The stories we tell ourselves matter.
Whether emotions shape our narrative or our narrative shapes our emotions is up for debate. But one thing is clear - the narrative we hold about our children's behaviour influence both our relationship and our responses.
Most of my day is spent interacting with parents who are experiencing a degree of distress - trying to make sense of their children’s emotions and behaviour and also trying to make sense of their own.
This is a pattern I see in my practice:
Parents who believe their child can’t help their behaviour - seeing behaviour as mostly driven by trauma or other underlying challenges - often fail to set clear limits. They tend to feel responsible for their children’s behaviour as well as their own.
Parents who believe their child is just being difficult - minimising or dismissing the devastating impact of trauma and disability - often fail to accommodate. They tend to see the child as responsible not just for their own behaviour but sometimes for the parent’s reactions to their behaviour as well.
Those are extreme positions to help illustrate a point - although I do often see the extremes things can be more subtle and complex and it can all take some unpicking.
In NVR therapeutic parenting we try to create kind and balanced narratives that build empathy and compassion but don’t lead us down the path of over accommodating patterns of behaviour that won’t serve our children well in the future - and that aren’t conducive to a peaceful family life in the here and now.