Continuing Bryan Post's Eight Components of a Peaceful Parent/Child Relationship...
#7. Understanding our children means perceiving precisely what they mean rather than assuming an ulterior motive.
It means being sympathetic toward their point of view.
Most parenting theories fail to teach parents the necessity of understanding.
This failure is not in the parents themselves, but in what they have been taught.
This teaching began with the parent's parents and their parents before them.
Along the way, in all of the confusion, some have been led even further astray by misinformed therapists who themselves had received much the same form of parenting.
This problem runs rampant in our society.
We have been directed to look outside of ourselves for solutions, but in doing so we miss the single greatest solution to almost any conflict, which is simply understanding the situation from the other person's perspective.
It is often difficult to understand the behavior of a child because we fail to understand our own reactions first.
Generally, misbehavior, if not interpreted correctly, will lead to a parental feeling of fear, which will give way to guilt or blame, and in some instances, a deeper sense of shame.
When this occurs the parent has already stepped out of range of understanding her child.
The primary key to understanding your child is in your perception of her behavior.
Parents are often so intent on believing that children are inherently disobedient, that they fail to see the true emotions driving their children's behavior.
Most often, it is not about disobedience at all.
It is the presence of fear that causes the adverse behavior.
If a parent will look beneath the behavior to the underlying fear of the child, she will be better able to approach her child with an attitude of understanding.
Bryan Post
Post Institute for Family-Centered Therapy "There is help, There is hope."
http://www.postinstitute.com
Office: 866-848-POST (7678)
info@postinstitute.com
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