Читать книгу Hate Me Now, Thank Me Later: How to raise your kid with love and limits - Dr. Berman Robin - Страница 14

“My parents showered me with love. I know that my confidence today stems from all of that love.”

—David, University graduate student

Unconditional love is the single greatest gift you can give to your child. Knowing that we are lovable, regardless of what we achieve or how we behave, is the crux of self-esteem.

At thirteen, Bobby was already a competitive pitcher. At the end of the season, he was on the mound with the bases loaded and needed to strike out the next batter to win the league championship. All eyes were on Bobby as he threw ball after ball. He ended up walking the batter and losing the game for his team. He was devastated and cried all the way home, then cried himself to sleep.

The next morning he found a note his father had slipped under the door: “Dear Bobby, you will always be my MVP.”

Two years later, a tearful Bobby clutched that note as he gave his father’s eulogy. Because of it, he knew he would always feel loved. Because of it, his father would always be his hero.

Parenting is a true hero’s journey, a love affair of epic proportions, one that lasts a lifetime and even longer. You are the author of this love story, writing and starring in it daily.

When I was in medical school, I cared for a seventy-year-old woman with cancer. After examining her and giving her some pain medication, I asked if there was anything else that she needed. I will never forget her answer: “Yes, I really need my mum.”

Her mum had passed away twenty years earlier, and yet the very memory of her mother brought her great comfort. How lucky to have had that kind of parent.

That is what we are aiming for, an internalized, compassionate parent whom children carry in their heads and hearts throughout their lives. Creating that secure sense of love is the key to great parenting. A secure attachment forms when parents are consistently responsive and sensitive to the needs of their children. Such a bond is the ultimate in psychological padding: it offers a lifetime of buffering and creates emotional resilience. This tender and loving bond informs who your child will become. All great parenting has, as its foundation, a secure attachment. It’s like psychic cement. With this bond, parents build an emotional house of bricks, not straw, that can weather life’s inevitable huffs and puffs.

Love lays that strong foundation. To be truly seen and known—and adored because of it—is the highest form of romance.

“It is all about the connection. I want my daughter to feel how much I love her. I slow it down, I get low, I sit on the floor. I meet her where she is. I don’t parent from above. I want to reach her, eye to eye, soul to soul.”

—Father of three

Reaching your child and making that connection is everything. Sometimes, if you listen, you can hear even when there are no words.

During my residency, I spent six months on the pediatric floors. The pediatricians would meet and divide up the patients for the night. “Who wants death watch?” the senior resident asked callously. “She only has a few more days.”

With a heavy heart, I listened to the report of an eight-year-old girl who had become mute two years before, when both parents died from AIDS. Now dying from the same disease, she was in the hospital alone. At 3:00 A.M., I poked my head in to check on her. She was so small and frail. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling. I introduced myself. Her eyes did not move to meet mine. I started to fumble through her chart, knowing deep down it was pointless. I knew my job was to examine her and check her vital signs. But the girl continued to stare at the ceiling in silence as I struggled to fit the blood pressure cuff around her bony arm. Her skin was cracking and dry, her bones showed through her emaciated body. I felt helpless and disconnected.

So I put aside my futile doctor duties. I reached for a bottle of lotion. I rubbed it all over her cracked heels and legs. When I reached for her hand, her gaze met mine for the first time. Maintaining that eye contact, I continued to massage her in silence for the next thirty minutes. When I put my hand on the door to leave, I heard a little voice say, “Thank you.” I wept on the way back to my on-call room. The next morning on rounds, I learned that she had passed away at 5:00 A.M. I felt so grateful for our connection, however small, however brief.

We all yearn to feel deeply connected. Every child wants to be truly known and cherished.

Sometimes finding the keys to that connection requires a little detective work. In medical school a common mantra was “Listen to the patient, they will tell you the diagnosis.” If you truly listen to your children, they will tell you who they are.

“A good parent understands the mystery of their child. They put the puzzle pieces and clues together to see who is in front of them—not who they want, but who is really there.”

—Jonah, ten

Parents who remain curious and open will best be able to navigate the changing landscape that is childhood. They will continually try to understand their child, even when it’s challenging—as it is when your child turns out to be different from what you imagined. We have to let go of our own agenda and expectations.

“I was a college athlete. I come from a long line of athletes. My son loves art. Go figure. I always pictured having a son who would watch football with me and throw a ball around in the backyard. Instead we spent a lot of Sundays at Michaels art supplies. I would watch his eyes light up as he dreamed up his next project. I guess that is what being a good dad is all about, seeing your kid for who he really is, and then finding a way to love him for exactly that.”

—Father

Bravo, Dad. Let go of judgment until you truly understand—your kid, the situation, and how he or she sees it. Just listening makes your child feel loved.

“The first duty of love is to listen.”

—Paul Tillich, Christian philosopher

“Sometimes we forget to listen to our children. Yet listening can be very powerful. I think children, like adults, have a very strong need to be truly heard—not only heard for what they are saying on the surface, but for the feelings behind their words.”

—Laura Carlin, blogger and author

Hearing the meaning behind words takes careful active listening. Kids don’t always need you to fix the problem, much less to lecture, but they do need you to listen. Don’t under-estimate the value of listening without judgment. Really being heard and understood defuses big emotions and makes us feel comforted and connected.

Sometimes you have to set aside the small stuff that blocks connection. A mum was in the basement cleaning out toys to give to charity. She came upon a chess set with giant pieces, but a pawn was missing its bottom stand. The mum told her daughter, Ally, that they couldn’t give away an incomplete set. Mum went back to her sorting, but Ally was determined to give a whole chess set to someone.

Twenty minutes later, an excited Ally exclaimed, “Look, I fixed it!” Mum turned around to see both Ally and a white couch cushion covered in black paint. Ally had glued a wood block to make a new stand and had painted it black to match the pawn. Mum was so focused on the mess that she almost missed Ally’s joy at being resourceful and helpful.

“Oh, no, my couch ...’’ Mum started to stammer. She saw the light fading from her daughter’s eyes. Mum had to think like a chess player, two moves ahead, calming down and not squashing her daughter’s enthusiasm.

“Wow, that was so clever. Someone is going to be so happy to get that chess set now that you have fixed it,” she said.

By checking herself and seeing what her daughter saw, this mum did not let a little paint break a big connection. Later she was able to calmly remind Ally to lay down newspaper the next time she wanted to paint. Now, that is how the game of parenting is played.

“Our job as parents is to accurately reflect our children’s experience, not our own.”

—Catherine Birndorf, MD, psychiatrist and author

Sometimes we miss the point (in this example, the child’s kindness) because of our own priorities (in Mum’s case, an orderly house). But if you can see your child’s pure experience without projecting your own stuff onto it, you will connect with their truest self.

Once you recognize your children’s feelings, it’s vital for you to validate them.

“I have noticed that the boys who cry the most when they are hurt have parents who always said, ‘You’re fine, get up, that didn’t really hurt.’ I think that if the mum had just hugged them, their crying would have stopped a long time ago.”

—Boy, aged nine

This wise boy is really saying that if parents are more compassionate, instead of dismissing their children’s feelings, kids would pass through these phases sooner. From a psychiatrist’s standpoint, minimizing children’s feelings never makes them go away. It just leaves the child’s needs unmet, what we call empathic failure.

When children are hurt, they need to know they have a safe parent to go to for comfort. The basics of love and comfort allow a child to depend on you. It is only through that dependence that they learn the skills to be independent. When dependency needs are not met, they keep returning in adulthood. (Think arrested development.)

Sensitive, responsive parents do quite a balancing act. They help their children manage strong emotions by knowing when to let a child work through frustration and disappointment, which increases resiliency. Today’s parents are confused; they think hovering builds a secure attachment. But hovering and micromanaging are different from being an attuned parent.

Hovering/helicopter parent	Attuned parent/secure attachment
Intrusive, leading with anxiety, making child nervous.	Responsive, reflective, sensitive, with a calmness that is soothing to the child.
Rushes to fix or do the child’s work instead of letting child work things out on his own. Gives the child a covert message: “You need me. You can’t do it alone.”	Gives child breathing room to figure things out; encourages with message that “you can do it.”
Human emotional rip cord.	Balances when to hold and when to fold.
Bubble wraps kids, creating psychological dependence that holds them back in the real world.	Helps kids build strong psychological padding that creates a secure base, which fosters independence.

Forming a strong, secure bond is not small stuff. It is everything. Children will carry it with them for the rest of their lives. Love freely, madly, deeply. Hug, kiss, cuddle, laugh, play. Be demonstrative. Tell your children how much you love them. If you aren’t your kid’s biggest fan, who will be?

Remember, childhood’s greatest legacy is how we felt loved.