If a parent’s feelings get hurt by their own kid’s behavior, and the parent withholds their love from their kid or tries to match the behavior to show the kid what it feels like, it creates a very unsafe, confusing, and dysfunctional dynamic for the kid.
Bc the kid is just trying out what to do with their words and feelings and is looking for a safe space where an adult is present and regulated enough to guide them with wisdom, love, stability and values.
When a parent reacts to their kid’s behavior as if the kid is somehow supposed to know how to manage their parent’s feelings when they don’t even know how to manage their own, it can create a lot of stress and anxiety for the kid.
It’s not our kids’ responsibility to soothe our adult feelings. It’s our job to soothe theirs.
It’s problematic when parents behave as their younger selves with their children.
Adults who are led by their hurt younger selves may not respect their kids’ boundaries. They may take everything personally, they may make jokes when the child is looking for a solid emotional safe presence, or hug or roughhouse when the child has said they don’t want to be touched.
What this does is make the kid nervous around that parent. The kid worries who they’re supposed to be to get the parent’s love, and they may avoid that parent bc they don’t feel like laughing at the jokes or getting hugged just to keep the parent’s feelings from getting hurt, or, being met with defensiveness if they ask the parent not to behave that way. (“What? I was only trying to love you.”)
To me, it’s so important for parents to walk through the door as their most healed self, not as their most hurt younger self.
Because otherwise, the parent’s hurt younger self might experience their kid’s developmentally appropriate immature behavior as an attack, and punish their kid bc it hurt their feelings.
When a parent can access being a solid, available, thoughtful presence in the face of their kid’s ‘difficult’ behavior, what they’re doing is role-modeling to their kid how to be a solid, available, thoughtful presence in the face of stress.
When we can see our kid’s difficult behavior as communication, we can choose to respond: “I wanted to remind you, that no matter what, I’m here. No matter what, I’m on your side. No matter what, I’ve got your back.”
They’re already having a hard time, we don’t need to make it harder. We can go into more detail about what happened once the kid feels safe.
-JLK
