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Q: How can a parent really know about their child's emotional health and mental well-being? I'm about to have my first child, and I'm hoping to be more aware and supportive of their emotional life than my family was able to be for me when I was young.
As a small kid, I was well-behaved and high-achieving, but privately I suffered from anxiety, intrusive thoughts and obsessive tendencies. Later on, this morphed into perfectionism and disordered eating. I never told my parents about any of this, and no one ever asked, presumably because I was good at powering through and succeeded academically. My family was kind and loving, but we didn't ever talk about our feelings. It made me assume I wasn't supposed to have deep feelings or share them. It wasn't until I sought therapy on my own in college that I realized all this might be unusual and treatable.
What can parents do to be more attuned to what is really going on with their kids? How can they help children feel comfortable sharing their inner lives? What are clues that a kid might be suffering quietly?
- Parent-to-be
A: Parent-to-be: Congrats on becoming a parent (very soon)! You are asking some crucially important questions in the last paragraph, and while I can offer some concrete ways to help parents attune to their children, you must know this: You can do everything "right" and still miss things with your children. There is simply no guarantee you will pick up on their every heartache, no matter how hard you try, and I am not even sure it would be healthy if you did.
Our goal, as parents, isn't to know everything in our children's inner lives. Our goal is to stay present, stay loving and be responsive in a way where we are responsible for our own thoughts, feelings and actions. Because being alive is full of suffering, we essentially want to help our children face heartache and sorrow knowing they are loved and supported. Your suffering lasted longer than you wished it had, and it shouldn't have happened, but your experience also gives you the gift of compassion and awareness that will assist you in your parenting life.
Being attuned to your child starts with being able to securely attach to them when they're a baby. Science tells us that a secure attachment at birth is a hallmark of how a person relates to others and themselves for the rest of their lives. The good news is all you need to do is hug, love, feed, talk to and pick up your baby when they cry. And the more the merrier! Humans are pack animals, and anyone who is lovingly responding to the baby is good for them. Bonding with the baby in this way also leads to you reading each other's body language.
As your baby grows up, the old saying of "nature gave us two ears and one mouth" becomes parenting gold because listening is one of the most powerful ways to attune to a child. Parents sometimes forget (I know I do) it can take our children a while to figure out what they want to say and how to say it. We need to give our children room to figure things out without constantly filling in the blanks, speaking for them or talking over them. Actively listening can help us to stay aware of how we may be offering too many opinions, solutions or outright denials, or if we're cheerleading too much. When we cut our children off with any of those conversation nonstarters, they subtly or overtly learn that sharing their feelings with us isn't a safe option. They will choose to keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves, which is lonely.
Finally, one of the best ways to stay connected with your children is to simply be around. And I don't mean in their faces all of the time. I mean stay in proximity. Drive them to the games, practices, road trips and rehearsals. Walk the dogs with them. Eat with them. Read to them. Play and laugh with them. Sit with them when there is struggle. If this sounds like basic parenting, it is, but you may be surprised how easily we become distracted and stray from staying present.
Nothing I listed is extraordinary; just remember that the quality of your attention is as important as the quantity. And when you need support, reach out. When you feel unmoored, surround yourself with community. If you are suffering, find a therapist. You cannot preemptively know what will happen, so be ready to respond as best you can rather than react. Above all, take it easy on yourself. Let yourself off your self-created hook and remember: You can always begin again.
Good luck.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Leahy is the mother of three daughters. She holds a bachelor's degree in English and secondary education, a master's degree in school counseling and is a certified parent coach.
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