Love Our Children

Parents like to point out children’s shortcomings, with the intend to make children aware of them and to change them.  Often time, we’d try again and again.  How does this really work for our children?  Well, depends…

I believe that parents need to consider that our children are much more sensitive and in tune with what on our mind than we think they are.  So, when we find that we have to try very hard to make little or no progress, it is time to evaluate our approach, including the timing.

Often, when parents notice an unhealthy habit our child has, may that be thinking or acting, we point out to them.  More often than not, it seems that our children just dismiss our comments right away, and the same ‘habit’ shows up again soon after, even again and again.  Naturally, we conclude that they do not get or understand what we have pointed out.  What do we do as a responsible parent?  We continue pounding the same thing into their head, hope if we repeat ourselves enough time, then…

I am convinced that this approach fails parents as well as our children more often than not!

A friend told me a story recently. He has a very smart son who is a freshman in college.  The first semester, the boy earned GPA of 1.5!  A scientist, he believes his son can do much better if only he has a good study habit.  So, he talks about it with his son over and over, nothing has changed.  He finally gives up the trying.  He says to me: “I finally realize no matter how trivia and obvious my ‘truth’ is, if my son can not ’see’ my ‘truth’, they can not see!  Timing is everything.  My nephew, who is now 35 years old, recently told his mother that he finally understands the things his mother has been telling him since he was a teenager.  You say all you want, but kids can only receive the message when they are ready.”

What an insight!  Pounding on children’s shortcomings can have the dire consequences when they are not ready to hear them.  Not that our children are not willing to behave ‘well’, rather, they might not, at the time of their life, be able to internalize and understand the ‘issue’, let alone can do something about the ‘issue’.  “Nagging” them repeatedly might do more harm than good.  It could damage a child self esteem through a sense of failure, because they might understand something is ‘wrong’ but incapable of making it ‘right’.  As the result, they might think self as ‘flawed’ and not able to feel emotionally safe to be who they are.   Feeling good to be self is the best gift we can give to our children.

Alternative approach?  Since each child is different, developing parents’ own consciousness and engaging in our inner knowing of our children is the best approach when comes to parenting, especially when comes to correcting our children’s ’shortcomings’….

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“Power if unconditional love!” is Warren Buffett’s answer to an interview question: ‘What’s the best advice you’ve ever get from your father?”   The America’s richest man said that the best advices, such as the power of unconditional love, can not be delivered through words but through parents’ actions: “If you can give your children the power of unconditional love, you are 90% there.”  Here is the interview….

Unconditional love provides a child with the essential emotional safety.  It tells the child that you are loved and accepted just as who you are.  It tells a child that while your behavior might not be acceptable, but you are loved.

Unconditional can only be perceived, not be imposed.  So, how our children perceive our love for them is very important.  They observe, they ‘compute’ our behaviors and words in their own way to feel if they are unconditionally loved or not.  The best a parent can do is to be highly conscious about our actions and words, especially when we discipline our children.

The pitfall of many parental mistakes are caused by unconsciousness, by when we let our emotions and personalities to take over our mind.  It is easy to love our children unconditionally when they behave ‘normally’…  It is when they do not behave in the way we expect, and when our frustrated emotions take over, and we could deliver a different message other than “unconditional love”.

Giving unconditional love can not co-exist with instilling fear and guilt. The fear based and guilt based disciplinary action is using conditional love to manipulate and control our children, and our children likely will not perceive our  love as unconditional even though we truly love them.

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Lately, I am pondering what’s really the parental responsibly when we bring a child to the world?  If everything we do is the result of some form of commitment and promise, I incline to think that when we first hold a child in our arm and exchange the gaze, we have committed to the infant that we will give her what she needs to grow up physically, mentally and psychologically healthy… Life starts a new cycle because one day, this infant will be someone’s mom or dad…

It is my belief that there in nothing more important on this planet than raising a child to be a wholesome, loving, productive and joyful human adult so they can raise their children to be so.  I want to think being raised in such way is a child’s birth right.  Raising emotionally safe and mentally healthy children is the greatest contribution anyone can give to humanity, and it is a parent’s commitment.

To do so, we must pay attention to what is our unconscious self centered behavior.  In this materialistic and entertainment culture, our career, our life, our moods, our comfort and our convenience might take a driver’s without our knowing.  We might compromise our promise to our children without knowing.  In the quiet comfortable evening, when we feel safe and calm, we might hear our  truth to the question: “Do I always put my kids’ wellbeing ahead of my own self interests?”  Only then, we might have a clue what really is my parental commitment.  Only then, we might discover the lies we have told ourselves and told everyone else.  Such soul searching is important if we are to take parenting seriously…
When we are willing to hear our own lies and face our broken promises, we might parent more consciously. Our children might learn and inherit our promises as they grow into their own parenthood…  The world would be a better place if our children are to live into the promises we make to them, because they will have higher chance to fulfill these promises in serving their children…

Life is an unending cycle, and what a parent does or does not do, have a great impact for generations to come…  So, keep the promises we make to our children and let the children to have their chance to grow into a parent who can keep his/her promises to their children… Let’s start a new parenting cycle!

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When our children are mis-treated at schools, institutions, by neighbor’s kids, relatives, or strangers on the street, most of the parents are readily to step out to say: “No.  Stop it!”

But, there is another side: we do not and can not always stand up for our children to our spouse or the people we love!  It is a heartbroken reality that our children are left alone to fend themselves because we are fearful of facing these loved ones who inflict pain and unfairness on our children….. Standing up for our children needs courage and fearlessness…

A friend recently told me that his alcoholic father used to beat him up when he was a child.  He is a middle child, one of the four.  Why his father picked on him he never knew, but for years, he was wondering why her mother never stepped in to protect him.  Not until years later, she explained to her son why she did not.  She could not and dared not to step in, because she was afraid of her husband would leave her and she could not take care of the children, and afraid it would only make the matter’s worse… So, painfully, she watched her son being beaten by the drunken father… The pain and guilt she still endures today…

A parent’s own fear would prevent us from stepping in to protect our very own children! This is a hard and cold reality for some parent to face, especially the mothers who are ‘afraid of’ their  children’s father.  Such fear is normally a result of some form of abuse, physical or emotional:  fear for the worst yet, fear of not good enough, fear of being ridiculed, fear of being rejected, fear of being blamed and attacked, fear of abandonment…  Living with such fear, a mother can “freeze” when sees her kid is being ‘treated badly’,  she feels the child’s pain and fear, but is unable to step in to say: “No.  Stop it!”…  More often than not, she lives with quilt and pain of not able to protecting her children…There is no greater pain than a mother’s pain for not being able to protecting their children from the physical harm and the emotional threat.

It is our parent’s job to provide and protect our children with the physical safety and emotional safety.   It requires courage and clarity…

First, one must acknowledge and face her own fears.

Second, one must have the clarity of her own boundaries and the boundaries of her children, and is determined to stand up to protect these boundaries. This requires a mother to develop the consciousness and confidence in knowing who she is, and believe in what’s right and what’s wrong in her perspectives.

Third, one must be able to put aside any self focused fearful thoughts, and focus on what’s the best for our children and willing to take any actions and the corresponding consequences.

Each of these step requires bravery and daring.  Do you dare to stand up for your children under any circumstances, to anyone?

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A friend told me a story about a long 20 minutes ‘conversation’ she and her son had.  It was very much a one sided conversation, one party ranted and another listened… Here is her story about the power when a parent can hold the space for a distressed kid, to allow the child to vent his guts out without inserting any opinion or correcting any statements…

I walked into the camp to pick David up.  I noticed his grumpy looking face right away.  Before we walked outside, he broken down crying: “Why did you tell daddy that i can not play the M rated games?  You don’t trust me.  Why?  why?  why?  Now what do I do? That’s my favorite game and thing to do there. Now I can not play for 8 more years.  Daddy will not change his mind… 8 years is long time, I can not wait that long…..I hate you.  Why did you tell dad that, he will never ever change his mind….Please tell him it is his decision… “  My heart sank to the bottom seeing him in such state of distress and despair, I felt pain as if a knife was stabbing  my heart.  I even started to regret about the email I sent to my ex-husband, the child’s dad the prior day.

In that email, I told him my concern of David playing the M rated video games, and he seemed understood and agreed.  But apparently David is devastated, and I was heartbroken listening to him…

I decided to let him talk, even though all I wanted to do was to cry with him and be upset.  It was one of the hardest I have done just sitting there watching my child in pain….  I apologized for not talking to him first about this matter before talking to his dad… After 20 minutes or so,he finally calmed down…  I felt like being hit by a storm, exhausted, but yet all is quiet …

On the way home, I made it clear that I indeed sorry for not talking with him about it before talking to his dad…and I am concerned about him playing the violent M games.  Then I said something for him and for me: “sometime life is not always proceeding the way we want, we must accept it and let it go.”  Amazingly, he listened with a nodding head.

There is a calming and  healing power when a parent can listen to the kid’s irrational thoughts, can be with the child’s strong negative emotions without trying to raise our opinion and to fix it right away… Jill says to me in tears: “All the while he was crying and talking, I was crying inside with him and I wanted so bad to stop him and to make him feel better.  Being in his sadness and anger without trying to fix it is extremely hard.”

Sometime, to provide our children the emotional safety they need,  a parent can do more just by sitting emphatically with the child, listening and feeling his/her pain and struggle without trying to fix anything.

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“I feel bad when you tell me that kind of stuff.”  One of my sons complained when I told him how great it is that he takes the summer writing lessen in the summer camp to become a better at writing….

But this was not what really bothered him. He was frustrated about my comments of getting better at the writing, so he started: “The class never helped!  I tried, and I did not get any better… Cartoon is about drawing not about writing…. ” he was on and on in venting his frustration by all sorts of justifications.  So, respectfully, I thought I were, I said:”well, complaint is never helpful.  I would rather see you try than saying it could not be done…  You are smart and I do not want to see you  finding excuses not to do the best…”  I started on and on, and that was when he finally put the foot down: “I feel bad when you say that kind of stuff…”  I was taken aback. I became quiet and started to listen. I wanted to understand what he had heard from what I have said.

Apparently, he heard all sort of criticism and my dissatisfaction towards his ‘performance’.  “I just want to figure it out someday by myself.” he said, “I do not want you to tell me.”   Upon hearing that, I quickly scanned my motives of the converstaion, I have to admit that I am criticizing him even not in direct words.  I have believed that he is not doing his best and he needs to stop finding excuses, and I have the intention to let him know that.  So, he did hear me, not only my words but also my motives!

Besides checking in with myself about the way I convey the  “bad’ news and my intend, I was also concerned about his sensitivity to”criticism”. I would like him to take criticism with ease, but at this stage of him development, this may be a challenge.  At times, as a parent, we can feel stuck between complimenting the kids and pointing out the area for improvement.  At times, there is a great difference between how we see our kids and how our kids see themselves.  So, what’s the reality we want our kids to see? How much room we are willing to give our children to test their own reality, and for how long?

On this particular evening, I told him that it does not feel good at all when people criticize me and I do not like to be criticized.   “Then, why do you do that to me then?”  He asked the tough question.  I said: “well, criticism is hard to take, but I know they can be good for me sometimes.”  “I still do not like it.” he murmured…

“Maybe what we could do was to figure it out together rather than I tell you what I have ‘figured’ out. “  he seemed like the idea better.  For now, we will have to leave it at that…

To patience and faith in parenting!

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Patrick came home with a paper and pencil on hands counting…  I asked: “what are you counting?”

His brother chimed in: “He is counting who is smarter in his class, Joe or David.”

Patrick explained more in details: “We are voting that Joe is the smartest in the class and David is the dumbest in class….”

I said: “Do you mean that Joe has the best grade in the class and David has the worst?” I know Joe, a hardworking student always has the best grades.

Patrick is sure of himself: “Yup.  Joe is in the gifted program too. He is the smartest.”

“I bet you that David is just as smart as Joe. If he could study more, he’d get better grade.”  I was trying to stay on specifics not the general conclusion of things.  I would like them to see  that good grade has more to do with the effort, and the effort is in their control.

Slowly, Patrick’s choice of words have changed from who is smarter to who has better grade. I heard him telling his brother: “Joe gets the best grade in the class, but David gets the worst, huhuhu…”


Teaching our children how to use words accurately and realistically is important for self esteem and personal confidence.  Using descriptive words to label a person is to box a person into a fix position.  Fix in a position would either inflate a false ego (positive descriptive words) or instill a helplessness (negative descriptive words) .  Either is productive in long run.  The way we talk forms habits in our communication.

To foster a child’s healthy emotional growth and self esteem, a parent need to pay attention to how we and they use descriptive words to label self and people.  Whenever possible, always try to use specific event and to describe situation rather than making global, absolute, permanent statement.  By focus on specific, we teach children the power of growth and change, and the power of personal choice.

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Sometimes, I seriously doubt that a parent’s “discipline” does any good to our children.  It all depends on a parent’s self awareness and the intention.  Too often, we discipline in the name of teaching our children “good behaviors”, but in reality, we discipline them because we are angry, or we want to be in control and we want to look good in front of others…

I went to a party not too long ago.  I witness something very interesting.  Two school aged boys got into rough playing with each other.  The fathers of the two boys got up to stop the rough playing.  One father calmly and casually told his son to stop it and do something else, another father was apparently agitated and frustrated, told his son the bad behavior is the end of his party, they are going home.  So, the boy left in tears begging to stay to play his favorite activity of water play, which is coming up.

Looking on as a bystander, it does not make any logical sense why the fathers could have two totally different emotional reactions and two totally different approaches to the same event.  Why the second father has to take such extreme measure for something trivial as kids playing rough…

The only logic explanation is the difference in these two dads’ psychological makeup, the difference of how the fathers believe their children should behave,  and what their role as a parent should be…   Ultimately,  it is the difference in their emotional responses when their children are behaving in ways they do not agree with….  B In the nut shell, the fathers’ reaction and disciplinary action has a lot to do with who they are than the children’s behaviors.

Overly harsh discipline does more damage to a child emotional safety and self esteem than change behavior.  When we discipline the kids for the sake of satisfying our needs of ‘looking good” or reacting to our own unhealed psychological wounds from the past, we get exactly what we want:  gratifying the ego and venting our past.  At mean time, our children are feeling hurt and confused, grow more and more fearful and rebellious…  No wonder after years and years, the children are still “hard to manage” and we get more and more frustrated and irritable.

So, if a parent has issue with anger and frustration, with control…, it would do more good if he/she just leaves the children alone, withhold any disciplinary action until a parent can find a centered and rational space, and can think for the best interests of the children.

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Some consider that sociopath and narcissism have become the epidemic in this nation. What a narcissist person’s psychological quality of life is like, and how that might impact his/her  children’ emotional life and emotional safety?

Although the quality of life is overly emphasized in terms of material goods,  the psychological aspect of quality of life is more important if not equally important.   For people who have strong tendency of sociopath and narcissism, the psychological quality of life is very poor.  Ironically, some of them might have the good material quality of life, but that can not make up for the poor psychological quality of life.

In nut shell, people have tendency of narcissism are self centered, lack empathy and respect for fellow human being.  The world is seen by them as a dangerous place, so the life is all about make it work for ‘me’, through control and manipulation, through love, through career… People, include their own children, can be viewed as objects to meet certain needs, the needs of being seen as “good”, when necessary.

From this view of the world and people, a narcissist tends to discipline the children to shape behaviors into what “I agree with” or “I feel good about”, not from what’s the best for the children…  They are  lacking tolerance and overly harsh when comes discipline.  The discipline is about control, about power, not really about what’s good for the kid.   For them, children “behave” well is to make a parent look good, or to cause a parent less trouble.  Such intention has two devastating outcomes: the discipline hardly works for long term, and it threatens our children emotional safety and self esteem.

During one of my parenting workshops, a question was raised: “What do I do when my five years old in grocery store acts up because I do not want to buy the candies he wants while other adults are watching as if to see what am I going to do about it?”  My first question is “Before you take any actions, are you clear about why his acting up is an issue to you in grocery store?”

Do you want to your child to stop acting out because you feel embarrassed and frustrated, or you want to teach your children the value of refrain temptations, or a good healthy eating habit, or ….  Depend on your motive, you will have different emotions and actions.  If you want your kids to stop acting out because you are embarrassed, you would be in the mood of control and hence the unnecessary harsh discipline to “get it under control”.  If you want to use this as an opportunity to teach your children the values of delayed gratification or good eating habits…, you would take the time to talk and listen….the acting out is not at the center of your concerns.

If a parent has a strong desire to “look good”, the hallmark of of narcissism,  looking good might proceed anything else, even the child emotional safety and well being. Unfortunately, statistics says 1 out of 25 men, 1 out of 200 women have such narcissism and sociopath ‘disorder’.   It is important to understand that a parent’s personal psychology greatly influences a child’s development.  For the welfare of our children, a parent must take a hard and ruthless look at our motive in parenting, in our way of discipline, so not to pass our poor psychological quality of life on to our children.

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We all have heard that we must be consistent in what we say or do in parenting to avoid sending mixed message and to nurture children’s self esteem and provide emotional safety.  Some of the inconsistency in parenting is very subtle, for example, changing the ‘rules’ randomly on our children.  It causes the utter despair and helplessness and powerlessness in children.  Unfortunately, some parents would do anything in order to control their children.  A friend recently tells me a story that makes me realize how changing rules on children threatens a young child’s emotional safety.

“My son came home on Monday extremely quiet and irritable. His sister was happy and chatty about the wonderful trip they took with their father over the weekend. I asked him how was the school and how was the weekend, he refused to say a word.  At home, he started bugging his sister, and I put him to timeout as I normally do.  But that Monday, he exploded.

He started to get really upset, slam the door and kick the cats.  I knew that was not normal, so I asked him ‘what’s wrong’.  ‘You are a mean mommy’ he said.   I asked him again: ‘how was the school and how was your weekend? Did they have anything to do with you being upset?’

He started crying, and curved up in my lap and told me about the ‘unfairness’ of his father. During their trip.  His father took his allowance away for “misbehaving” at a party and told him if he dose not bug his sister for rest of the day, he would have his allowance back.  When he accidentally ate a cookie he is not supposed to eat, his father told him that he can not have his allowance back.

My son was so upset and confused that he could not speak in complete sentence: ‘but I dd not bug her. why can’t I have my allowance back? ….’      ‘Did you ask your father?’ I asked.   He sobbed:”no. he would be even madder”.

I can not believe 24 hour after this incident, he is still feeling hurt by it.  He was powerless, and somehow I felt the same.  I did not know what to say because it has aroused lots memories in me. His father has changed rules on me more often than I care to remember, so I would end wrong for some reason.  It used to confuse me and frustrate me a great deal.  When I finally saw how the game is played, I distance myself.  But for my son, what can he do? He experiences the unfairness but powerless to do anything about it.  That thought makes me very sad because I am not able to help him …. All I could say to him was that his father changing the rules has nothing to do with him.  But I am not convinced that he understands it.”

Now my friend is in tears herself…. She is worrying about the long term psychological and emotional impact on her kid..

Why a parent changes the ‘rules’ randomly?  In my view, it is the power struggle and control issue more than anything else. It is the desire to be ‘right’ driven by the fear of  ‘being wrong’.  So, it is the parent’s inside work to find out why  he or she is fearful, why he /she wants to be right and gets into power struggle with a young child.  If we really think from the perspectives of our children, for the well-being of our children, a parent must constantly and honestly look inside our self …..

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