Why do we struggle to manage our emotions?
How our past shapes our present
In recent years, Gen Y and Gen Z are starting to dig a little deeper about themselves and the struggles they have with their inner emotional world. I have even heard of dating stories that involve asking their prospective pal if they go to therapy (and hoping the answer is yes). The stigma around seeing a psychologist is gradually dissolving, with individuals becoming eager to change unhelpful generational patterns and stop the inter-generational trauma being passed down.
Top down or power over parenting was common years ago and is still prevalent in families today. Essentially, it involves a parent using their power or authority over the child to control their behaviour or get them to cooperate in something they may not want to. It also often involves a reward and punishment schedule. Therefore, fear is created in the child, and that’s what forces them to comply with the parents’ desired behaviour.
You might be wondering how all of this link to emotions? Top down or power over parenting, doesn’t consider the child’s emotions. The desired outcome is a “well behaved child” who keeps quiet, sits still, eats all their dinner, goes to their room with their big feelings and doesn’t come out until they’ve wiped all their tears off their face, doesn’t raise their voice, and follows all the schedules. So it really doesn’t consider what is going on for the child, what their worries might be, or what they’re feeling.
Most of the families that adopted this parenting practice didn’t help their children name their feelings, teach their children how to express their emotions, or welcome feelings when they arose. Typically, children were told to “be quiet, get over it, stop crying, big (insert gender) don’t cry, stop being silly, and to not worry, move on or hurry up”.
What do you imagine a child learned about emotions from this experience? The message seems clear to me. Suppress your emotions, or be punished, dismissed, judged, or shamed! (Ouch) Love is conditional on me being the “good” child, and that involves keeping it all in.
What could then follow is a child who would take all their feelings to their room and find ways to distract or self sooth. The feelings are too big for them to be with on their own – so they may play with their toys, eating cookies, sucks their thumbs, bite their nails, or watch cartoons.
Unsurprisingly, these children grow up as adults with difficulty expressing and regulating emotions, addictions to their phones, substances (or any other distractor), anxiety and depression, difficulty in their relationships, people pleasing tendencies, self-neglect, putting others’ needs ahead of their own, feelings of guilt and shame, stress stored in their bodies, and poor coping strategies such as suppression, or avoidance, and sometimes aggression.
If this is an experience you resonate with, it is important to look at yourself with compassion, and to look back at your little 5 year old selves (finding one of your childhood photos can help with this), and understand that at the time, what felt emotionally safe was to keep quiet, and you did the best you could with the limited resources that were presented to you at the time. Thank the suppression and the distraction and avoidance, for all it has done - (thank you Barbie doll house for me) and choose to learn how to make space for these feelings that you have.
Lael Stone (Aware parenting expert) talks about three ways manage emotions – suppression, expression, or aggression. She has done extensive research into how to raise compassionate children, where you (the parent), holds space for their emotions, by listening and being with them while they express themselves. Lael, and other approaches also talk about the power of re-parenting ourselves which involves exploring our childhood and healing from our wounds.
To learn more about yourself, take the first step, book and appointment with Biljana.
