If you are anything like me you didn’t get painful feelings validated much in childhood, this is a key element of narcissistic or emotionally distant or emotionally neglectful families.. I came across a link to a very helpful article on empathic parenting on the Psychology Today website written by Dr Karyl McBride author of the book Will I Ever Be Good Enough : Daughter of Narcissistic Mothers. And the following portion was a good insight into validation of a child’s feelings.. We can learn to do this for ourselves too. Anger and being pissed off occurs for a reason if the anger can be validated it far more likely to de-escalate and then when we listen to what it is telling us we can decide more appropriate actions to take than just acting it out, or stuffing and repressing it.
When my son was about 12 years old, he came home from school one day very angry and began throwing things around in a huff. When we later sat down to dinner, he picked up a plate and slammed it on the table. My first instinct was to tell him to knock it off and go to his room, but I said, “Honey something is terribly wrong. You are very angry. Let’s talk about what is wrong.” This immediately deflated the big red balloon of anger and he was able to express his feelings of being upset with his sister for something I can’t really remember. I know now and knew then, that if I had sent him to his room or immediately punished him, his behavior would have escalated and we probably would never have gotten to the true feelings. Whatever he was angry about was much less important than acknowledging his feelings about it at the moment. He got to have a voice and be heard, and I was rewarded by no broken dishes!
Older children and teens often are purposely disrespectful to you. In this situation, you do have to set boundaries, but in order for your child to feel heard, you still have to acknowledge the feelings behind the words. For example, an out-of-control teen may call her mother a derogatory name because she is angry about not being able to go to the mall, but the mother must set limits and consequences for this abusive behavior. At the same time, she can acknowledge the feeling that the child is upset. It is surprising to parents, the first time they do this, how effective it is in deflating kids’ balloons of anger. The child can often become more reasonable because she has been seen and heard. She has been given a voice.
Being sent to my room happened to me a lot, as I have shared before, so I ended up sending myself to ‘my room’ – permanent isolation for nearly 18 months in adulthood, by taking myself away and not getting therapeutic help and thus wasted those years. I share about this stuff to stop it happening for someone else and as Dr McBride points out parents can set boundaries and still validate a child’s feelings, showing empathy and assisting them in this way to not have to act out so painfully next time and begin to achieve a degree of emotional literacy.
Emerging From The Dark Night 