Parenting is hard. Just when you think you have the hang of it, you can find yourself caught in a power struggle with your child and you end up feeling lost or overwhelmed. Does this scenario feel familiar?:
“Good morning, honey,” Parent says, “It’s time to get up for school.”
But Jamie responds, “I’m so tired,” and rolls over and pulls the covers over their head.
“Well, it’s a school day today,” Parent says, sternly pulling back the covers. “And you have to go to school…” Parent sighs. “Why do we have to go through this every day? You know that it’s time to get up for school—this is so frustrating!”
Angrily, Jamie responds, “Seriously, just leave me alone,” and pulls the covers back over their head.
As a mother of two, with one newly adult child and one not yet a teenager, I know these moments all too well. As parents, we can’t always get it right and that can lead to self-doubt, self-criticism, or feeling emotionally overwhelmed. It’s not easy to always know how to respond to our children’s behaviour, nor to do so without assumptions but with the curiosity and compassion required to make strong connections!
As a therapist with a background in supporting parents and families, clients often ask me for parenting advice. With over a decade of experience working with children, families, and adults, I know how important it is for a child’s social and emotional development that they feel heard, seen, and understood. These experiences are important to how children will later perceive and regard themselves well into their adulthood. But they’re also powerful opportunities for us as parents to build connections with our kids. Let’s go back to our parent and Jamie’s interaction, but this time, let’s see it from their inner world perspectives:
Parent: “It’s time to get up for school.” — Parent is thinking about the breakfast they already started in the kitchen, everything they need to do at work today, that their parents are coming to visit this weekend—and they still have two more kids to wake up! They have a task, among many others, that needs to get done: get Jamie out of bed.
Jamie: “I’m so tired.” — Jamie is thinking about the fight he had with his best friend yesterday that kept him awake last night, worrying about what it’s going to be like at school today.
Parent: “Why do we have to go through this every day?…this is so frustrating when you do this!” — Parent has a lot of things to do, and Jamie not getting out of bed is a barrier to getting them done. They also wonder if Jamie is just trying to get out of school (avoidance) and as the parent, they need to make sure that they instill values of responsibility and accountability through routine and commitment. Parent worries about not doing their parenting job well if they can’t get Jamie out of bed and what Jamie’s life might be like if he can’t follow these simple rules.
Jamie: “…just leave me alone.” — Jamie feels that they’re just saying that they’re tired, but their parent is getting angry. Their belief about themself is, “I guess I do this all the time; this is what they think of me; I am a person who frustrates people and makes them mad.”
What we see happening here is that both Parent and Jamie are bringing additional meaning into this interaction from the task at hand. Parent’s meaning comes from past experiences, what they have learnt about parenting, what values they are trying to instill in their child that they believe are important for their child to be successful, worries about their child’s future, and this is all compounded with the stress of their own responsibilities! On the other hand, Jamie is building their view of themself, their self-concept, through how their parent understands them and the expectations their parent has of them: Am I capable of following through with my responsibilities? Do I frustrate others? Does it matter if I’m worried about something that is getting in the way of getting things done? Do my feelings matter? Can I trust my parents enough to share how I feel when they don’t seem to care or have time for it? Do they only care about what I should be doing right now and not about why I’m having trouble doing it?
I’ve had many parents tell me how important it is for them that their child knows they can come to them with any problem, big or small. I agree, we want to be able to support our children with whatever struggles they may be experiencing, in whatever way they need. We don’t always know how to build this trust with our children and it can feel like we are sometimes crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. The truth is that it is tough, and takes a lot of work that can feel difficult even in the best of times! Trust is built over time and through experience—but the good news is opportunities to build trust with our children occur every day. Here are some parenting techniques that can build that trust, so our kids will come to us when they need our support.
Four Effective Parenting Techniques
Acknowledge your child’s emotion and label it.
Take a moment to think about what’s happening for your child by putting yourself in their shoes. What do you know about what is happening for them in their life at the moment, even if it may not seem like a big deal to you? Could they be feeling worried, sad or something else. If you’re not sure, use tentative language such as “It seems like maybe….”, “I’m wondering if…”, “I can imagine you might be feeling….” and wait for the response. You may not get it right but you are showing that you are trying. Rest assured that your child will correct you if you get it wrong and then you will have more information. Give a name to the emotion (sad, mad, worried, angry, lonely) as this will help your child connect with their emotional experience and in the words of Dr. Dan Siegel, “you need to name it to tame it”.
Validate your child’s experience.
This means letting your child know you understand what they are experiencing right now, even though you may not agree with it. This may sound something like “that sounds really difficult…” or “I can imagine why that feels really hard…” or “I understand that might be really scary for you…”.
Acknowledge what your child wants in “wishes,” when they can’t have it in reality.
Your child must get up for school—that’s not negotiable. But, you can acknowledge that they may wish to be doing something else instead. This helps you as a parent connect with your child’s experience and normalize that these feelings also happen for others, and they’re not alone.
Parent with curiosity rather than by anticipating, making assumptions, or jumping to conclusions. Depending on the age of your child, play detective.
This means, pausing and asking yourself, “What is my child really telling me right now?” rather than, “What is my fear about where this situation may lead based on the assumptions that I am making right now?” Try to do this from a place of curiosity rather than a place of judgment.
When my son was a toddler he loved to play with my long hair, grabbing it whenever he was with me. One day when he was about three years old, he said to me, “Mommy, I don’t like your hair.” My first instinct was to respond by saying, “That’s not a nice thing to say, honey” (from a place of fear that I may not be doing a good job teaching my child how to be kind to others). But when I went into detective mode, I realized what he was actually saying, and I changed my response to, “Oh I see…Mommy has her hair up today, and you like to play with mommy’s hair, but it will be hard to do that today.” Being a detective simply means looking for the meaning underneath what your child says or does. That will make it easier to connect with their experience, rather than anticipating, judging, or adding meaning from your adult perspective.
If you can learn to harness these parenting techniques, you may find yourself avoiding the power struggles that so often occur in parent-child relationships. Rather than each person trying to gain control of the situation, you’ll be able to build connection and understanding, which leads to a strong foundation of trust and sharing of emotions and experiences. Your child will know they can share anything with you without fear of judgment or criticism, and learn to be more compassionate towards themselves which leads to building a positive sense of self. And you? You can feel better about yourself as a parent, knowing the work you’re doing every day is building your child’s trust in you and in themselves!
Effective Communication with Children
So let’s go back to Parent and Jamie, this time with the tools we’ve discussed, and see how this situation plays out:
“Good morning, honey,” Parent says, “It’s time to get up for school.”
Jamie responds, “I’m so tired,” rolls over and pulls the covers over their head.
Parent takes a moment, then calmly sits down on the edge of the bed. (Parent is setting aside their assumptions and getting ready to play detective.) Parent says, “It sounds like you’re tired and it’s really hard for you to get up today. I know those days, sometimes you wish you could stay in bed all day.” (Acknowledging Jamie’s wishes.)
“Yeah,” Jamie says, “I’m just so tired today.”
Parent responds, “It’s tough when it’s only the second day of the week and there are so many days to get through.” (Validating Jamie’s experience.)
“I know,” Jamie says, starting to move. “I had a hard time getting to sleep last night.” (Parent, sensing an opening, takes hold of their detective hat.) “Hmm, what do you think was happening to you?”
“I just kept worrying about my day yesterday and the argument I had with my friend,” Jamie says. (Parent now understands that Jamie’s not trying to get out of going to school as they feared; they’re worried about talking to their friend.)
“Oh, I see,” Parent says. “It can feel really terrible when we argue with a friend and then we don’t know how things will be when we see them again. It sounds like this has been worrying you all night.” (Validating Jamie’s experience and letting them know they understand the feelings they’re having.)
Jamie continues, “Yeah, I felt really sad that they didn’t want to sit with me at lunch, and wondered if I did something wrong…”
And suddenly, instead of locked in a power struggle, we’re getting some insight into our child’s world—and oh the possibilities for connection from there! This parent isn’t giving permission to stay in bed or skip school, but they are demonstrating that they understand Jamie’s experience. We know that sometimes our children will just have to do things they don’t want to do, but through this approach, we can avoid a power struggle and strengthen our parent-child relationship. We can deepen our child’s trust in us, and if we’re lucky, be brought into a part of their lives that we may not otherwise access. As a parent, I want to know that my child feels comfortable coming to me with anything, big or small. That way, when they have something they feel they cannot handle, I can trust that they will know I am ready to listen.
It’s not always going to be as easy as our example above. I used this idealized version to clearly demonstrate these parenting techniques in practice. In reality, however, the process may be messy, difficult, and hard to recognize when the opportunity arises. Practice and consistency are key. It is also important to note that, as in the example with Jamie, you may simply find that your child is tired and nothing more—but that can still be met with validation and compassion.
Depending on the age of your child, your current parenting style, and the connection established with your child so far, there may be some skepticism from your child when implementing these strategies. Know that you can learn to use these techniques effectively over time and build trust in your child that you want to understand their inner world and be there for them the best you can.
The strategies presented above are informed by the Emotion-Focused Family Therapy model, created by Dr. Adele Lafrance, Dr. Joanne Dolhanty, and Dr. Les Greenberg, which helps build greater connection with family relationships. If you’d like some individual assistance in implementing new parenting strategies with your child, we at Transforming Emotions can be your support and guide. Book a free consultation with me or with one of our other therapists to discuss your parenting goals.
