Kids are passengers, not pilots. Empathy is noticing someone's feelings and caring about them, not taking care of them. Let your kids have empathy for you but be an adult who handles himself and his feelings. Kids are passengers on board of your plane, they shouldn't have to pilot it so be serious about understanding yourself and self-care. Harm comes from the absence of information and coherence. Emotions are normal and unstoppable, you can't hide them to your kids even if you believe the opposite. Information doesn't scare kids, absence of information does. Seeing you sad will destabilize your kids only if you lie about it, say the truth and the whole story. Kids can handle the truth when it's told to them from a loving trusted adult. Emotions are primal information. Because everyone feels things differently, everyone has different emotions and different ways to expressing them. If one sibling takes a lot of space, the other might turn into a rock, make sure that your system suits all of your kids needs. Teach your kids that emotions are primal information that they can't beat. Appear powerful, not perfect. Talking about your struggles with your kids helps them to understand that, despite being far less competent than you are, you struggle just like them. You must appear powerful, not perfect, and ask them for feedbacks as well as ways you could improve for them. You don't owe them to change but you owe them to understand what's being their requests. You don't owe your kids happiness, you owe your kids the conditions for growth, safety, and emotions. Nobody should feel guilty. Guilt comes by acting out of alignment with your values. If you don't value responding fast to texts, tell it to people you text with often to avoid feeling guilty. When you go out without your kids, tell them that it's because you want to go out with your partner like you did before. You are not being mean but truthful, your feelings come before others inconvenience. When you love someone, you respect their boundaries, including their "me" time. Have things your way. Our shells are different, some are more porous than others. When you spend your time wandering what other people think of you, you loose yourself. Doing nothing in a heated moment is a sophisticated technique, manage your feelings on the inside to de-escalate the situation. Knowing where you and other adults stand on any scale gives you ideas of which direction to go. You are allowed to have things your way even if it cause inconvenience to others. Knowing where you stand on the spectrum gives you balance. Stress and hard things are good. Have you told your kids about the real meaning of feelings like stress, anxiousness, and nervousness? It means that they care and gives them a better story to tell themselves. You shouldn’t avoid stress but learn how to manage it. Doing hard things for your kids is stealing their capability. Tell them about the amazing feeling they will have when they finish the hard thing. Build their identities based on their capabilities. Your wins aren't based on your kids reactions but on your internal feelings. Anxiety and frustration are inevitable. We can't be good at everything but should try everything, both to discover what we're good at and to learn frustration of not succeeding. You end up stopping putting people on a pedestal. Successful people are not immune to anxiety and self-doubt, but it only kicks in once you hit your firsts deceptions. Don't outsource your sense of worth to an upcoming failure. Learning comes at the cost of temporary shame. The difference between knowing and not knowing is a learning space filled with anxiety and frustration, but also opportunity to grow and build resilience as well as delayed gratification. There is no brain-rewiring without frustration and adrenaline should come from the learning itself. Shame comes from loneliness and not feeling attachable, which also blocks learning. Remove shame from your kids' badness by telling them stories about your younger-self relatable badness so they don't feel alone. The only reason urges don't turn into behaviors is because you've developed the skills to handle them.
Becky Kennedy