Invalidation Nation

We went to the park yesterday for a short hike with some friends, and as we exited the trail there was a young girl, a little older than V., sitting on the trail crying loudly. And standing next to her was her mother, berating her, telling her to get up, to "act like a big girl," and so on. Worse, she pointed to V.'s behavior as an example of how to behave appropriately.

Not surprisingly, the girl wasn't getting up. She just cried louder. I mean, who in the history of anything was legitimately motivated by being told that you're a worthless piece of shit? Because even though the woman (thankfully) did not use those words, that was the message she was sending.

I kind of froze a bit. Even before I became a therapist, witnessing such an exchange wouldn't have sat well, but the damage done from these kinds of verbal attacks parents is made obvious in so many of the people I see, both as recurring clients and as patients in the ER.

We all invalidate each other sometimes. No one is perfect. And as parents, there are times when we don't act like our best selves, and we need to be forgiving of ourselves when this happens. But persistent invalidation completely erodes a child's sense of self and ability to form secure attachments. This could play out for the rest of that child's life as chronic loneliness, worthlessness, emptiness, unstable relationships, difficulty maintaining or respecting boundaries, and so on, unless or until they get help -- and even then, only if it's help with a professional who is well-versed in working with this population and managing the related behaviors.

And so I stood there, not sure what to do, feeling my heart sink. A quick mental assessment suggested that my intervening wasn't likely to make the situation better, and the woman wasn't getting physical with her daughter. It made my stomach hurt.

I guess I'm not really sure what the point of this is other than to say please, treat each other kindly, particularly your children! This doesn't mean withholding discipline or letting your child do whatever they want -- lack of rules and boundaries create problems of their own. But just like, don't make kids feel worthless? Maybe? Don't expect kids to be adults, to have the same thinking or emotional intelligence as an adult might have, to be convinced by logic when their emotions are screaming out.

Listen, I get it. I do. Parenting is fucking hard and a lot of us are simply repeating the lessons that were passed down to us. Your kid refusing to do what you need them to do is frustrating! But you have to know that what you're doing isn't fucking working. That it isn't making your child into a better person who will listen when you need them to. We have to break the cycle of passing down emotional wounds from generation to generation. Can we ask ourselves, am I being the person that I want to be? Am I modeling to my child what kind of person I want them to be? And if the answer is no, can we try something different?