Constantly Trying To "Understand" Your Kid May Have This Unintended Consequence

In mindbodygreen's parenting column, Parenthetical, mbg parenting contributor, psychotherapist, and writer Lia Avellino explores the dynamic, enriching, yet often complicated journey into parenthood. In today's installment, Avellino explores the downside to "understanding" your kid.

As a therapist, I see humans struggle with two common challenges. The first is projecting our own way of thinking onto others. It’s surprising to us that others handle situations differently than we would. And the second is the belief that if we just “get” something or someone we will be able to “fix” the situation or even them.

I have a child who ventures through the world very differently than I do. My practice in meeting her needs is shifting my goal from understanding all of her motives to being with them and accepting them. (And I want to emphasize, accepting doesn’t mean liking). But because we live in a world that values cognition and meaning making, many of us are losing the willingness to simply be with people, instead of trying to understand them.

The downsides to constantly trying to "understand" people around us — including our kids

While getting curious about who our children are is essential to knowing them, it can also lead us on an unending search for “why?”

For example, is thier anxious moment a sign that they have a disorder? Is their lack of focus developmental or a signifier of ADHD? We can end up approaching the relationship through scrutiny as opposed to compassionate curiosity. Once we develop a belief about them, we start to see everything through our own belief rather than seeing them for who they truly are. 

Children can also sense when we are inquiring so that we can do something about the situation or solve a problem. They are much more comfortable with not knowing (it’s why the questions are endless) than we are as adults.

Sit with these three questions to create more space for delight instead of insight and to differentiate when your desire to understand is authentic.

In 1953, psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott coined the “good enough” parent. he used the term in order to highlight that, while you might not understand what to do all the time or be the best, you can be a consistent presence of your child’s vast emotional world. This permits your child to bring all sides of themselves to the relationship.

Whether or not you “get” why your child is having a tantrum or is in a bad mood, doesn’t matter at the moment. The intervention is always going to begin with your presence. Lending our presence to our children models for them the power of “being with” versus controlling, changing, or growing at all times.

One of the most difficult emotions for parents to experience is powerlessness—seeing your child struggle or behave in a way that brings up uncomfortable emotions for you, but not being able to do anything about it.

At times in my life, trying to understand a situation has been a route I took to escape my own pain. When we go up in our heads, it can help distract from what hurts in our hearts and bodies.

How can you practice staying in connection, remaining close to your own discomfort and your child’s experience—even when you can’t quite understand the situation? Sometimes we attempt to solve our children’s discomfort, when really we just need to learn to sit with our own in order to best support them. 

Get to know the energy behind your desire to understand. The tone of inquiry when we really want to know someone is different than when we are seeking to come up with a solution to their problem.

This assumes that we already know what’s best, before someone tells us. And it also doesn’t leave space for our children to truly trust we are deeply interested. The research shows that we listen to those we think we know best the least, because we believe we already know what they are going to say. 

True listening requires going beyond hearing the words and instead being with how our children are expressing the whole of themselves—the sound of their voice, their body movements, the look in their eyes. Don’t assume that because we are raising them that we know everything about them.

The beauty of the child experience is that they are growing and changing all the time. What would it be like for them to be your teacher at times, rather than the other way around?

The takeaway

Curiosity can be a genuine expression of love or it can conceal a desire to solve a problem or control our children’s outcomes. Getting curious about how and why you’re trying to understand and at some points putting the goal to “get it” aside in order to just be with them, can unlock new possibilities in our relationships with our children.