, and picture-perfect bodies—sends an underlying message that you can’t be accepted the way you are. “It can become an identity crisis, or even a mid-life crisis if it’s not addressed,” Sison says.

@joannamrie pls lang magtira kayo ng sonny angel hippers para sa nanay ko sa next restock 😭😩🎀💗 HAHAHAHAHAHA #sonnyangel #healinginnerchild @Divine Macatulad ♬ origineel geluid - .⋆୨୧⋆.

To the parents of these Gen Alphas, she advises: delay screens. And to the frequenters of the Sonny Angel shelves, sometimes healing the inner child doesn’t have to be buying tiny toys. It’s trusting your inner wise child. It’s knowing when something or someone is no longer serving you, if you need to leave or stay in a certain situation, or even when something just feels a bit off. These moments of quiet intuition are born from your inner child knowing what you need and urging you to express and fulfill these needs. Trust that whatever it tries to tell you—your gut feeling—knows what’s best for you, and will always lead you to that.

Above all: don’t forget to be kind to yourself, who you are, and what you’ve done now. Sometimes the most we can get out of healing is knowing we’re not alone in yearning for childhood. And knowing is well and good. But for many, it doesn’t hurt to have a doll perched by their side to remind them childlike wonder will still occur in life, in the littlest ways—despite it all.