Thinking about the parent child relationship we may not at first recognise any perceived threat so therefore no need for fear. We tell ourselves that we are the adult and therefore more powerful of the two.
In theory this may be so,but faced the terror of a screaming infant or a two year old in a full blown tantrum,experience belies that power and the parent is left usually feeling vulnerable,angry and confused.
Self reflection is actually the key.
Knowing more about yourself and how you manage fear allows you to be more present when a situation arises. Sometimes just knowing you are scared too is enough to change the situation and the fear subsides. The child will feel safer knowing someone is in charge and you will get the opportunity to be the kind of parent you wish to be.
For some people fears around this kind of self-scrutiny prevent them from going any further. Concerns around,“What if I’m not a good enough parent?” may actually stop you from seeing what a good parent you actually are.
Let me say here before we go any further,you don’t have to be a perfect parent (there is no such a thing) You only have to be a good enough parent and if you are interested enough to be reading this you already are.
Self-awareness is not about judgement of good or bad,it’s simply a way of understanding your own needs and drives. It is only with that knowledge you can begin to have your needs met appropriately and by understanding your own desires you are no longer at their mercy.
Freeing yourself from unnecessary defences can often result in more energy for life,more creative problem solving and bring an added dimension to your relationships with other people.
In the parent child relationship it is vital that the child feels emotionally safe with you at all times. It may be difficult to imagine that this is not always so but sometimes it is easier to look back to your own childhood and consider how safe you felt emotionally and what you felt you could do about it.
Young children FEEL the congruence that only comes from authentic relating as they are primarily experiencing the world through their senses and feelings.
By congruence and authenticity I mean truthful relating,if you are angry or sad don’t say you’re not and if you don’t know something say so. Children are sensitive to unspoken realities and mixed messages damage trust leaving a child feeling unsafe. Authentic relating builds trust between parent and child and offers an experience of right relationship that can be brought to the relationship they are forming with themselves.
The emotional self
In the child’s circle of the relationship model.
When we talk about the child’s sense of self it is helpful to know how that forms. It doesn’t arrive as a ready-made self,it evolves gradually as the child grows and learns to experience the world around them in different ways.
At birth there is on individual sense of self that only comes later when he begins to separate psychologically from the mother.* see stages of separation
The first experience of that self is through the sensate being and relates to the body self.
THE SENSATE BEING.
At this stage in development a young baby experiences his world through the sensate being. For him everything is learned through sensations. All information is received through the sense of touch,taste,sight,sound and smell. His sense of self is still fused with the mother who he relies upon for reassurance and mirroring.
THE RESPONSIVE BEING.
As the child develops awareness of his own emotions,he needs to build capacity to contain these feelings. At first he only experiences extremes of emotion such as love and rage on either end of the spectrum. Over time with proper nurturing of the feeling self he will learn to develop a full range of emotions along that spectrum such as like and annoyance.
THE INTELLIGENT BEING.
Around the age of seven or eight your child will begin to relate to his own mind. He will gather information from the other parts of himself,body and feelings and with that information makes meaning of his experience in the world. The child now learns to think for himself and it’s an empowering stage creating in a love of learning along with a solid sense of the ego ‘I’ in the world.
Identification with the mind self is very common in the west and may be a safe way to avoid the feeling self if there emotional wounding that has yet to be resolved.
As the growing sense of self is forming the child looks to the parents,the school system and the world around them and take in the impression offered of who they are. They use that information,be it true or false to form an inner self-image.
The child truly believes this to be the real self.
This is in fact the ego self with the essential Self still safe within. Developing a strong ego is necessary for good mental health and as he reaches adulthood will be a prerequisite for further spiritual development.
With the Trouble Tree exercise a space is created for the child to come into relationship the feeling self,teaching them that emotions can be embodied and that expressing them can bring ease to the physical body.
Were you to only focus on that there is a danger that we could,unintentionally give the child the message that inner reflection is painful.
This happens if you only pay attention to feelings of suffering and ignore a huge part of the child’s emotional growth. Encouraging a balanced expression of the whole range of emotions needs to be mirrored and affirmed by you so that image is acceptable inwardly to the child.
This misconception that self-reflection is painful,is often the experience for adults who themselves were never taught to relate to their feeling self when they were children. It is my view that much of the healing psychological work being done today is as a result of this miss-information.
So often in the therapy room evasions like,“What’s the point of digging up painful issues or you can’t change any of it” are ways used to avoid coming into relationship with the feeling self. More often we find that this attitude of defence against difficult feelings is what drives and shapes our personality.
Inner reflection of the emotional self,if balanced by the inclusion of all emotions gives a person a sense of harmony to their inner world and helps form a solid identity with the feeling self. knowing that you are more than your emotions is one of the greatest skills you can teach your child.
Your own ability to transcend your emotional self will be reflected in your relationship with your child. Dealing with emotions is an area that is often allocated to one or other parent and you may find that one (often mum) deals with feelings while the other (often dad) deals with mind.
This leads to a polarisation of feelings and mind making the idea of relationship between them hard for the child to understand. This kind of behaviour may further inhibit the parents with their own self-expression. E.g.,Dad could find it increasingly difficult to express himself emotionally believing this to be mums territory.
Again I would urge you to reflect on this and think about the message this sends to the child. To a little boy it says that men don’t have feelings and to a little girl it says that women do,which in turn could result in an over-identification with the emotional self for girls further perpetuating this myth that only women do the emotional stuff.
Balance within each person is what we are hoping for and using the body feelings mind meditation* will help you learn to differentiate your own identifications.
Perhaps this is an area you could discuss with your partner to see if there is a polarisation of roles within your family. If so,by gradually identifying and including your own emotional needs you will find it easier to affirm the emotional needs of your child.
Building up an emotional vocabulary between you and your child creates pathways of communication that relieve the pain of isolation when emotional suffering occurs. If it has not been your habit to talk about your feelings,it may be difficult to express emotions freely but over time the child will develop the language needed and this in turn facilitates the child’s growing inner dialogue. Don’t be afraid to let your child talk about emotions and where appropriate include your own showing him that they are often a shared experience.
Learning to recognise the feeling self,teaches the child not only to identify different emotions but more importantly that by expressing them he can release feelings of inner tension and his body relaxes.
Sleep and rest have a better quality when the child feels calm and safe enough to be by himself. Allowing your child to connect to you in this intimate way brings great comfort and security to his experience of reality. Knowing that the adult cares for him as much as they love him builds self-esteem and anchors him both psychologically and spiritually in the world.
The body,feelings,mind model is one of the core models used in psychosynthesis. It embodies a central principal,which sees a person as being both the one and the many. Within this context the Self is differentiated through different fields of consciousness- the physical,the emotional and the mental. We use this to see where we are identified with a part whilst believing it to be the whole. As we begin to reflect on our identifications we step back from them and realise that we are more.
WE DISCOVER THE SELF VIA THE NOT SELF.
The body feelings and mind are all vehicles for our being in the world,each with potential for expression of our individual innate creativity. Over time as each level developed within us,trauma or conditioning may have caused the development of any or all to become arrested,thereby limiting our capacity for Self-expression.
Consciously coming into relationship with each aspect of your self,body feelings and mind,you will allow that growth to resume,offering the child solid ground as they come into relationship with you.