—Father
Bravo, Dad. Let go of judgment until you truly understand—your kid, the situation, and how he or she sees it. Just listening makes your child feel loved.
“The first duty of love is to listen.”
—Paul Tillich, Christian philosopher
“Sometimes we forget to listen to our children. Yet listening can be very powerful. I think children, like adults, have a very strong need to be truly heard—not only heard for what they are saying on the surface, but for the feelings behind their words.”
—Laura Carlin, blogger and author
Hearing the meaning behind words takes careful active listening. Kids don’t always need you to fix the problem, much less to lecture, but they do need you to listen. Don’t under-estimate the value of listening without judgment. Really being heard and understood defuses big emotions and makes us feel comforted and connected.
Sometimes you have to set aside the small stuff that blocks connection. A mum was in the basement cleaning out toys to give to charity. She came upon a chess set with giant pieces, but a pawn was missing its bottom stand. The mum told her daughter, Ally, that they couldn’t give away an incomplete set. Mum went back to her sorting, but Ally was determined to give a whole chess set to someone.
Twenty minutes later, an excited Ally exclaimed, “Look, I fixed it!” Mum turned around to see both Ally and a white couch cushion covered in black paint. Ally had glued a wood block to make a new stand and had painted it black to match the pawn. Mum was so focused on the mess that she almost missed Ally’s joy at being resourceful and helpful.
“Oh, no, my couch ...’’ Mum started to stammer. She saw the light fading from her daughter’s eyes. Mum had to think like a chess player, two moves ahead, calming down and not squashing her daughter’s enthusiasm.
“Wow, that was so clever. Someone is going to be so happy to get that chess set now that you have fixed it,” she said.
By checking herself and seeing what her daughter saw, this mum did not let a little paint break a big connection. Later she was able to calmly remind Ally to lay down newspaper the next time she wanted to paint. Now, that is how the game of parenting is played.
“Our job as parents is to accurately reflect our children’s experience, not our own.”
—Catherine Birndorf, MD, psychiatrist and author
Sometimes we miss the point (in this example, the child’s kindness) because of our own priorities (in Mum’s case, an orderly house). But if you can see your child’s pure experience without projecting your own stuff onto it, you will connect with their truest self.
Once you recognize your children’s feelings, it’s vital for you to validate them.
“I have noticed that the boys who cry the most when they are hurt have parents who always said, ‘You’re fine, get up, that didn’t really hurt.’ I think that if the mum had just hugged them, their crying would have stopped a long time ago.”
—Boy, aged nine
This wise boy is really saying that if parents are more compassionate, instead of dismissing their children’s feelings, kids would pass through these phases sooner. From a psychiatrist’s standpoint, minimizing children’s feelings never makes them go away. It just leaves the child’s needs unmet, what we call empathic failure.
When children are hurt, they need to know they have a safe parent to go to for comfort. The basics of love and comfort allow a child to depend on you. It is only through that dependence that they learn the skills to be independent. When dependency needs are not met, they keep returning in adulthood. (Think arrested development.)
Sensitive, responsive parents do quite a balancing act. They help their children manage strong emotions by knowing when to let a child work through frustration and disappointment, which increases resiliency. Today’s parents are confused; they think hovering builds a secure attachment. But hovering and micromanaging are different from being an attuned parent.
| Hovering/helicopter parent | Attuned parent/secure attachment |
| Intrusive, leading with anxiety, making child nervous. | Responsive, reflective, sensitive, with a calmness that is soothing to the child. |
| Rushes to fix or do the child’s work instead of letting child work things out on his own. Gives the child a covert message: “You need me. You can’t do it alone.” | Gives child breathing room to figure things out; encourages with message that “you can do it.” |
| Human emotional rip cord. | Balances when to hold and when to fold. |
| Bubble wraps kids, creating psychological dependence that holds them back in the real world. | Helps kids build strong psychological padding that creates a secure base, which fosters independence. |
Forming a strong, secure bond is not small stuff. It is everything. Children will carry it with them for the rest of their lives. Love freely, madly, deeply. Hug, kiss, cuddle, laugh, play. Be demonstrative. Tell your children how much you love them. If you aren’t your kid’s biggest fan, who will be?
Remember, childhood’s greatest legacy is how we felt loved.
Limits
While unconditional love is at the core of all great parenting, loving your child does not mean unconditional acceptance of behavior. As we saw in chapter one, kids feel safer when they have a parent firmly in charge.
“It is a great disservice to a child not to set clear and loving guidelines.”
—Beth Ekre, North Dakota Teacher of the Year
Remember: all feelings are welcome; all behaviors are not. Once guidelines are set, you have to enforce them consistently. Not following through with kids is like not finishing an antibiotic. One grows resistant bacteria, the other resistant kids.
But in this new age of parenting, we seem ambivalent about the concept of discipline. Maybe it is because we have confused being in charge with the harsh disciplinarians of generations past. These two are distinct. Discipline done right fosters self-esteem, whereas harsh or shaming discipline erodes self-esteem.
There is never a time when screaming, shaming, or hitting a child is justified. True discipline does not involve any of those things. It is an opportunity to teach your child. In fact, discipline means “to teach.”
Twelve-year-old Matthew was a tournament tennis player. His parents went to watch their son in the semifinals. Matthew was very agitated on the court. As his frustration increased, his sportsmanship began to nosedive. Matthew became so upset that after losing a critical point, he threw his racket.
Matthew’s dad walked on the court and calmly told his son that he was going to have to forfeit the match. The son began to cry and begged his father to let him continue the game, but his father stayed the course.
“I know that this is very upsetting for you, but throwing your racket is not OK,” Dad continued. “We care more