How easy do you find it to take responsibility in an argument? If our parents didn’t show us how to do this, or always occupied a position of being right then it can feel incredibly hard..like an attack on our psyche, and then the danger is we can pass this onto our children, or children that are in our lives.
Whatever role we are playing in a child’s life whether parent, step parent, teacher, social worker, or sports coach! The capacity to acknowledge our part when we have said something hurtful, lost our rag, contradicted ourself is crucial in not only repairing the relationship between, yet supporting that young person’s sense of self, helping them understand that we have an impact on the other, other people are entitled to their feelings and most importantly that they have a right to their feelings too. You also highlight and role model key skills around working through conflict.
Fortunately, I have been trained on how to sit with the other person’s difficult feelings in relation to me, and as a person who strives to get it as “right” as possible by people, sitting and acknowledging where I have got it wrong is tough, and yet the more I am able to recognise my own humanness, that I do make mistakes, then the easier it becomes.
Acknowledging our child’s feelings can be particularly difficult when you disagree with them. For example, if they feel “we never do anything” and you just spent half your mortgage on taking them to Legoland the week before! This is where it can feel like such an attack, all that effort you put in to taking them and then to be met with this disappointed response. If we can understand the buttons that our children press in us, then it makes it easier to step into their world and try and understand what they are feeling. By denying the child’s feelings or dismissing them, we can begin to alienate the person that you are trying to facilitate a lifelong and loving relationship with, and one with whom you are trying to prepare for life outside of your relationship. Changing your reaction might be counter-intuitive, yet all of us feel so much better when we are acknowledged and heard and children are no different. Denying unhappiness doesn’t make it go away, it just digs a layer deeper.
To go back to the Legoland example, if you take a few minutes to just acknowledge the feeling, rather than your hurt response dismissing it, then the child learns that their feelings are important to you, rather than them feeling bored and then unimportant. It’s so easy to say, particularly a child it seems “you don’t feel that, don’t be silly” and without realising, if it happens enough and repeatedly they are left feeling that how they feel is insignificant. Or they may get into their own battles of being “right” because they have heard too often that they are “wrong” it may facilitate stubbornness and on their part also not acknowledging other people’s feelings as they have never been shown how to do it, or been on the receiving end of how its done.
Hearing that what they have said is stupid or silly, can leave the child withholding things that they think you might see as silly, and often making decisions about other things, that are important, yet a fear that they may be silly too. It could close down communication and rather than risk the humiliation of telling you something, that is significant, they decide to keep it to themselves.
With every rupture there are two people present, and therefore two people that have feelings and an opinion that needs acknowledging. When in positions of authority in relation to young people or children, we occupy a luxurious opportunity to help them understand how to relate to others, to role model taking responsibility when we do things that are unjustified, contradictory or cause conflict. This supports young people or children to feel safe in expressing their feelings, to feel validated, to understand that part of being human is getting it “wrong” and learning from that. It offers a safe container to reflect and work through what they are feeling and how to relate to others.
Young people’s brains are not fully developed, so the emotional aspect of their brain is dominant until about 14, when the logical part starts to developing they can begin to rationalise their behaviour and experiences. With that in mind, they need you to be their frontal lobes for them!
Have a fabulous Wednesday!