I only know of one way to protect your child from mistreatment by others as they grow up. Without it, they are destined to spend their life ruled by the words, expectations, and judgements of others. They will spend their life acting based on what they think others think of them, a terribly shaky foundation for life.
They've got to learn to trust their own judgement.
They've got to learn to trust their own judgement.
It took me a long time to learn to trust my judgement. In the past, and even sometimes now, I would question my decisions over and over. I would look to other people to validate them. I'd choose to do what I thought someone else would approve of.
It turns out a life lived based on others' beliefs or expectations is empty. It's painful. And it's doomed.
It's painful because I would put great effort into something, offer it to the world, and then look to someone else to tell me it was good enough. Often they didn't.
How could they? They have their own priorities, beliefs, wounds, and patterns. Most of the time, like at work, they were simply busy. And other times, often in relationships, they couldn't see beyond their patterns or wounds to see me clearly.
I've experienced this with my parents, friends, bosses, and romantic partners—all people doing their best and seeing life through a lens of wounds and patterns.
Does this sound too pessimistic to you? Surely not everyone sees us through their wounds and patterns. It’s not pessimistic. I am sure it’s true. Very few people put in the time, money, and energy required to resolve their patterns and wounds. And even those that do encounter new triggers as they move through life. We’re all going through it. Our wounds and patterns frame how we experience everyone in our lives. This is even true for those we love. For them, it’s the most true.
When you limit your child's ability to express their emotions, you teach them to distrust themselves.
Growing up in the middle of a divorce, often there wasn't room for how I felt. Everyone was emotionally overloaded. When my emotions flared up, sometimes it would push our family's emotional quotient over the maximum, and a fight would break out.
I learned to suppress my needs and emotions to maintain safety.
The natural conclusion for my little self-involved brain was that my feelings and thoughts could not be trusted because when I was upset and expressed my feelings, I lost my safety.
A yelling parent is a scary, unsafe thing for an eight-year-old. You're much bigger and louder than they are, and you control everything that keeps them alive. Of course you won't withhold those things from them, but their nervous system doesn't know that. All it knows is the person they rely on for everything is yelling loudly at them, out of control of themselves. They see the blood rushing to your face; they sense your heartbeat; they see your tense fists. You're in an intimidating stance, and it's having that effect.
When you get upset, your child can't maintain a boundary or leave to create safety; their only option is to ignore their needs and be whatever you need them to be, to be calm. They learn to numb themselves to their thoughts and feelings to maintain safety. They develop a deep mistrust of their judgment that continues into adulthood.
My story is not unique. It happens to children all over the world every day. It may have happened to you. And if so, it may be happening to your children.
This matters because your child will interact with many people acting out patterns and wounds over their lifetime. People will lie to your child, blinded by fear, guilt, anger, or shame. Driven by insecurity, they will be unfair, mean, and hurtful. I've done it to others. I have lied. I have hurt people as I unconsciously acted out my wounds and patterns. And others have done the same to me. It hurts.
To be safe, content, and successful, your child needs to know how to hold boundaries when others mistreat them. Counter-intuitively, the way to teach them that is to be safe yourself so they don’t learn to mistrust their thoughts and feelings.
The only way to protect your child from mistreatment by others is to teach your child to rely on their own judgment of their own actions.
In a world where everyone is acting out their patterns and wounds (and they are), our only defence is to rely on our judgments of ourselves. We've got to teach kids to see themselves for who they are, not for whom others see them to be.
There are two parts to this. The first is to bring awareness to their thoughts and feelings, and the second is to take deliberate action.
First, help your kids become aware of their thoughts and feelings by asking them what they think and feel. My transformation from emotional volatility to a stable, content adult has been a transformation in awareness. I still remember the day a coach taught me that my feelings were signals for me to pay attention to, rather than inescapable tyrannical forces within me. It was life-changing. I was 26 years old. Don't let your kids wait that long to find out.
The second is teaching them to take the right actions. Our minds know something is true, our emotions feel something is true, while our bodies experience something as true. There is nothing more true to us than our experience. In that way, our actions are the true source of what we know about ourselves.
As a side note, this is what makes lying so unhealthy. You create conflict between what you're forcing your mind to 'know' and what your body has experienced. You're doing the opposite of what this essay is about. Your demonstrating that you cannot trust yourself. Lying is horrible for you.
This summer, I have taken action with my diet to experience the body I want to have. I always knew I was an athlete, I now experience it in way I have never before. It's incredible how much more confident I feel having taken action. The same is true in all areas of life. When we experience ourselves as the person we want to be by taking action, we trust our judgment of ourselves.
When you teach your child to take action towards being the person they know deep down they are, you teach them to trust themselves.
Teach them to listen to others, without taking on their judgments
I’m not suggesting you teach your child to ignore feedback. Feedback is a crucial part of understanding ourselves and of being coached, ignore it at your peril. But it's tricky.
Sometimes, others see parts of us we don't see ourselves, which is valuable. Sometimes, we perceive judgments from them that aren't there, instead perceiving how we unconsciously see of ourselves; this too is valuable when we catch it. And sometimes, they see parts of us that are really parts of themselves, which is deeply unhelpful.
Teasing out which is which is hard. The only way I've figured out how to do it is through awareness and action. As I understand myself better through awareness, I find I'm able to read others better too. That helps me tease out whether feedback from someone is an unconscious pattern or wound they are acting out, a deliberate manipulation (this happens), or a truth.
Your child is going to face countless decisions over their lifetime. Their experience of life will be drastically different, depending on whether they trust their judgment. If you teach your child to trust theirs, you're helping protect your child from mistreatment by others.