The Powerful Way To Protect Your Kids From Bad Relationships Before They Even Start
It may be different from how we were raised, but it can make all the difference in the world.
Rido via Shutterstock When we envision our child's success, what do we think of? If you're like most parents, you probably think of them going off to college and landing a high-paying job.
Yet, success is much more than just money or education. Considering that much of our happiness and quality of life is based upon the quality of our social relationships, our children's success also involves the health of the relationships they make along the way. Not just the romantic ones, of course, but all of our social relationships.
How to protect kids from future bad relationships
On a recent episode of the podcast Getting Open with Andrea Miller, therapist Eli Harwood, author of the book Raising Securely Attached Kids, shared a brilliant insight and example to help us protect our kids.
Harwood explains, "One of the core principles that I want parents to [understand] is that when you respond to your child with some level of understanding and compassion, you're not being permissive." Rather, she explains, you're helping them get back to a place where they can process what happened, how it happened, and how they felt.
This can be a challenge, especially when the child is misbehaving or having a tantrum. We want them to stop immediately, we want them to notice at that moment that they have done something wrong as if they are puppies who will forget a moment later what they're in trouble for doing.
Why compassion should come first during tantrums or misbehavior
It's harder to learn under stress or heightened emotion
The problem is, when we don't start with compassion, we ask them to reflect on their mistakes and learn from them in a moment when they are flooded with emotion, stress or even panic and that simply doesn't work well. According to research, humans are less likely to be able to think rationally or learn any lessons at all while under stress or in a highly emotional state. This is likely even more true for children.
Many of the lessons we need to teach our kids about how to behave in relationships, how to respect others and how to keep themselves safe arise in moments when they are melting down or misbehaving. But if we try to address their choices and behaviors in those moments, we miss a crucial opportunity to model for them how people in healthy relationships handle stress and conflict.
Stoically enforcing rules in emotional moments models power imbalance
Not only do we miss a learning opportunity when we refuse to connect with compassion in emotional moments, we also teach our kids that holding power over someone else is more important than having empathy for them. They learn to tolerate people "whose whole way of experiencing fulfillment in life is to dominate other people," as Harwood explains.
Co-host Joanna Schroeder adds an example, sharing, "We've all had that boss at the restaurant or on the shop floor who seems to delight in holding meaningless power. And when we do that with our kids, you do start to see how they could grow up to be that."
Harwood adds that holding meaningless power or withholding compassion trains children to see emotionally controlling relationships as normal. They may even subconsciously seek out controlling partners because it is what they're used to.
"They go out into the world and someone is going to relate to them with power and control. And they're like, 'this feels familiar'," she says. "So [they think] 'I'm going to bond with them'."
How to model healthy relationships in how we parent
All of this starts with becoming a better listener. Harwood explains, "We don't have to be our children's parole officer in order to offer them structure, guidance, and teaching." We can do both. We can offer structure and compassion, rules and empathy.
As co-host Joanna Schroeder says, we can teach our children that their feelings matter without teaching them that their feelings are the only ones that matter. This simple lesson models for kids how to treat others and how they should expect to be treated. That way, when those toxic relationships inevitably do come around the corner, they are better prepared for it — and know what red flags to look out for.
Connection before correction: an example
On the same episode of Getting Open, Harwood shared a fantastic example of how "connection before correction" has been applied in her life. Not from her toward her three kids, but rather from her husband toward her in a true "Karen moment".
The story is set during a time in which she was reeling from losing a child to miscarriage. She explains that her second pregnancy ended in another miscarriage she was going through a wide range of emotions.
"My husband suggests that we go take a walk around this lake to just sort of process and figure out what we need to do," Harwood told Miller and Schroeder. She and her husband hold up their season pass, but a teenage employee insists they aren't using it correctly.
Now, in any other instance, this wouldn't have been a big deal. Yet, after just suffering a miscarriage it was safe to say that she was on edge. So, she did the most "Karen" thing you could do at the moment and snapped at the young employee, saying, "Yeah, we're not going to do that. Thanks very much," before driving off.
At that moment, she didn't care if she came off as a Karen. She didn't care if she 'broke the rules' or was blatantly disrespectful. She just wanted to go to that park. She explains in her own words, "Like, I don't care about your rules. I don't have to follow your rules. I'm just moving on. I mean, it was not me in my core best self."
Yet, while she's furiously driving off her husband did something a bit unexpected. He didn't tell her that she was unkind or that she should go apologize. He didn't snap back at her or demand she examine her behavior.
Instead, she explains, "My husband looks over at me and just puts his hand on my leg and all he says is, 'I'm really sad we lost this baby,' and I just sobbed." She was in a place of profound loss and grief during this period, all she needed was connection and understanding.
Harwood continues, "And [this moment of connection] instantly led me to a healthy amount of guilt about how I had just treated her." She adds that her prefrontal cortex was "back online," and "The only intervention I had needed at that moment was for my husband to understand the pain beneath my Karen behavior." Which brings us back to our children and their behavior.
With this story in mind, it's up to us to consider how we act toward others — especially children, if we have them — in highly emotional moments. If we choose connection before correction, we are helping our kids create a better world for themselves and others.
Marielisa Reyes is a writer with a bachelor's in psychology who covers self-help, relationships, career, family, and astrology topics.