Translating Hurtful Language

Folks, I want to share with you a conversation I had with a parent in a support group I co-admin called Gentle Parents Unite. I want to bring it out here because I think it's one of those things that may be very helpful to you and your co-parent and other folks who question this whole gentle parenting approach. I want to thank the parent who engaged with me and asked so many great and relatable questions!!!

♥♥♥

PARENT'S QUESTION: “I’m struggling with what to say or how to act when she just talks ‘harshly’ to me like.. all day. She’s not feeling too well at the moment on top of everything or sleeping very well.

“She will say ‘no don't talk to me, no go away’ but very, very aggressively when I’m just speaking to her normally like we have always done. Or I’m helping her with something, and she will tell me to ‘leave me alone I HATE YOU’ out of nowhere. And I just am left hanging I don’t know what to say.

“A few times it’s slipped out and I’ve said, ‘That’s made mummy feel so sad,’ and it’s made her act worse, and I know she’s not supposed to feel responsible for my feelings. I just don’t know what to say. It does hurt, I feel abused almost all day by the tone and the aggression when I’m just being with her. If I give her space, she gets more upset. I’m just really lost…”

MARJI RESPONDED: Here's a way of responding that may be helpful:

CHILD (frustrated): “I HATE YOU!!!!! Go away!”

PARENT (breathing and intending to radiate calmness, reminding themselves that the child DOES NOT ‘hate’ the parent, only the situation or the frustrated feeling they’re having): I hear you! I’ll be here when you need me! That’s a very rough feeling to have! I’m glad you told me!

Essentially, you are ENCOURAGING the ‘bad’ feelings to come out, like the way you’d help take a splinter out or hold a friend’s hair who is sick to their stomach.

It’s not nice or pretty; it’s rather vulnerable, actually, but YOU are the child’s safe person who gets to create intentional safety. Sometimes, that means getting a little emotional ‘vomitus’ on your clothing.

Imagine that you need someone who has told you they’re really strong so that you can really lean on them. Like, imagine you’ve sprained your ankle and now you need this person to support your body weight so that you can get out of a situation in which you got hurt. This person assured you they were your strong person. Only when you go to lean on them, your strong person buckles under the pressure! You can see that they really ARE strong enough but it seems that they told themselves a story that they were too weak or vulnerable or they made your pain their pain. How might that feel to you as the dependent person?

That’s a very loose approximation of what your child MIGHT be experiencing.

And I say that because you said her words are STILL hurting you. What’s hurting you is not her words, but THE STORY YOU ARE TELLING YOURSELF about her words.

Know this: Her words have no power to affect your feelings. You are the only one with that power over your feelings. Your story is what makes you buckle under the weight of her pain. Change your story and speak with empathy and validation.

PARENT RESPONDS: My husband is very confused how we teach her that saying ‘I hate you’ isn’t ok. I think it’s really breaking his heart to hear her say it to me and he doesn’t know how to respond when he hears it and immediately tries to get her to say sorry which to my mind is making it worse!

MARJI'S RESPONSE: I see!!! I can understand why your husband is so confused!

We can’t “teach” someone that what they’re doing (especially if it’s something they’re doing out of a pain reaction) isn’t OK without paying the very steep price of their self-esteem as well as a break in the trust bond in the mutual relationship.

You can, however, model ways of relating for them that they will adopt because kids do what their parents do, not what their parents tell them to do.

I think it was Gandhi who said we must be what we want our children to become.

How did your child learn to speak? By listening to you and connecting the dots to speak the way you speak. English-speaking parents don’t have French-speaking children. 🙂 And, when we speak the language of respect and empathy, that’s the language kids learn to speak (but only when they’re ready, and not one second before).

Saying, “It’s not OK to speak that way” only reinforces wrongness. When kids say hurtful things, it’s not about “right” and “wrong.” It’s about needs. But making about right or wrong undermines the child's ability to communicate and reduces their ability to trust in your ability to help them. It also introduces shame into the feelings “stew.”

If you said, “I hear you’re in pain, but it’s not OK to speak to me like that,” do you think that will help a kid do better or might that pour gasoline on the fire? What has your experience been?

Alternatively, you can say, “Oh honey, when I hear you speak to me like that, that tells me that something is REALLY hurting you because that’s the only time you’d say something so hurtful! I’m glad you told me, and I want to help if I can. What’s hurting you right now? What do you need?”

This powerful way of responding tells the child that they can REALLY trust their parent to be strong and capable and stick with them no matter what.

We all need people in our lives who will show up for us that way...who will hear beyond the words and will translate the angry words into what the person would say if they could.

That is how we show a child that we see the best in them.

Does that make sense?

PARENT RESPONDS: Yes, I think so. I think I’m still stuck on the fact that I’m supposed to be showing her that all emotions are ok and safe, but I have to hide my emotions to be calm and careful. That may be because it’s so hard for me, as mine were completely neglected as a child, but I just struggle to push down any emotions as I’ve worked really hard on allowing myself to feel and not mask. Gosh, it's complicated.

MARJI'S RESPONSE: I hear you!!!!! It sounds utterly backward...until you realize it’s NOT that you are hiding your emotions! It’s that you are QUESTIONING your story and allowing a more accurate story to inform your emotions.

Here’s what I mean. If you’re feeling hurt because you heard her say, “I hate you! Go away!” that hurt feeling has to do with the story you’ve told yourself about what it means when she says that! You could take that as a cue to question this bad-feeling story (which is inaccurate anyway) and find a NEW story that IS accurate which leads to a feeling that you can show in all its glory!!!

***You decide what story to tell about what your kid says, and that’s how you SHOW your honest feeling!***

If my story was that my kid saying, “I hate you, Mom!” actually means, “I TRUST you, Mom! I feel awful and frustrated right now, and I know that YOU will be strong enough for me to stay close and make a safe space for these awful feelings I have!!” then my FEELING would be GRATITUDE AND JOY because my kid trusts me enough to be so honest with me!!!! I would likely also feel concerned for my kid and curiosity about what’s going on for my kid.

But sadness and hurt would not be the feelings I would feel because the story I’m telling is that MY KID FEELS SO SAFE WITH ME AND I WORKED HARD TO CREATE THAT SAFETY!!!! That feels GOOD! (Also, shifting my story from a painful story to one of gratitude frees me up to be curious about my kid’s experience!!!)

Does that make sense? It's an important step to being honest with your kid!!!

Again, there’s no HIDING your feelings here or suppressing your feelings in any way. That would be inauthentic, and your kid WILL feel that and will react to it!

There's just ONE other thing I must say, and I hope you'll share this with your husband, too.

This is just like learning a new language. I have been trying to learn Italian and French as a 60-plus-year-old adult, and it’s not the easiest thing in the world! I *think* in English. So, when I hear something in French or Italian, I find myself pausing so I can translate it and then think about my response and then translate that, and it’s clumsy and inelegant.

I don’t blame myself, though, because I’m not a native French- or Italian speaker!! How silly would that be? I give myself grace and love myself through the process.

Switching to a gentle-parenting mindset is JUST LIKE THAT.

So, please give yourselves the grace you absolutely deserve as you become more and more fluent in this beautiful new language!

Questions? ♥