I adore working with teenage girls as a counselor. They have become my absolute favorite because of their motivation (they usually have requested counseling themselves), their honestly, their insightfulness and willingness to hear feedback.
The thing I struggle with the most: parents.
I am a parent, so on some level, I get it.
You love your child wildly and know whats best for them and want them to hear your sage advice because you have been there...
And.
One must listen.
I gave feed back to a particularly defensive and frustrated parent who was certain I would be on her sage-advice team. She was blatently pissed when I noted my observation of her talking over her daughter, not really listening, knowing what was best (which quite frankly the mom was not wrong)...but she did not hear a single word of what her daughter was saying. Advice giving. The daughter just wanted to be heard. to talk out what was in her head. mom did not even have to agree or like it. It was frustrating to participate in, and it shut daughter down. She was not allowed to speak her truth to mom, but mom wanted her to speak her truth to everyone else, to stand up to everyone else. Oh yeah, being bullied might have been a chief complaint. Do you see it?
And there is a time and a place for advice using our adult knowledge to tell our kids what to do and I believe it is a parents job to make the big decisions. Both things matter. But I know that I, as a human, tend to hear advice much better from others who I feel hear me and value me.
Anyway. It was exhausting and hard not to think about after I got home. The idea of knowing that I too, sometimes just want to tell my children how to handle things and teach best practices and preach and teach. But I know that as much as that is part of my job, I need to also create safe space for them to talk and be heard without solutions all of the time.
The next day, as happenstance or fate would have it, I felt put to the test in that area.
My dear sweet sweet Kindergarten son was extremely upset when he came out of school. He had a situation with a friend, where he did not like how it played out and "I never want to play with him again" and other blanket statements out of frustration.
Oh man. Did I want to give some sage advice right then and there.
Luckily I had a little reminder not 24 hours before.
So I listened. I asked open questions and questions to understand what went down better. We explored how he was feeling. We talked about it again a little bit later and discussed what else HE thought could have been going on in that situation. Also how he wanted to handle things at school the next day. Or some options.
But I kept repeating to myself in my head 'LISTEN'
Things turned out fine. He went back to playing with that kid, his decision. He has not verbalized any negative feelings about it since. But this will certainly not be the last time child has trouble to vent about.
I do believe that how we approach this now will guide our communication and relationship in the future. I want him to be able to talk about hard things and hard feelings. I want him to feel safe to talk to me. I want him to learn to problem solve on his own. I want him to feel safe and comfortable to talk to other authority figures about problems. I want him to be able to articulate his feelings rather than act them out in a less than ideal way. And I emphasize LEARN, as it is a process, and I am still learning it now, and thirty-enjfieungnj....
Anyway. This is a reminder for me, to look back on.
To remember, what it looks like when I have seen years of a girl not feeling heard, valued and not feeling safe to talk about or articulate her concerns and feelings to adults/authority figures.
And point my people in the right direction of feeling heard and valued. NOW.
