Vignette #1
Your teenage daughter walks in the door from school and SLAMS it shut! With her head down, eyebrows lowered, and bottom lip slightly puckered, she quickly stomps down the hall to her room and slams that door as well. You follow her down the hall, gently open the door and politely say, “Honey, are you upset?”
Vignette #2
Your three year old son is playing with his favorite toy. As he gets deeper and deeper into imaginative play, he starts getting more and more excited, which can also be translated, rowdier and rowdier. It’s inevitable at this point. You know it, your spouse knows it, and on some subconscious level, he probably knows it to – he’s about to hurt himself. He runs to you in a fit of tears. You look down at him with compassionate eyes and with a comforting tone say, “Did you hurt yourself?”
Do either of these vignettes ring true for you? These are just a couple of examples where we ask our children questions with answers that are too obvious. In some situations, like the one with the teenage girl, your child will just blatantly lie. She might say with obvious irritation in her voice, “No, Mom/Dad. I’m fine!” In her mind, she’s thinking, “If you don’t know, I’m not telling,” or, better yet, “Duh!”
Despite whether or not our children answer the questions honestly, the message we send to them is that “I am not in tune with what is going on with you. I am emotionally unaware.” I think I can safely say, if you are reading this, that you do not want your kids to think you are not in tune with their emotions. So, next time you see an opportunity such as the two mentioned above, try making observations instead of asking questions. You might say the following:
"Honey, I can see you’re angry about something. Would you like to talk about that?” (calm, gentle tone)
“Ouchy! You really hurt your leg with that toy! I hate it when I hurt myself!” (matching the tone of the child, while wrapping him in your arms)
If you have trouble identifying the exact emotion, you can be a little more generic by saying something like:
“I can see something is bothering you.” or “It seems something has got you upset.”
Communicating to your kids that you are emotionally in tune with them has many benefits. Here are just a few:
- Builds trust in the parent-child relationship.
- Helps children increase their emotional vocabulary and understand their emotional repertoire.
- Creates opportunities for connection in the parent-child relationship.
Parental Challenge: Spend some time in alone and reflect on how you talk and interact with your children, especially when they are expressing difficult emotion (e.g., anger, confusion, fear, sadness). Make a commitment to change one aspect of how you behave in these situations. Making observations instead of asking questions would be a good place to start.
Good luck and God bless.
**More information on Josh or his parenting program known as The R.I.S.K.S. of Parenting can be found on his website. *
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