The interplay between parents and children are many. In the best of times, both children and parents long for connections that make them closer. In lesser times, interactions between parents and children may produce an experience of disconnection. Disconnections usually occur as a result of how we deal with conflict or how we manage painful feelings and emotions. These missed connections or ruptures in the relationship tend to result in parents and children either turning against each other or turning against themselves. Mindful parenting can help.
For example, let us say that a member in the family is gravely ill. As parents, we may be feeling sad and frightened about this person but do not know how to handle these feelings in relationships with our children. They ask questions and we defend against our uncomfortable feelings if our children threaten to evoke them. This is confusing to children because they pick up on the feelings not communicated as well as the behavior that pushes them away. Unsettled about their own emotions and their parents’ behavior, children withdraw believing that they are the problem.
Children deeply need and want connections with their parents to help manage difficult feelings. Parents can provide the tools to help their children make sense of their emotional experiences by providing them with empathic and empowering interactions in which they feel heard and understood and can connect with the truth of their own experiences. Parents who cannot respond with some recognition of their own feelings may have difficulty responding to the feelings of their children. The possibility for connection between parents and children lessens.
Disconnections in the relationship between parents and children can have long-term developmental consequences. One possible outcome when children are left to figure things out on their own is that they may learn to believe that their actions, feelings, and thoughts when expressed lead not to connection but to a confusing sense of isolation. Instead of participating together with the parent in an emotional experience, the child struggles alone, feeling disconnected and isolated.
Many mental health professionals agree that disconnections can be a source of psychological problems. Children especially can be harmed from experiences of disconnection in ways that can generalize beyond the family onto other relationships. Children can learn relational skills that hamper their abilities to engage and connect with people. But children can also grow from disconnected experiences when an effort is made to repair and resolve them into reconnections.
Mindful parenting can help to create new and better connections between parents and their children. Mindful parenting techniques and skills that emphasize compassion and acceptance is one path towards experiencing a mutual connection and a growth-fostering relationship. Parents can practice mindfulness by both being aware of their own thoughts and feelings and by helping their children organize and make meaning of their emotional experiences. We want parents and children to experience a mutually empowering and engaging relationship. Stay connected!
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Although he doesn’t call it by this name, I find emotional coaching which he reffers to to be a huge help with my children – especially when they are little. I often find myself saying “you are feeling….” giving them time to fill in the blank. When they are younger – of course they can’t always do that. I find that it does come with time though (and untill then I fill in the blank the best I can using guess-work). I never thought about emotional coaching in terms of ‘connectedness’ and found this very interesting. Thanks!