Parenting without a roadmap
Before my children were born, besides thinking that they would be the most wonderful magical beings to ever walk the earth (or, before that, to just lay there and coo), I also promised myself to nurture and validate them in ways that I had not always been nurtured and validated. When my son was born, I had principles and ideals for myself as a parent, and for my new, unspoiled child, that I couldn’t wait to put into effect. I couldn’t wait to hear all the wonderful observations he would have about life and the world. I anticipated that I would cherish each pure and uncensored expression of emotion that he would display.I would not shame him, cut him off, cut him short. I would not do what my parents had done: dismiss his feelings, his fears, his hopes and wishes as trivial or childish. I would let him be himself.
So how did I find myself, almost 10 years later, saying things like: “Stop your whining!”, or “No you can’t have that, you already have a million toys you never play with!”, or “There’s nothing to be afraid of!”, or “You don’t really mean that!”
Fostering emotional expression means accepting and validating ALL the human emotions. That means validating hate, anger, disappointment, rage, frustration, jealousy, envy and all those other ones most of us were socialized to keep under wraps. And that can be hard to do, because most of us are doing it without a roadmap. We didn’t have the experience of our parents validating those feelings, and so when they come up in our children, they make us feel angry, anxious, and out of control.
Why? Because we love our kids so much that when they hurt, we hurt. Our impulse is to make it all better. We want to take all the bad feelings away and banish them from our view. And when we can’t, we sometimes get so enraged we want to banish our kids from our view! That’s how quickly understanding and empathy get replaced by helplessness and rage.
Our empathy for our children is what helps them organize their own life experience. It’s what makes us their best advocates. But it’s a double-edged sword, and when we cross the line to feeling over-identified with our child, we lose the perspective that we need to help them through a crisis.
There is a great book by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish called “How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk”. (ed. Avon Books 1980). It is full of great examples of dialogues that you can have with your kids. The ones you have when you’re not tuning into their feelings, and then the alternate versions where you are.
They write: “ I could be very accepting about most of the feelings the children had, but let one of them tell me something that made me angry or anxious and I’d instantly revert to my old ways. I have since learned that my reaction was not that unusual. … The language of empathy does not come naturally to us. It’s not part of our “mother tongue”. Most of us grew up having our feelings denied. To become fluent in this new language of acceptance, we have to learn and practice its methods.”
So here’s the liberating part: It is not our job to take the bad feelings away. That is way too much responsibility, and quite frankly not always doable. Our job is to help our children manage their feelings. To remind them that they will be ok, that the feeling will pass. We can teach them that they do not have to act on their feelings, by hitting, biting, or kicking. That they do not have to push them away, block them out, or cover them up with a brave smile. We can show them how to ride the wave, because those waves are what make life feel full and rich and meaningful.
So the next time your child is angry or upset, try just listening. See if you can help them name their feeling. Just let them express their wish, and don’t worry about having to make it come true. And then just breathe. Remember that they will be ok, and you will too.