David Peet, parenting expert and trainer, INTRODUCES the importance of emotions and psychology in successful parenting.
I
love writing about parenting, but when the audience is as specific as
“mums in science”, it is extra stimulating and extra challenging. How
amazing that such an enlightened, defined club of parents exists.
I could imagine “Mums in Gaol”, though I doubt they would have their own web site. Or, maybe even, “Mums in Space”. Home from school, the little boy chucks his satchel on the table, and says “Hi Dad, where’s mum?” “She’s orbiting Saturn son” “Okay, what’s for tea?”‘ And the phone bill would be huge.
I can even imagine “Mum’s in the pub”, but “Mums in Science” is a great idea, and I would love to know what special issues mums in science often face. “Dads in science” occurs to me as one possible area of tension. Then there is vocation verses mum-hood. A piece of scientific research probably demands complete attention. Or, maybe, weaning mums have to smuggle babies into labs under bulging white coats, avoiding the gaze of the laboratory police.
Who knows? I am a virgin in this territory, coming from the soft end of psychology. This means the ‘touchy feely’ end, all about emotions and beliefs. You know, how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? Does the light bulb really want to change? etc.
I say virgin, I should say, almost virgin. Years ago, I gave a talk to a group of about 20 senior registrar psychiatrists in an opulent Country Club in Wales. When I opened the day with the idea that “Whatever happens to you, is a reflection of your beliefs', there was a move to have me sectioned there and then. I imagined being strait-jacketed, kicking and screaming, through the plush Country Club Lobby. That was bad enough, but I hadn’t even had the free lunch. Would they do me a doggy bag? And, even if they did, wearing a strait jacket, how would I take the bag away?
However, despite the atmosphere among the eminent medics before me, I dug deep and carried on, driven by my humanitarian concern for their welfare, and the fee Pfizer were paying. By the end of the day, the doctors who were more in touch with their feelings - mainly female -, were quite on board. They asked a lot of questions, took away ideas and exercises to solve problems. Some others, mainly the mean looking ones with excess facial hair, remained in a dark corner idly tossing wax crayons, arguing over which parts of my brain should be surgically removed.
You can’t please all the people all of the time. I mention this for the obvious reason that science and my outlook are not always on the same page. But times have changed. I have moved on and so has science.
‘ITS ALL IN THE MIND’
These days you would be hard pressed to ignore the over whelming amount of clinical evidence which says that child development is optimised by improving the quality of the psychological environment. ‘Psychological environment’ means dad and mum, and that means you. It means any carer or step parent, anyone who is a significant presence around a child from conception. If that is you, then whatever you think you are doing, one thing you are, above all, is part of that child’s psychological environment.
After a modest amount of material provision – food, shelter etc., the psychological environment becomes the sine qua non of successful development. If you want flourishing, happy children then you need only address the quality of the psychological environment you provide.
If a parent is not providing a decent diet or living conditions, i.e. poor parenting, then we all know it is not due to material shortages here in the UK. The UK is littered with money, food and shelter. That these are believed to be in short supply is a society wide psychological projection in its own right. Billions of pounds change hands every year as parents and carers buy their children some happiness. It is because they themselves, the carers, are too psychologically spent to be able to deliver what really works for their children: the parents themselves, wholehearted.
Material poverty can contribute to psychological damage, that is true. But if we really want to get with the programme we have to realise it is, in fact, the other way around. Our material good fortune, our success, our problems, are all symptoms of our psychology. Our lacks and paucity in the midst of potential abundance comes down to us and our ‘stuff’, not the way we organise the dosh.
‘BEHAVIOUR IS A SYMPTOM’
Where mums and dads have children in dire material or physical straits, it is a reflection of an impoverished psychology. They are badly wounded souls, mostly out of their depth as mums or dads. They are parents bringing children up, when they are still hurt children themselves. They carry arrested development, untreated traumas and repressed issues of every kind.
With all this against them, as time goes by, they will fail. They may fail to keep a job, beat up on kids, fall into addiction, split up time and time again, get ill, abandon their children or even simply commit suicide. They cannot provide a healthy physical and material environment for their children because their own psychological environment is damaged. Needless to say, they cannot offer a healthy psychological environment either. They are in pain, and when stretched to give quality time or love, this threatens their comfort zone.
Our comfort zone is the way we human beings live in order to avoid facing untreated emotional pain. If you had a hellish time as a child then you will only escape the pain of that by dissociation, becoming hard, tough, withdrawn and independent, also being controlling and unavailable. This “shell” is your defence against pain, but the pain is still there, and so are the untreated wounds.
Providing a healthy psychological environment for your children asks you to be the very opposite of this hard nut. You are asked to be open, vulnerable, soft, present and sensitive to everything. You have tolerance, flexibility, time and so on.
So what do we do? Hard or Soft?
‘THE HUMAN ANATOMY IS NOT DESIGNED FOR FENCE SITTING’
We are conflicted. We may have this conflict act out starkly in our relationship with our partner. We do the touchy feely, they do hard and unavailable – but it is an inner conflict acted out in our world.
An emotionally withdrawn parent either stays withdrawn and makes the child go through the same process they did. This means the child is ‘trained’ not to be ‘needy’ ‘’dependent’ even ‘unhappy’. But as you make the child amputate the bad feelings you also cut them off from the capacity feel good. You will create a young lady or gentleman factory. Your child may survive but they will never soar and will most likely crash. It is not natural to live repressed, it creates deadness.
Most parents are not so extreme in this way. Most parents, especially working mums, choose to try and do it all. To be the loving, patient, open, available presence, as well as the hard –working, successful career person. It is certainly possible to accomplish this but not if you have any unresolved issues – they will emerge in one way or another. For most of us, unless we attend to our pain as it emerges- and you can, this attempt to ‘do it all’ is a giant step into sacrifice. We burn out and even if we manage to stay in control, our children or our career will soon show us we are off track in ourselves. Children with parents in sacrifice will often have tantrums, be stubborn and rebel. They are showing you how you really feel! As you deal with your inner process, they will calm down. It’s a psychological fact.
All of this, all childproblems, can be resolved, but it is not about you fixing your child, it is about you fixing you. And the trick is not to wait until problems show up in no uncertain terms before you react. Healing can be done with ease in many ways but it takes courage. My area of expertise is just this, and I run one day workshops, one to one coaching, to deal with it quickly and efficiently. If you want to know more let me know, david@childproblem.co.uk, or sign up for my free email newsletter and reports by going to www.childproblem.co.uk and subscribe.
Copyright Nov 2005 David Peet M.Th Ph.D.
