8. Universal Truth No. 6: All Children Model Their Primary Caregivers
Amother whose relationship with her young-adult daughter was faltering once wrote an email to Ty and Linda, asking for their advice. The mother lamented that she’d recently come home from a trip overseas to find that her daughter had bleached her hair “an unnatural light-orange shade.” Upon seeing her daughter in the airport, the mom blurted out, “What did you do to your hair?” and then launched into a lecture about how hard it would be to find a job looking like that.
The girl was hurt and furious. The mother-daughter relationship was fractured. Ty and Linda made an appointment to meet with the mom and her husband to lend some much-needed advice. The mother showed up for the meeting with purple hair.
Sometimes, we don’t realize how much our own modeling affects our children. When it comes to how we interact with our kids, what we choose to do with our time, how we present ourselves, the way we talk about ourselves, and so much more—what we model is, by far, the most important teaching tool we possess.
Nobel Peace Prize-winning philosopher Albert Schweitzer once said, “There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example, the second is by example, the third is by example.”
Lucky for us—and purple hair notwithstanding—this is usually a good thing.
Kids are crazy-good at picking up on all the nuances that make us decent people. They watch the way we greet our friends, the way we help our neighbors, the way we apologize if we bump into someone in the airport, the kindness we afford to strangers who trip on the street in front of us and need our help getting back up, and so on.
Truly, children don’t learn how to be decent human beings by being lectured. Children learn to be good people by watching good people do good things.
Yes, yes, sometimes we lose our tempers, we drive too fast, we spend too many hours online, we pour ourselves one too many glasses of wine—but, hey, we’re working on it! And compare the number of times we don’t model our values to the number of times we do—and there’s no comparison. The vast majority of the time, we are showing our children, through our actions, how to be a good person in this world—just as our parents did for us.
But we must be patient. Our standards of morality aren’t something that children internalize at an early age. They must see these standards repeated many, many times over the course of their childhoods before they can authentically enfold these standards into their own lives.
The irony (there are so many ironies in parenting!) is that the harder we push our children to display our values or manners or morals right now, in this moment, the less likely they are to want to cooperate with us right now, in this moment. The more we focus on their repeated failure to do the “right” thing, the more we push them away from us, thus crippling any sway we might otherwise have had. This is precisely why Purple-Haired Mom ended up in the Hatfields’ living room in the first place.
“Example isn’t another way to teach. It’s the only way to teach.”
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
It’s not just our behavior toward our friends, neighbors, and community members that we are role-modeling; it’s how we treat our children directly. The way we talk to them has a huge influence on the way they will talk to themselves when they are older. If we speak lovingly to them, they will probably speak lovingly to themselves. If we treat their dreams and aspirations as important, they are likely to follow those dreams and develop new aspirations throughout their lives.
By the same token, if we criticize our children or hold them to exceedingly high standards, chances are good that they will be critical of themselves and struggle to see their own accomplishments as “enough.” If we give them too little room to make mistakes, they are more likely to adopt perfectionist tendencies, relating their flaws to a loss of worth and dignity. If we call them names or question their choices, they will grow up calling themselves names and constantly questioning their own choices.
The same holds true for our own self-talk, of course. The voice we use on ourselves—the one no one hears but us—has been shaped by our parents’ voices. We perceive ourselves in much the same way we felt that our parents perceived us. The perceptions may be flawed, of course—our perceptions of our parents’ feelings are often dead wrong. But it doesn’t matter; our perceptions become our truth.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT, Part One: Describe Your Child
Before we go any further, we’d like to pause here and ask you to take a minute to complete this exercise. It is an exercise that leads to one of the biggest aha moments in Parenting from the Heart classes. But you need to complete it now, before you move on, or the aha will be lost.
For this exercise, name at least three negative qualities, behaviors, or adjectives that you think describe your child at this stage in life, focusing specifically on the traits or behaviors that seem to trigger you the most.
At my child’s current age and stage, he/she is or can be . . .
Next, think about the positive qualities, behaviors, or adjectives you think describe your child at this stage in life, focusing specifically on the traits or behaviors that you look on with admiration.
At my child’s current age and stage, he/she is or can be . . .
Thank you! We’ll revisit this later in the chapter, so stay tuned.
Mistakes Were Made! Let’s Model Them
We adults can be so hard on ourselves. We grit our teeth when we forget our phones and have to go back home to get them. We curse when we break a glass or burn a pan of cookies. We judge ourselves harshly for even tiny mistakes.
“That was so stupid!” I once absentmindedly muttered to myself after taking the wrong exit off the freeway.
“You should go to college!” my then-three-year-old told me from the backseat, linking me back to reality.
Kids make lots and lots of mistakes. It’s literally how they learn. Yet we parents sometimes model a low tolerance for our own mistakes; we may even hide them from our kids to avoid looking weak or, in my case, “stupid.”
As children, many of us were taught, by example, to hide our mistakes, get defensive, make excuses for them, blame others, or overly apologize. It’s time to stop this cycle. Instead of teaching kids to deny their mistakes, we can teach them that mistakes are unavoidable, essential, and ultimately even positive aspects of the human experience. But we must try to go easier on ourselves, let ourselves make “stupid” mistakes, and let our kids see those mistakes for what they are: no big deal.
We also must do our level best to accept our kids’ mistakes, too—which may seem easy on the surface but is actually a sticky area for many of us, especially those of us who tend to judge others and ourselves rather harshly.
So, now, let’s talk about projections.
A projection is a disliked quality, impulse, or behavior that we have disowned in ourselves but that we assign to others. These qualities exist within us, but because we have disowned them, we are unable to see or recognize them in ourselves. Instead, often unconsciously, we keep these qualities tucked firmly away, while openly judging them as “wrong” in those around us.
Projection: A psychological theory in which humans defend themselves against their own personal behaviors, traits, and impulses by denying the existence of said behaviors, traits, or impulses in themselves and instead attributing them to others.
Projections can be negative or positive. Negative projections are a form of self-protection, absolving us from taking responsibility for our own disturbances. Positive projections result from our failure to recognize our own positive traits.
Projections are extremely common in all of us. Negative projections account for a number of our emotional “triggers”—that is, things that tend to make us overreact in anger. Positive projections reveal themselves when we raise up, put on a pedestal, or idolize people.
If I overreact to someone’s dishonesty, it’s likely a sign that I, too, am dishonest—or have the capacity to be dishonest. If I am in awe of someone’s courage, it’s likely that I am brave in certain areas of my life—or have the capacity to be brave.
Now, certainly, we are all dishonest from time to time—and we all possess some degree of courage. But we are not talking about simply observing someone else’s dishonesty or noticing their courage. We are talking about being emotionally triggered by both of them—either in a positive way or a negative way. This is how we know we’re projecting. This is how we know we have those traits hiding somewhere inside us.
Projections usually grow out of experiences we had as children. Because of something our parents said, taught, or modeled, or because of something we have ourselves experienced, we have decided that certain behaviors are not okay. We know, on some level, that we possess these attributes—or believe we do because that’s what we’ve been told—but we have essentially disowned them. We may not be consciously aware of them at all.
In fact, that’s often the case.
How Do You Know If You’re Projecting? Look for “Shoulds” and “Wishes”
Our projections often lead us to make judgments about people and issue labels. And, to be clear, some of our labels may be true! Our music-blaring neighbor may, in fact, be thoughtless, but noticing he is thoughtless and being triggered by his thoughtlessness are two different things. Being triggered means we are reacting from a state of emotional distress. There is nothing neutral about our observation; we are decidedly not okay with the behavior.
Negative projections often involve words like “should” and “shouldn’t.” (“He should be more responsible.”) Positive projections involve words like, “I wish.” (“I wish I could sing like that.”) For example, say a friend borrows your car and then returns it with an empty tank. If you also have taken advantage of a friend’s kindness in the past—and who among us hasn’t?—you’ll be more likely to be triggered by it. “I’m so annoyed that she didn’t think to refill the gas tank,” you might mutter to yourself. “That’s so selfish. She should know better!”
When “should” or “shouldn’t” pop into your head, it’s a red flag that you may be projecting.The same for “I wish I could . . .”
He should be grateful for all he has.
He should keep his room clean.
She should wear something else.
She should be on time.
I wish I could sing like her.
I wish I could have her patience.
I wish I could have her bravery, so I could travel around the world like that.
I wish I could publish a parenting book, too.
Again, noticing that your friend forgot to refill your tank doesn’t mean you are projecting. You might, for example, notice the empty tank of gas and think, I’ll let her know to refill it next time.
The difference between these two reactions lies in the intensity of the emotion. When you notice a person’s behavior, your reaction is neutral to mild; when you are triggered by a person’s behavior, your reaction is stronger and has a judgmental quality to it. (“She does this stuff all the time!”)
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT, Part Two: Describe Yourself
Now for the second half of our exercise. Did you forget about that? For this, we’ll ask you to go back to each one of those qualities and adjectives you used to describe your child earlier and, to the right of every one, write “just like me.”
“Selfish . . . just like me.”
“Stubborn . . . just like me.”
“Smart . . . just like me.”
“Talented . . . just like me.”
It’s interesting—isn’t it?—to look through the “projector” at our relationships with our kids? The negative and positive judgments we place on them often reveal a lot about ourselves.
True Story!
In writing this book, I went back and found my notes from the day the Hatfields asked me to list the negative judgments I’d made about my then-five-year-old daughter. Here’s what I wrote: “Impatient, picky, embarrassing (sometimes), too talkative, stubborn (sometimes), hyper (sometimes), demanding.” I remember thinking deeply about the things that triggered me in those days, and I remember so clearly the aha moment that followed when I was asked to write, “Just like me” alongside each of those adjectives. It made so much sense to me. I really am all of those things, at least at times, and to be able to see and accept it relieved me of the burden of judging my daughter harshly—or of trying to “fix” what wasn’t really broken. From that moment on, whenever I find myself making a negative judgment about my kid, I turn it back on myself. Am I that way from time to time? And often the answer is yes. Yes, I am.
“Isn’t That Interesting?”
To be clear, the central problem is not that we are carrying around baggage from our own childhoods or that we are flawed or that we possess negative qualities. This is the price we pay to be alive on this planet. The central problem is that sometimes we refuse to acknowledge these flaws or qualities, much less accept them—and then we discard them on others.
A bully, for example, often projects his own feelings of vulnerability on his victims and then attacks that vulnerability because he can’t accept it in himself. A teacher who overreacts to criticism cannot accept his own critical tendencies. And parents who are triggered by their children’s mistakes likely can’t accept their own.
So next time you find yourself triggered by something your child does, try saying to yourself, “Isn’t that interesting?” and then spend a few moments identifying what is inside you that may be causing the reaction.
“To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves . . . And most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.”
—JOHN HOLT
Healing Those Projections
Identifying your projections is helpful for two reasons: First, simple awareness makes us far less likely to act on our anger, thus protecting our relationships with the people around us. And, second, when we acknowledge our projections, we can try to “heal” them.
But how?
Projections can be healed by accepting and forgiving the behavior in ourselves. We can help temper our response to the impatience of others by recognizing that we are sometimes impatient ourselves and we forgive ourselves. We can temper our response to the dishonesty of others by noticing and accepting that we are dishonest sometimes, too. We can temper our response to the emotional neediness of our children by accepting that we are emotionally needy sometimes, too.
Although recognizing our projections might help us to “improve” ourselves, it’s important to note that, oftentimes, we don’t need to be “fixed.” Our healing lies in accepting our weaknesses and flaws for what they are: understandable, human behaviors resulting from years of personal experience.
Self-forgiveness is a powerful ally. When you notice you’ve been triggered and are projecting onto someone else, be patient with yourself. Give yourself a break. Pat yourself on the back for all those fine, underappreciated qualities you possess. And then extend that patience, break-giving, and back-patting to those around you, especially—especially—your kids.
This, ultimately, is what will help provide you the wherewithal to jump off the merry-go-round of projections and grant your child the opportunity to recognize her own strengths and forgive her own shortcomings when she becomes an adult.
Are You a Behaviorally Challenged Parent?
Adults often label kids as “misbehaving.” But is it possible that we are projecting our own “misbehavior” onto them? Take a look at the following questions, adapted from a blog post by Tamara Parnay, and see what you think. How many of these have you done?
Do you ever:
Talk with your mouth full?
Skip the broccoli and eat the ice cream?
Have trouble choosing what to wear?
Forget to say “please” or “thank you”?
Stay up past your bedtime?
Prefer not to sleep alone?
Forget to brush your teeth?
Spill things?
Break a bowl or plate?
Get food stains on your clothes?
Cry when you’re sad or frustrated?
Fidget when you’re bored or nervous?
Complain when you feel ill at ease?
Want to be the center of attention?
Become irritable when you are tired or hungry?
Decide not to share your things?
Not come home promptly when called?
Leave your clothes and things around?
Prefer playing or relaxing to doing chores?
Need repeated reminders?
Have trouble buying only essential items when shopping?
Speak too loudly or too often?
Get distracted?
Daydream?
Spend too much time on your phone or computer?
Feel annoyed at being told what to do?
Have trouble getting along with others?
Avoid eye contact during heated moments?
Become withdrawn when not getting the support you need?
Feel indignant when people don’t take your feelings or concerns seriously?
Enjoy having others serve you?
Need support when you are sad or scared?
Forget where you put something?
Forget to bring along your jacket?
Need approval?
Get defensive?
Make excuses?
Tell little lies to protect yourself from disapproval?
Get frustrated when not being given the benefit of the doubt?
Become frustrated when you can’t figure out something to do?
Become adamant about doing or learning things on your own, in your own time?
Zone out instead of listening to what someone is saying?
Skip reading the directions?
Have trouble controlling your emotions?
Become irritable for no apparent reason?
Reject hugs and kisses?
Walk away when being lectured to?
Have difficulty saying, “I’m sorry”?
Become uncomfortable when others talk about you in your presence, as if you weren’t there?
Feel stressed or rushed?
React negatively to threats, bribes, or other forms of manipulation?
Get overwhelmed by complex instructions or explanations?
Become sad when you feel misunderstood?
Complain when you don’t get your way?
Complain when you have to sit in the car for a long time?
Complain when the weather isn’t cooperating with your plans?
Need reassurance that you are loved and valued?
Get thrown out of the zone and need people to be patient with you while you get back in?
Some projections may never fully go away, but a number of them can be bypassed, lessened, or eliminated completely with thoughtful awareness and self-forgiveness. How do you know a negative behavior is not a projection anymore? You are able to observe it without being triggered by it.
In this context, falling on your sword means taking responsibility for your own wrongdoing. It’s a way to acknowledge your role, clear the air, and start fresh. You might apologize to your child after you’ve lost your temper or when you notice you’ve made too few deposits in your child’s Emotional Bank Account, or when you recognize your expectations have been unreasonable. You may fall on your sword when you notice a projection is contributing to a problem rather than helping to solve it. Falling on your sword also is a great way to role model for your kids that we all make mistakes, we are all imperfect, and we all deserve another chance.
Rewind
In Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, author Naomi Aldort urges parents to go easy on themselves when they react in anger or fall back on old tactics. The trick, she explained, is to catch yourself as soon as possible and “rewind” the situation. She suggests halting the conversation and saying, “Rewind! I am going to redo that last scene.”
Owning Our Part
As parents, one of the hardest things we face is being able to acknowledge our limitations, weaknesses, and mistakes for what they are, and to own our parts in the problems we create with our kids.
One of the first questions you will be asked in the ParentShift Solutions Process in Part Three is, “Do you play a role in this challenge?” This is the second place in the process where you cannot choose no.
We all play roles in the challenges we face with our kids.
There is much to be gained by taking a few moments toward the beginning of any conflict to ask yourself, “How did I contribute to this situation?” and “What is going on here that I may not be grasping?” Not only will a bit of self-reflection buy you patience and humility at a time when many of us are driven to drop both in favor of control and indignation, but it will help shed some light on the blind spots in your parenting.
Regardless of when, how, and where we were raised, we’ve all come to adulthood with a fair share of baggage. This is natural and doesn’t mean we had terrible parents! It just means that, as is often the case, our parents laid some things on us that didn’t suit us, just as their parents did before them. Maybe they misjudged what we needed or took for granted that we would “get over” certain missteps on their part. Very likely, they had internalized what their parents had told and taught them over the years and were simply passing on certain messages without giving them a second thought. It happens.
As Thomas Gordon wrote in PET: Parent Effectiveness Training, “Parents today rely almost universally on the same methods of raising children and dealing with problems in their families that were used by their own parents, by their parent’s parents, by their grandparents’ parents. Unlike almost all other institutions of society, the parent-child relationship seems to have remained unchanged. Parents depend on methods used two thousand years ago!”
Luckily, these generational cycles are not without chicken exits, and all the exits are illuminated by honest self-reflection.
“Owning your part” is only part of the ParentShift Solutions Process. It won’t magically make your kid’s whining or crying or hostility go away. And please understand: Knowing the part we play does not mean we are to blame for every mishap or that we’re supposed to feel guilty for our missteps. On the contrary! It simply allows us to take a half-step back and look at the situation more rationally and realistically in the moment. Although it’s not always pleasant, struggles with our kids allow us endless opportunity for self-improvement. It’s one of the overlooked advantages of being a parent.
“Good parenting does not come naturally. What comes naturally is to treat your children the way you yourself were treated.”
—ALETHA SOLTER
Six Self-Reflective Questions
If you are having trouble identifying what part you play in a given challenge—again, we always play a part—try asking yourself these six self-reflective questions:
1. “How did I contribute to this situation?”
2. “Is this challenge exacerbated by a projection?”
3. “What is going on that I may not be grasping?”
4. “Am I modeling the behaviors I’d like to see?”
5. “Am I expecting too much or too little from my child?”
6. “What will I do to reestablish the relationship with my child?”
A Day at Disneyland (It Was Never Going to End Well)
Let’s say you take your six-year-old to Disneyland. (Bless your heart.) It has been a long, fantastic day, and you let your kid do everything he wanted. But it’s very late, he hasn’t eaten in a few hours, and it’s time to go. He isn’t even remotely prepared for that transition and, as a result, refuses to leave. You put on your serious voice, and when that doesn’t work, you tell him you are not going to bring him back to Disneyland if he can’t leave without throwing a fit. Now he is running away from you. Now he is screaming at you. Now he is punching the living daylights out of his Mickey Mouse balloon.
This time, instead of reacting, you sit down on the nearest bench and give yourself a few moments to reflect.
1.How did I contribute to this situation?
Well, knowing your six-year-old as you do, perhaps you could have prepared in advance for the predictably rough transition, giving him lots of notice, leaving the park earlier, making sure he was well fed, and showing empathy for his feelings. That would have required more work on the front end, but maybe the more peaceful transition would have been worth it.
2. Is this challenge exacerbated by a projection?
If you were shamed as a child for having strong emotions or “acting spoiled,” this display may have triggered you. Regardless of your reaction, though, does his meltdown mean there’s something wrong with your child? Nope.
3. What is going on that I may not be grasping?
You have a hungry, tired, overstimulated six-year-old kid on your hands. Chances were nil that the day was going to end with logic (“Yes, Daddy, you’re right, it is late and I’m very tired!”) or gratitude (“Thank you for spending your entire retirement savings in this theme park, Mommy!”).
4. Am I modeling the behaviors I’d like to see?
To be honest, no. You got angry and threatened him instead of showing patience with him. You were not showing your son how to resolve the conflict peacefully, and he picked up on it.
5. Am I expecting too much or too little from my child?
If you expected him to act like an adult, then yes. He has a little body that has age-appropriate needs to be met. Because he’s having a gigantic and inconvenient meltdown does not make him selfish or uncooperative; he is a normal kid with normal needs who just wants to see Donald Duck one last time.
6. What will I do to reestablish the relationship with my child?
Maybe you choose to acknowledge his feelings, get him fed, and take a break before leaving, knowing that the ride home will be more peaceful if you do. Regardless of your immediate action, though, you vow to reconnect later, when both of you are happy (and well fed). Then you can share with him your feelings about why you were triggered and apologize for threatening him. You can tell him that leaving fun places is hard and maybe brainstorm some ideas for how to make it little less hard in the future.
When Kids “Go Low,” Parents “Go High”
When we question our assumptions, become aware of our projections, role-model the behavior we want to see in our kids, and make conscious choices to treat our children the way we want to be treated—even when, because of their ages or stages in life, our children are unable to do the same for us—we immediately begin parenting at a higher level.
Indeed, it is this ability to “go high” when our kids “go low” that distinguishes a parent from a peer.
When we aim for conscious awareness about the role we play in our parenting challenges, we help ourselves immensely—but the benefit we bring to our kids is immeasurable. Will our kids get to adulthood with some baggage? Without question. But every time we own our part in our children’s challenges, we lighten the load just a little bit. And all those little bits add up to a whole damn lot. By now it may be obvious that we play roles in all the challenges we face with our kids. Our actions may be minor. Our actions may be subconscious on our part. But they’re there. And, lucky for us, they’re usually pretty obvious if we just give them a little thought.
To recap, here are some of the many ways in which we contribute to everyday challenges:
• Allowing kids to become overstimulated
• Being inconsistent about bedtime limits
• Being poor boundary-setters
• Expecting too much or too little of children
• Failing to follow through on promises
• Keeping kids dependent because it makes parents feel good
• Keeping kids out too late at night
• Letting too much time pass between meals
• Neglecting kids’ emotional needs
• Overdoing (doing for the child what she could do for herself)
• Projecting onto our children
• Overreacting/losing temper
• Poor role-modeling (“Do as I say, not as I do” attitude)
• Using feeling blockers
• Using punishments, bribery, or rewards
True Story!
When Kelly Hatfield was six or seven, she kept her room terribly messy—which was constantly triggering her mom, Linda. Every time Linda would go into Kelly’s room, she would only see the mess. “Kelly, you need to pick up your clothes,” she would say. “Kelly, you need to pick up your toys . . . Kelly, you need to make your bed. And don’t forget to pick up those toys while you’re at it.” Her nagging did no good, but she still nagged. Then, one day, it hit her. This was Kelly’s room, not hers. The trigger was within her, and if she wanted to hold on to the relationship with her daughter, she needed to stop. She began to ask herself, “Am I coming to visit the clothes on the floor, or am I coming to visit Kelly? I’m coming to visit Kelly.” From that day on, she stopped paying attention to the mess and started paying attention to her daughter. Before too long, she didn’t even notice the clothes. And within a handful of years, her daughter had grown up, moved out of the house, and left no more clothes on the floor at all.
ParentShift Assignment: Reflect on Your Last Conflict
Think back to the last conflict you had with your child, or wait for the next one. Go through the six reflective questions. In what ways might you have contributed to the challenge?
Use this toolkit when you have contributed to the current challenge in some way. For example, you have not modeled the behavior you wish to seek, you are triggered by certain issues and are projecting those onto your child, you have been using feeling blockers and/or punishments, you have failed to recognize a physical or emotional need, or you have paid too little attention to your child’s Emotional Bank Account.
•Acknowledge your PROJECTIONS—both negative and positive.
•When triggered, say to yourself, “ISN’T THAT INTERESTING?”
•MODEL the behavior you wish to see.
•ACCEPT AND SHARE YOUR OWN MISTAKES.
•FALL ON YOUR SWORD.
•HIT REWIND.
•Ask the SIX SELF-REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS.
•Practice SELF-FORGIVENESS.