Our parents didn’t know about emotional literacy to teach it to us, because their parents never taught it to them, and so on, as far back as we can trace our families. But for some of us, parade-float parenting still exists.
We loved our dogs in my family growing up. I had, over the course of my eighteen years living at home, two wire hair fox terriers and two black Labrador retrievers. Both wire hairs had the same name as each other, as did both labs. My sweet mom did not want my sister or me to feel sad. Ever. So when Dixie, our first fox terrier died, she went out and got a new one that day. She brought it home and named it the same thing. When Blue, our lab died, a new one appeared immediately. (We could never do that now, with all the six-month waitlists for $2,500 designer doggies.) Then, it was different. As were so many things in our families. Thus, Dixie I, Dixie II, Blue I, and Blue II. I’m pretty sure my mom learned it from her mom. Patches I, Patches II. Kris I, Kris II. I come from a long line of parade-float parents.
The Premise:
If I can just keep them happy enough, they won’t be sad—or anxious.
You may have had a similar upbringing. I don’t honestly think many of us grew up in homes where we had healthy conversations around emotions. We weren’t passing feelings charts around our dinner tables and choosing three emotions we felt that day. My family sure didn’t. On one hand, I had new puppies to distract from any grief of losing a furry family member.
Where It’s Coming From:
My fear of reality and desire to shield my kids.
Have you heard the statement, “We’re the first generation of healthy parents”? I do believe you’re the first generation of parents who are committed to emotional literacy in your family. Emotional literacy is simply the naming and expression of emotions. Our parents didn’t know about emotional literacy to teach it to us, because their parents never taught it to them, and so on, as far back as we can trace our families. But for some of us, parade-float parenting still exists. It just looks a little different.
What It Looks Like:
Minimizing
I recently met with a highly articulate and intelligent fourteen-year-old girl who had asked her parents if she could come in for counseling. “I’ve been struggling with anxiety since the start of the pandemic,” she said. “I used to think about getting sick some, but now I can’t stop thinking about germs. I wash my hands a lot.” When I asked her how often a lot was, she said, “Three times a day.” Then she quickly said, “Nine times a day.” Then, “Actually, more like twenty-seven times a day, because three times nine is twenty-seven.” This anxious girl was showing signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder that were significantly impacting her daily life. My heart broke for her. She was obviously bright, conscientious, kind, trying hard (all in line with our anxiety profile) and was suffering deeply. When I met with her mom afterward, she said, “We want to be proactive because she asked for it. She was worried some a few months ago but seems to be doing great now. She’s just more high-strung than her dad and I are. . . . We don’t know where she got that.” And she laughed. “But she’s a really amazing kid.” She was right. She is an amazing kid—who is struggling. When I asked about the handwashing, she said, “Oh, she is doing that some.”
This mom doesn’t mean to be a parade-float parent. My guess is that it’s more how she engages with her own life . . . and pain. I’ve had other parents who dismiss their child’s pain by labeling them as dramatic or overly sensitive. I’ve had parents who’ve talked about their kids’ bouts of self-harm as “a phase.”
I do want to say that we’re living in a more dramatic time than I’ve ever experienced with children and teenagers. They’re no longer using words like sad and stressed. They go straight to depressed and anxious instead. I think I hear the phrase toxic relationship at least twice a week in my office. The words these kids use with their peers and with us carry more weight and intensity than the ones we used when we were their ages. And at times it can be hard to differentiate the drama from what’s real. In either case, we want to start with listening.
Perspective is an important skill for all kids to develop. Helping them understand their pain and place it in perspective. I use a one-to-ten scale in my office to help, much like the ones hanging up in the ER, but based on emotional pain rather than physical. I’ll ask questions like “What’s the worst thing you can imagine happening?” and “What would be a ten for you?” Then, when they’re describing a situation, I’ll go back to the scale. “What number was that on our scale?” Or even, “What number did it feel like?” And “What number do you think it really was?” to help them get to a place of better perspective. Kids who live life at ten tend to need help developing that kind of emotional perspective. But again, we always start with listening.
How It Affects Them:
They dwell on emotions or disconnect and distrust them.
I have noticed in my counseling practice that a majority of the kids who tend to struggle with perspective have two primary types of parents. They are parents who either magnify or minimize their emotions. The children of magnifiers tend to think that the best way to connect with those parents is to magnify their own emotions. The children of minimizers feel like, unless they get really big, their parents won’t notice or hear them. They end up dwelling on their emotions. Getting stuck. Using big words to describe those emotions. And they often live life from crisis to crisis. They’re always sick. There is always a problem with one friend or another. They’ve always had a panic attack that day. No one ever listens to them. No one understands. You get the idea. Or maybe you’re getting it because you’re experiencing it with your child on a daily basis.
We talked before about how whatever we pay the most attention to is what’s most reinforced. But maybe whatever we pay the least attention to is also reinforced. Or if not reinforced, encouraged when it arises out of a genuine need of our kids that we’re not meeting. They need for us to listen and to help them gain perspective. The balance between minimizing and magnifying is where the magic happens, or at least where perspective is found. It’s important to be aware of the impact that both magnifying and minimizing emotions have on the kids we love. They dwell. They get stuck. And we often get stuck right alongside them.
When we don’t validate their feelings, kids learn to disconnect from and even distrust those feelings. Our parade-float parenting keeps things fun for sure, but it doesn’t leave much room for any other emotion than happiness, leaving kids believing they need to disconnect from all others. Emotional literacy isn’t developed. And neither is intuition.
At Daystar we regularly see parents who are in hard situations and want help knowing how to communicate with their kids. It may be that the parents are going through a divorce. It may be that a family member has been diagnosed with a chronic illness. Or that one parent is an alcoholic. That a parent has lost his or her job. Or that there has been a tragedy in our world or country. It can be any number of situations that are not only hard to go through, but hard to talk through with the kids we love. In those situations, when parents ask us how to talk about it with kids, our first answer is always the same: Tell the truth age-appropriately.
Kids are intuitive. They feel deeply if left to their own emotions and without our intervening parade floating. They’re aware of much more than we realize early on. If you’re struggling, your child likely knows. Sometimes, in situations such as divorce, illness, or job loss, we value protecting kids over telling them the truth. We minimize issues in our own lives with responses such as “Everything’s fine,” “You don’t need to worry,” or “I don’t know what you mean.”
When we deny their feelings, we teach them to distrust those feelings and to distrust themselves. If I could give kids any gift as they grow up, I would give them the gift of intuition—of trusting their gut sense of what’s happening around and inside of them. And believing that they know what to do next. More than confidence. More than courage. I believe intuition is one of the most valuable life skills any of us can possess.
Excerpted from The Worry-Free Parent by Sissy Goff. Copyright © August 2023 by Bethany Publishing House. Used by permission. www.RaisingBoysandGirls.com
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Mario Arango
