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Video: Such Necessary Mistakes Of Parents - Society
Now in therapy, I have several clients who are very sensitive to their children. I would even say anxious and alert. They try very hard in their motherhood. They don't want to make mistakes. Some unseen force compels them to read books on psychology, take courses in mindfulness parenting, study the experiences of other mothers in search of guidance on how to avoid injuring their children.
When I begin to study their personal stories, I understand the reason for this trepidation: childhood trauma. Moms carry them in themselves. Having experienced neglect on the part of their parents, abandonment, aggression, defenselessness in childhood, they imagine their own child as a vulnerable, hypersensitive creature who easily becomes unhappy.
However, it is not. A child can endure a lot. Moreover, he needs to experience some degree of discomfort. He needs a certain amount of independence, even if he makes mistakes. He needs, very much needs mistakes in order to learn from them.
The child is able to endure an imperfect parent
Example No. 1
One mother of a six-year-old daughter once said to me in amazement: “My God, how much time I spend when I explain to her why she needs to learn the language, and all these rationalizations cause terrible resistance in her and have no meaning! But if I say that I do not want to read such and such a fairy tale because I do not like it, she agrees: you cannot do what you don’t like! How different is this from what happened in my parental family: for my parents, in principle, mine did not exist? I don’t want to?”.
Example No. 2
Another mom is very anxious when she leaves her daughters to babysit more than a couple of times a week. From the outside, I can see that she is worried about something from her past, but she herself cannot remember anything “like that” in her childhood. Until one incident brought the dormant injury to the surface. On New Year's Eve, her husband was called to work, and she was left alone with the children on the holiday. The fear and panic that arose puzzled her a lot.
In the session, I asked her to immerse herself in the experience that had arisen and describe where and with whom she was. The woman, who immediately turned into a three-year-old child, replied that she was alone, mom and dad were not around and she was scared. It soon became clear that her childhood feelings were "on the surface" when she lived with cold and demanding grandparents from the age of three to school. She did not dare to miss her mom and dad, because feelings were judged. And it also soon became clear what was the reason for her hypertrophied care for children - the psyche "remembered" how awful it was to be abandoned by the most dear people.
- Tell me, what did you lack so that you do not feel your loneliness and abandonment?
“I needed… to be spoken to. Why is there no mom. To be allowed to feel and grieve. And so that adults recognize their responsibility. Because I thought it was my fault that they left me.
Talk about what's going on
Children can stand our mistakes and mistakes if we are not afraid to admit them. If we respect our children enough to talk to them about what is happening. And if we allow them to feel: angry, grieve, sad.
When I divorced my husband, my children were sad. The daughter was angry: “Why didn't you make up? How could you? Why haven't you thought of me? " I talked about how hard it is for me: parting for me is a painful process. Everything changes, we learn to live separately.
I recognized her right to be angry. I admitted that I could not maintain the relationship, but not because I did not try, but because our values diverged greatly. And living separately was better than living together and hating each other.
My daughter sobbed on my shoulder. I cried too. The next day, she said, "I've been through so much that now I feel strong." It was so touching and wise that I could not help but admire her. Then she and the other children came to terms with what had happened.
