Expression is beautiful
Expression is such a beautiful thing. When I was describing my son’s tantrum to my friend Neha, a leadership coach, she exclaimed — ‘Isn’t it wonderful that these little people can express their needs so well!’. While I couldn’t make much of it in the moment, upon reflecting, I couldn’t but agree how powerful is it.
I recently signed up to coordinate a parenting circle where the above conversation ensued, and ironically I was finding it a bit hard to manage my son’s bedtime and the start time for this circle, but was unable to bring it to the group. My son, on the other hand, would persist to make mommy hang up and drag me to the bed to tuck him in while I was still on the video call with this group.
As I started thinking through this more deeply about why he could express (and I couldn’t), another fact that caught my attention was the staggering number of new moms seeking resources on raising a child who “listens” and “complies” in various mom groups that I’m a part of. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you never had a conflict with your child and he always does what he’s asked to? That would be the dream for many parents. After all, we wish the best for our children and would never give them ill-informed advice.. so if only they ate, cleaned-up, learnt and played the way we asked them to — life with them would be so much more enjoyable!
But do we forget that if our kids don’t learn to voice their needs with us or negotiate their demands with us (given that they feel the most emotionally secure with us) — then they may not be able to do so with others including their teachers, coworkers or managers at school or work, their peers in social settings, and their spouses and family later on in their lives.
So instead of wishing for a well-behaved, compliant and obedient child — shouldn’t we hope for a child who understands his needs and is able to express them. In other words, a child who is ‘self-aware’ and ‘expressive’. Now of-course, we all want that expression to be words (not screams) and courteous and polite.
So, let’s agree that our goal be to raise self-aware and expressive children. And these self-aware and expressive children are allowed to feel all the feelings including anger, sadness, disappointment, etc. Our job as parents is to emotion coach them. Read more about emotion coaching in my previous post here.
Unfortunately most of us have been coached to not reflect them, especially in social settings, through inculcating shame (what would others think of me if I showed my emotions) and fear (others would never want to hang with me again if they knew how I feel). And what’s even more unfortunate — since we want to prove to the same society how well-behaved our children are (testament to our great parenting skills), we focus on suppressing our children’s expressions of their emotions and needs.
Coming next: How to raise self-aware and expressive kids.
