As modern parents, we’ve learned to “talk the talk” and use all the right lingo to hopefully foster positive self-esteem with our children. We try not to tell them they are “being bad” and we’ve been trained to use encouraging language instead of demeaning or belittling comments. But, that doesn’t mean we’re not still people too–and for most of us, it can be really difficult to face some of the emotions are kids exhibit. Even the most human, typical feelings displayed by our children can be strong triggers for us and we may actually need to deal with our own feelings and emotions before we can be totally present for our kids.
I think that no matter how evolved we are as parents, we cannot help but carry around the trained responses to emotions and feelings from our own childhood and lives. Even though we may have learned to “say” that anger is okay, if we were raised in an environment where expressing anger (or pride, sadness, fear, etc.) was not acceptable, we may have such deep-seeded reactions of judgment and denial when we are faced with an emotional outburst from our child, that we are sending mixed messages. We may be saying one thing while our entire person is “showing” something else. In addition to learning how to encourage and promote emotional intelligence in our children, we parents may have to wrestle with some of our own deeply-imbedded training and issues too.
For me, I have a hard time with vulnerability and what I automatically judge to be “weakness” in my kids. As an eldest who took on a lot of responsibility from an early age and learned young that I needed to make my own way without help or handouts, I’ve had to do a lot of work over my reactions to my kids’ vulnerability and willingness to not only ask for, but accept help. I’ve certainly not mastered it yet, but I’m aware now when I feel myself tense and cringe when they are able to freely express a vulnerability that I was never allowed.
The fact is, even the scariest emotions lose their “power” when they are expressed. If we look, we can see that in our kids–getting all that anger and frustration out leaves them feeling renewed and able to focus on “the next big thing.” By learning to tune in to our triggers and the emotions we find so difficult to face in our children and ourselves–we’re able to work on the why and the what. It takes time and it may still be difficult, but the awareness helps us to reach an honest place in our parenting. As we parents find out early in our parenting “careers”–our kids are blessed teachers and no matter how together we thought we were when we became parents, we find out soon how much more work and learning there is for us to do!