Raising kids is hard no matter what age you start out doing it. As I’ve stated before, it doesn’t come with a manual. We all just do the best we can with the information we have.
Luckily, we have technology and we’re all connected which means we get information from all over the world about how other people parent their children. From blog posts to social media videos, we get to read and watch various perspectives of other families every day. This allows us to ignore what we don’t like and take the knowledge we see and apply it to our own families because one part of parenting is acknowledging everyone parents differently, including our partners.
Any good parent questions whether or not they are a good parent. This is a nugget of wisdom my mom gave me years ago, and I have clung to it like a life raft ever since. On days when I’m so frustrated I’m near tears, I doubt myself and wonder if I’m failing my kids, then I remember those words. To tack onto that piece of advice, you’re a good parent if you find yourself revising your parenting style.
I’m not the same parent I was when my firstborn made me a mother. I used to believe in spanking and saying, “Because I said so,” instead of taking the time to explain anything. There are many other toxic parts of parenting I swore I would never incorporate into my own household that I ended up doing anyway. Now I think about that old me and I cringe. To remember ever being like that really gets under my skin sometimes, and it makes me ashamed, but all I can do is go forward. You stick with healthy parenting that works and you chuck out the rest. We are all trying to raise healthy, responsible children and that requires a strong foundation with a good relationship between parents and child. How do we do that? With open, clear communication. And communication takes two.
My communication hasn’t always been healthy so I’m here to tell you what I’ve learned so that you can use the advice now, and not a decade down the road like me.
You should be a safe space for your children. That is every parent’s goal, but what if you’re communicating things that you aren’t meaning to?
Just smile.
Imagine your kid moping around the house, upset about something or, if they’re at that age, upset about nothing at all. “Just smile,” we say to them. The very thing that makes a woman’s blood boil when a man says it to us, so why do we do it to our kids? Change your face because I don’t like how it is making me feel.
What I’ve meant in the past when saying it is, hey, just smile. It’s not that bad. You can get through this.” What I’ve since realized is those two simple words are teaching my kid to hold her emotions in. Telling her to smile is me telling her that I will accept no other emotion from her except for happiness. If I’m communicating that, then she is going to put on a smile regardless of the turmoil she’s feeling inside, and she’s going to be less likely to talk about it with me because I’m no longer a safe space for her to show her feelings. Instead, she feels like she needs to be happy for me.
Teaching our children to mask their real feelings for the sake of someone else’s comfort harms them in many ways. It teaches them that the other person’s feelings are more important than their own. It teaches them to mask their emotions and deal with them by themselves. This can make kids fall victim to emotional abuse, as well. They let someone yell at them or talk down to them and they don’t show any feeling in response.
I didn’t realize how horrible it felt until someone said it to me. Yuck, I DID NOT like it, as you can imagine. Why should I put any other emotion on my face other than the one I’m feeling? Everyone deserves expression, even if the people around them do not like it. The same is true for us and true for our children.
Say something nice.
We have heard it a million times, and I’ve even heard it at work as an adult. “Say something nice or don’t say anything at all.” Why? Why should we be conditioned to be nice all of the time?
First, what is nice? Being nice is a point of view. Define it. Is it someone complimenting you all of the time? Is it someone saying yes instead of saying no because they’re afraid of hurting your feelings?
I have a problem with this line of thinking because it implies that what someone else thinks of me is more important than anything else I have to offer, which simply isn’t true. It isn’t true for me and not for you, either.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not advocating for being an asshole. Being truthful is far more important, however, than being nice, and this line of thinking teaches kids to spout those ‘little white lies’ we’ve heard about. I’m a firm believer in being honest. You cannot have meaningful relationships in your life if you expect your friends and family to be nice all of the time. To be nice all of the time would omit constructive criticism. We would never learn and grow if not for these things.
Another fair point here is we tell children to say nice things or to be quiet, and the response is usually a reply to something rude the kid said. Being rude is a point of view, though. They say it, especially young kids, making an observation. We tell them to say nice things because their comment upsets us, or we’re worried what people around us will think. In other words, your kid isn’t being offensive, something inside you is getting offended by what they are saying.
A prime example is my youngest daughter, Tegan, went through a phase when she loved to point out things about my body. “You have a lot of stretch marks,” she said to me one day. Her eyes were wide and she was truly amazed by all the lines on my body. Instantly, because of how I felt about my own body, I got offended. She wasn’t trying to be offensive. I took a deep breath. “You’re right. I do have a lot of stretch marks,” was all I said, and we moved on. It would be unfair to punish her for being observant, and it would teach her that stretch marks are flaws, as well. They’re not bad, as we all know. Stretch marks and scars are how real bodies look.
Instead of saying, “Say something nice or don’t say anything at all,” fit it with the situation. If your kids are loudly talking about someone who looks different than they do, or whatever the case may be, tell them you’ll discuss it later. When your family is back in the privacy of your home or your car, explain that there is a time and place for everything. Public is an inappropriate place to yell things out like that.
Don’t ask questions.
This one threw me for a loop. I never knew parents had a problem with kids asking questions until I fell down the rabbit hole of social media one day. The video was about gentle parenting and as I made my way over to a comment section, I was stunned. There were parents in the comment section discussing how they punish their children for asking ‘why,’ or for responding with something they say with ‘what?’
Being curious is natural. Asking questions is a form of communication. You ask questions to gain knowledge, to have clarification, and to show interest when you’re talking to someone. It’s no different for kids. They ask questions to learn, and they ask to clarify. Or at least, they do if you’ve taught them how to communicate.
Questions are the foundation for any conversation. You cannot have a conversation where you never have to ask for clarity or understanding. It just isn’t possible.
Kids are naturally curious and question everything until they’re taught not to. When you tell a child they can’t ask questions, they lose their voice in the world. You can’t control what your child says or whether or not they ask questions.
If they cannot ask for clarification, they will stay confused. If they can’t ask questions to gain knowledge, they will remain silent and not speak up. Moreover, they will not know how to communicate in a conversation. We are their safe spaces which means they should feel comfortable coming to us with any questions.
I don’t know your situation. There may be questions your child asks you that triggers you. I went through it with my children, as well. I was reluctant to answer certain things. I worked on it, though, through shadow work and figured out why those questions made me so uneasy. Now, they come to me for everything with no hesitation.
This is a grown-up conversation.
I don’t like any of these things, but this one has a special place on my Hell No list. The reason why? I’ve heard it said quite a few times before, and I have even had people in a conversation with me try to use that line on my kids. Pause, back up.
If it truly is an adult conversation, something they’re not even allowed to hear, the adults should participate in it away from kids. If it is something about politics or laws or anything of that nature that most people consider ‘above a kid’s head,’ why can’t they listen? Why can’t they speak up as well?
This goes back to the communication issue. How are they supposed to know what a disagreement looks like and how to solve it? How are they supposed to know what a healthy debate sounds like? If they are never exposed to conversations like this, how are they supposed to develop and speak about their opinion one day? Here I am, asking questions. It’s important to think about, though. We’re their first line of information.
Conclusion
There’s one thing all of these have in common that is crucial to point out. Smile because your expression is making me uneasy. Don’t ask questions because I don’t like the questions you ask. Say something nice or not at all because I get offended by your observations. This is a grown-up conversation because I don’t think you can add anything significant to the discussion. These things are teaching children that their feelings aren’t important or that what they have to say isn’t as important as how you feel.
Everyone parents differently. It’s not anyone’s place to judge another parenting style. These are things that can also help to break generational trauma. Kids should feel safe at home and not like they have to walk on eggshells. What are some lessons you teach in your family? Feel free to leave it in the comments below.
Invoke the wonder, command the power.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash