Empathy for Kids

Although it may seem in our parenting culture today that we have become more empathic to our children’s emotions, I am here to tell you that in fact we’ve just found a new way not to be. Webster’s dictionary defines empathy as: “Identification with and understanding of the thoughts and feelings of another.” Today we are only comfortable with our children feeling one emotion: Happiness.

Since we are only comfortable with happiness – sadness, frustration, worry, fear, restlessness, discomfort, boredom, irritability and uncertainty in our children are swiftly dis-validated, fixed, cheered-up or changed. Yet, these are human emotions that we all feel every day.

Most of us automatically try to rescue our children from these feelings. We routinely say, “it’s okay,” “everything’s fine,” “don’t worry,” “cheer up,” “I’ll fix it,” to “stop crying.” Instead of identification with or understanding their thoughts and feelings, we are essentially saying: “don’t feel that.” Our response is not empathic; it is simply another form of control, albeit more disguised than blatantly ignoring kid’s emotions.

Before we start getting harder on ourselves as parents, I have to say that I believe all of these responses are well-intentioned! Yet, I ask parents to look more mindfully at how trying to control our children’s feelings or trying to make them happy is not helping them mature emotionally. And it may even backfire where kids begin to feel like something is wrong with them when they are not feeling as happy as they think they should.

Instead we can normalize and validate children’s feelings. “That sounds upsetting, sweetie,” “I imagine that is frustrating!” “It is scary to try something new.” “It is sad to not get invited to the party.” “I always feel upset when I that happens to me.” When we normalize feelings, we are saying it is okay to feel and with that, kids process emotions much more quickly. They then move on and solve their problems.

Here’s a quick story. We had some friends over for dinner recently and the kids went downstairs after their dinner to watch a video while the adults tried to eat without too many child interruptions. Of course there were not enough seats for all the kids, and my youngest daughter came up crying that there was no chair for her and that no one would share one of their chairs. I immediately wanted to lecture (shut down her feeling) her on being a good host, and remind her that she always wants to have friends over. But I realized that would go nowhere. So instead I said, “That is so upsetting.” She folded up in my arms and lap and cried. When she cried out all her tears, she felt heard and seemed ready to solve her problem. I asked what she could do about it. I hinted that there were lots of pillows downstairs. She went back downstairs and I did not follow her – though I was tempted to fix her situation. Fifteen minutes later I checked on the kids and she was laying in a pile of pillows laughing with all the kids at the video. She did not need me to fix anything, she just needed to feel and vent and be heard and then she solved her problem.

Simply pausing, listening, normalizing and validating feelings, and refraining from fixing is empathy. It allows kids to process their feelings and solve their problems. We can even be empathic when we say no. “I imagine it is frustrating when you don’t get what you want.” “I imagine you will feel upset because I made a dinner that I know you don’t like, but I am still going to ask that you try it.” We can relate to the experience of disappointment and validate their feeling, even if we are one ones setting the limit. Try this!



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Children are Hardwired for Struggle

Watch this video and see why vulnerability, struggle and uncertainty are good.

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The Dalai Lama on Parenting

HHDL Cultivating, Hope, Wisdom and Compassion 10/13/12 from Middlebury College LIS on Vimeo.

The Dalai Lama recently came to Vermont to speak at Middlebury College about Peace and Education.* I was not able to attend the talk, but I was lucky enough to hear His Holiness speak in Salt Lake City, UT, in April 2000. Although I was not yet a parent, I remember vividly his response to a question on parenting and how to handle children’s behavior. He responded (paraphrasing here),"Well, I am just a monk. No spouse, no children. I imagine so frustrating! If I was a parent I would probably hit them." Then he chuckled.

I suppose it is not surprising that a reincarnated spiritual leader is compassionate and empathetic; but to hear such empathy and understanding directed towards parents, who often are very hard on themselves (and each other) was surprising. It stuck with me. He described how his struggles are more geopolitical related to his people suffering than interpersonal. However he was able to draw parallels, he kept saying, “I am a human being, you and me, we are the same."

In his recent talk at Middlebury, there was not a direct question on parenting because he was addressing a college community. However, the first question was about family bonds being destroyed, and the question asked how to reconcile wounds when someone in the family does not want to reconcile?

The Dalai Lama poignantly explained his philosophy on approaching such complicated family struggles. He said that one can be totally dedicated and concerned for another’s long-term wellbeing, no matter what the other’s response. When one has true compassion and love there is no need for reward or response, he says. If one’s action is based on wanting a response from another, then it is not true compassion; one instead has a self-agenda.

His Holiness goes further to separate out the actor from an action. (I have used the language in my work of separating out a person from their behavior). In essence he is saying you can be concerned about one’s problematic action, and still have genuine compassion for the actor’s wellbeing.

Loving our kids is the easy part, but responding to their behaviors and emotions is not so easy. How do we have a deep empathy, a true compassion, while our children test us through their behaviors? How do we hold them accountable? I believe we do this by following the Dalai Lama’s words of actor verses action. We can have genuine love for our children (actor) and still hold them accountable for their behavior (actions), by giving children strong messages of love while also giving appropriate natural and logical consequences for their behavior.

Many parents may think they should innately know how to parent, and if they mess up they are a failure. Likewise blaming a marriage as problematic if there is struggle, rather than realizing that marriage and other relationships require skills and personal growth. I believe parenting children with emotional attunement and behavioral boundaries is a skill. Come and practice this skill at my upcoming parent workshop in Atlanta November 9th! Click here for more information.

*Hear Dede Cumming’s (my new literary agent) VPR Commentary on the Dalai Lama’s visit here.


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Parallel Process Workshop - Atlanta!

PARALLEL PROCESS PARENT WORKSHOP coming to ATLANTA, GA on NOV. 9TH

In this supportive workshop, parents will identify, understand and TRANSFORM their negative relationship patterns with their child.

Participants will come away with a "felt sense" of how to respond differently.
Parents will increase their self-awareness through identifying their feelings and patterns.
Parents will integrate new communication skills through role-plays.
Parents will practice reflective listening and learn how to empower their children to solve their own problems.
Parents will develop greater awareness of parent-child differentiation.
The Parallel Process concepts will be integrated through experiential learning, and group sharing.
In this relaxed setting, parents can build new skills to confidently parent their preteen, teen or young adult child.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CLICK THE LINK BELOW


http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=eivcekkab&oeidk=a07e6gom61l05bd10bb

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We All Belong

I’ve just discovered a gold mine in my local community called Earthwalk Vermont. http://earthwalkvermont.org/   My 8-year old just started the Village School program, where she spends every Friday in the woods becoming more intimate with the natural world. Of course the program is education-based, but from my perspective it is also quite therapeutic – beyond what a young person may gain from a therapist or other type of social service.

First off, the kids are barefoot! Now all those hovering parents out there may cringe (myself included), but what this allows kids to do right away is to feel. To enter into the sensory environment of the natural world, kids have an ability to feel and receive information from their bodies!! This is something many therapist struggle to do in an office setting. Through walking barefoot, kids become more present, aware and mindful of the woods/meadow/ stream they are walking through. When we are more present and engaged with our full bodies, we are less driven by repetitive or discursive thoughts in our minds.

Kids also become more aware of natural consequences while barefoot as there are thorns, sharp rocks and other potential hazards underfoot. In childrearing today, we cannot remove all the hazards, but we can teach kids to make thoughtful choices while navigating their terrain. This exercise in barefootedness is quite a benign way for kids to learn to pay attention, and perhaps to learn the hard way to watch where they step.

Another vital component to Earthwalk is a daily gratitude circle. Kids pass the talking stick and share whatever they feel grateful for. This is not something we are oriented toward in our childrearing culture today as entitlement is on the rise and a sense of always wanting more. I have observed kids exclaim a wide-range of thanks. In this process they open their hearts, become vulnerable and share what they are grateful for: their life, the trees, their parents, their mentors, their siblings, the call of the crow, their pets – what a wonderful exercise.

However……..the most profound aspect of Earthwalk is the singing and sense of belonging. The sense of belonging in our culture is even scarcer than feeling our feelings or giving thanks. In our schools, kids all want to be the same to “fit-in.” This does not end in childhood; in our culture at large we all are looking for acceptance. Yet in the natural world, the trees belong, the rocks belong, the plants belong, the raccoons belong, the birds belong, the insects belong. We don’t say, ‘this rock should be here and that rock shouldn’t or this tree belongs and that tree does not.’ Everything has its place in the natural world and the same is true for all of us. It is said in a forest of 100,000 trees, every tree is different. None of us belong more than anyone else; in fact, we all make up the whole.

What I notice in my daughter as she goes from 3rd grade public school to Earthwalk Village School is a profound difference in belonging. In public school the friendships are up and down, the dynamics constantly in flux, and she comes home with a restless energy. While after Earthwalk there is a profound sense of peace and calm. I think the lesson we can learn from this is that whether we spend the day in the woods or not, whether we perceive that we “fit-in,” we have to remember the frogs and the moles and the butterflies and each of us all have inherent worth, whether it is noticed or not.

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Letting Kids Struggle

I just learned a new technique from my daughter’s kindergarten teacher. I asked my 5 year-old what happens when she runs down the hall in school (which my daughter does with me, but not when the teacher is there). She said, “Well, we have to start over, Mom.” As a parenting coach I am always looking for little tricks to help kids self-regulate and become more mindful of their behavior.

I’ve started to employ this concept in the home. So when my daughter whines, I say, “Start over sweetie.” The problem is that as parents we get hooked into the whine. We want to give them their snack so they stop whining or we get mad at them for whining. Children are allowed to make mistakes and whine when they feel impatient, but we can also ask them to repair the mistake.

“American children, especially those who grow up in relative comfort, are being shielded from failure as never before,” says Paul Tough author of How Children Succeed. Culturally we are very concerned with kid’s academic success and their happiness, but we aren’t too worried about how well they deal with adversity. In fact most kids today melt-down when things don’t go their way. And although most parents get annoyed by these episodes, we often play right into them by rescuing and fixing for our children. When children are shielded from discomforts and failure they never have the opportunity to develop the skills necessary for navigating the ups and downs of life.

New research in Mr. Tough’s book indicates that children’s intelligence does not guarantee success. In fact non-cognitive skills or – as I prefer to call them – internal resources are more critical to children’s development and long-term success.

Internal resources such as delayed gratification, problem solving, distress tolerance, internal motivation, and emotional regulation are developed by asking kids to use these skills. We need to ask kids to problem solve everyday challenges like sibling conflicts, chores, or feelings of frustration. Kids need to apply their intelligence to living their lives, not just in academics. As parents we can value emotional regulation, distress tolerance and internal motivation as much as a good report card or scoring a goal.

The thing is……we don’t have to wait for our children to fail in school, be bullied or experience another type of struggle outside the home; we can allow them to have safe struggle in the home. Ideas like “starting over,” can be applied to behavioral problems in the home to hold children accountable. We can let them feel disappointed. We can hear when they don’t like a rule. We can validate that chores are annoying. But we don’t have to change anything to make them happy. Remember the more kids struggle with small things like redoing a homework assignment or working on respectful communication, the more equipped they will be to deal with bigger struggles in their lives.

We can shift our parenting from “I’ll fix it” to “You’ve got this.”


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Stop Tiptoeing and Start Parent Coaching!

I recently looked at Susan Stiffelman’s book titled, Parenting without Power-Struggles. A powerful metaphor she uses in the book is of a captain of a ship. When on a cruise, the only reason all the guests can relax by the pool, drink at the bar, attend shows and generally feel at-ease is because there is an abiding trust in the captain to skillfully navigate the waters (minus the recent media story).

The captain is not looking for cues about whether he is liked or not liked. The captain is not changing his mind on where to sail the ship based on the passenger’s whims. And the captain is certainly not tiptoeing around the passenger’s feelings.

This sense of authority and skill in a captain reduces anxiety for passengers and the same concept applies to parenting. Parenting with authority, tends to reduce anxiety in children.

Yet, tiptoeing around our children’s moods, likes, dislikes, whims and emotions has become so pervasive across the parenting spectrum today. Most of us are unaware that when we tiptoe are we increasing their anxiety. Indirectly we are sending the message that there is a lot to worry about; that children are so delicate and fragile that we have to walk on egg shells. My question for parents is: would you like someone to tiptoe around you, or would you prefer others to be direct?

In some ways this may seem simple and obvious, yet many parents may not even be aware of the extent of their tiptoeing, and many of the patterns of tiptoeing stretch back to toddler years. How much are you reading your children’s cues rather than asking questions directly? How much energy are you spending behind the scenes to try to make everything “smoother?” How much on-edge are you as a parent? Does your parenting decisions change based on your child’s emotions? Does your child have an ability to override the captain of the ship? Do you think that makes a child feel safer to have that level of control over a parent?

The case for Parent Coaching:
Many parents today are stuck in unhealthy parent-child patterns, where although it may be negatively impacting the parent and the child, there is an even greater fear to change the pattern. This is why patterns stay stuck. Although going to a therapist is an available choice, many parents may not be suffering from a diagnosable mental health issue, and so simply don’t go. Yet, parents may want strategies to work with their emotions and their communication related to their current interactions with their child. Parent coaching helps parents build skills to more successfully navigate the stormy seas in their unique parent-child bond. Parents can regain their natural authority, despite whatever choice their child is making.

Try parent coaching to examine patterns, build new skills and foster more security in the parent-child relationship.

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