"You're fine." Minimizing our child's feelings
“Just stop crying.”
“You’re fine.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of….”
“All the other kids are doing it; you’re going to be fine.”
We all are sometimes tempted to minimize our child’s feelings.
Strong feelings can be inconvenient. Fear, sadness, pain, disappointment. We just want our kid to stop feeling so much and get over whatever it is that’s the problem.
To be honest, it may remind us of when we were a child and had strong feelings.
Maybe we were made to feel that we were overly-sensitive. Or too emotional. Or weak. Or broken in some way.
We probably learned to hide our feelings eventually. In fact, we may feel that being unemotional is a virtue—that it represents strength.
We may believe that our child needs to deny their own feelings in order to toughen up.
In fact, when we attune to our child’s feelings a couple things happen.
One is that we increase our confidence as parents. We begin to understand our child, and we can better predict what is happening for them. Our child starts to make sense to us. We can attune to them better, and so we stop feeling so upset by their reactions, because they aren’t as mysterious and unpredictable.
The more we understand our kids, the more competent we end up feeling as parents. We can better see their point of view, so we can respond more empathetically. The empathy helps our child feel seen and understood. As parents, we stop feeling so out of control, because our child and their responses make more sense to us.
On our child’s end, when we attune to their feelings, they are actually better able to calm themselves and be brave. Being attuned to, being told that your feelings make sense and are acceptable, helps you feel secure. It helps you understand yourself, which increases your confidence. You become better able to predict your own responses, and you make sense to yourself. This builds self-confidence.
Children whose parents attune to their feelings get over their strong feelings quicker. They are better able to recover from upsets. They are able to trust that when things are overwhelming, the important people in their lives will be a source of help, not dismissing them. They build a life view that supports resilience and recovery.
Of course we would rather our children not be in pain, or afraid, or sadness. We want them to get over negative feelings as quickly as possible. We love our kids, and it is hard to watch them struggle.
But attuning to a child’s feelings is actually the best way to do that—not minimizing or dismissing.
