Parenting Teens and Pre-teens
Discouraging emotional honesty
While staying at my cousin's one week I have begun to notice that the teenage son, David, age 16, does not share his true feelings with his parents. If I ask him how he feels in front of them, he looks away and says something evasive such as, "I don't know." But when we are together he will open up and tell me how he feels using my scale of 0-10. For example, while sitting at the dinner table I asked him how interested he felt in his history class. He thought for a moment and then just shrugged his shoulders. I sensed he was afraid to answer in front of his parents, so later I asked him again in private. He said, "Not at all. On a scale of 0-10 it is a big fat zero. He is the most boring teacher I have ever had." I asked him why he didn't tell me this earlier. He said it was because his parents don't want to hear that. They want to hear that everything is wonderful. They tell him to stop complaining. They tell him it is not as bad as he makes it out to be.
The next day I overheard the mother say to the youngest boy in the family, Jeff, age 8, "You don't say that!" Later I asked her what was going on and she told me he said he hated one of the teachers at school. I asked why the Jeff didn't like the teacher and the mother said didn't know. She said "He really doesn't even know her, it isn't even his teacher."
Trying to give the mother a hint to be more interested in her son's feelings, I said "There must be some reason why Jeff feels so strongly." I was hoping the mother would say something like "Yeah, I suppose so you are right. Let's go ask him why he doesn't like her." But the mother did not pick up on my hint. In fact she seemed to feel defensive by my questions and comments. She repeated several times that she didn't believe her son her should use such a strong word as hate.
I saw this as a missed opportunity. An opportunity to become closer to her son. An opportunity to understand him and to help fill his vital emotional need of feeling understood. Instead, the communication lines were cut. I wondered why the mother was more interested in "correcting" her son's way of expressing himself than she was in getting to know him. I thought of Haim Ginott's advice that the parent never deny the child's perception of things.
As I thought how Jeff would now be afraid of expressing his true feelings in the future, I suddenly understood exactly why his older brother had initially refused to tell me how he felt about his history class.
My belief is that children are born with an innate desire to share things. I also believe they are born with perfect emotional honesty. There is plenty of time to "correct" the way they express their feelings. What is important is that we first allow them to express themselves freely. I believe it is these kinds of small incidents which discourage the natural tendencies of freely sharing emotional honesty. When the desire to share emotions is frightened out of a child, I feel a terrible loss. I beieve this loss will negatively affect both the child's ability to know himself and to succeed in his future relationships. This is especially in his intimate romantic relationships where knowing oneself and emotional honesty are two of the keys to happiness.
A Case in Successful Modeling - Laura and the Silveware
The first time I saw Laura, a 15 month old in Quebec, she was sitting alone on the floor with a big smile on her face. Her bright blue-grey eyes seemed to reach across the room and touch me to my core. Later that day I sat next to her and tickled her and played games with her, helping her smile and laugh. Still later I saw her standing next to the dishwasher, holding herself up with one hand and pulling the silverware out of its tray and dropping it to the floor. I walked over and picked up one piece, then another and returned them to the tray. Suddenly I had a fear that she might think this is a game and drop some more on the ground. My fear lead me to think quickly and creatively so as to avoid such a frustrating cycle. So after I put the first two pieces in the silverware container, I handed her the next piece hoping she would model me. And she did!!
I was so excited with the result of my experiment I could have lept with joy. I had no way to predict what she would do, of course, and when I saw her put that spoon in the silverware tray I felt all of my beliefs about the children instantly affirmed. To say I felt bursting with encouragement comes close to describing my feeling at what was for me a momentous occasion. Wanting to show approval and appreciation without exaggerating it in order to manipulate her in the future, as my mother would do with us to control our behavior, I simply said, "merci" and picked a knife off of the floor and handed it to her. Again she carefully put it away. I said "Merci" again and this time she smiled! I felt a love and a connection with her at that moment which will last a lifetime.
Those were the only words I spoke to her. I was amazed at how this process worked. Later, I thought of all the things I could have done. I could have said "No, don't drop those on the floor." I could have said, "Don't touch." Or, "The silverware goes in the tray, not on the floor".
I could have smacked her hand. I could have picked her up and moved her away. I could have threatened her: "If you drop one more thing on the floor..."
Part of my silence was due to my limited ability to speak French. But I had already learned with her and three year old sister how much could be communicated without words.
I also knew that she didn't need a lecture, a threat, a punishment or a scolding. Instead what she needed was modeling and, perhaps more importantly, trust.
I don't know when an infant is first capable of feeling the emotion of being trusted, but I suspect that this was what Laura felt at the moment I handed her the first knife. I suspect she also felt proud of herself, successful, helpful, approved of and appreciated. I also suspect that later if I wanted Laura's help with something, even something she didn't want to do, she would be much more cooperative.
Isn't this the kind of relationship we want? Not only parents and children, but between all of us in the world?
S. Hein July 2001