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Avoidant Parents (part 2) · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist, and this is a new series which I have decided to write because there's something about this particular area of parent-child relationships, which I think is undercommunicated, and it's sort of subtle at one level, yet the effects of it can be incredibly powerful.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Not just because the effects upon children, so apparently or at least in the consulting room, but also the effects upon the partners of the parent who behaves in this way, and also others who might very well be involved.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: So this is about avoidant parents.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Now I think what's really important is to understand and have a clear understanding of what we mean by avoidant, because terms like this are used in a very loose way, quite often.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way that people talk about narcissists and so on.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: And we're not talking about a disorder.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: So in the introduction to the series, I've I have actually described the avoidant parent as somebody who may be physically present but emotionally difficult to reach.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So in this episode, I want to clarify things a bit and talk about what that parent is actually avoiding.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: The obvious answer might be conflict, intimacy, or emotional responsibility, but underneath these things lies something more fundamental.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: The avoidant person is often trying to escape an internal emotional state which feels impossible to tolerate.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: And this may be anxiety, shame, helplessness, dependency, disappointment, or the fear of being criticized.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: It may be the discomfort of not knowing what to say, the possibility of getting something wrong, or the experience of being emotionally needed by somebody else.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, for some avoidant adults, strong feelings create an immediate sense of exposure.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: They may not consciously understand this, and they sometimes simply experience an urge to move away or escape from the situation, even though there is no tangible threat.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Now that movement can be physical, they may leave the room, go to work, become absorbed in something else that seems to take precedence over the immediate situation.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: But the withdrawal can also be psychological.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: They can become silent, they may divert the subject, they may look to find a quick solution to something effectively closing things down, or they might even say that the other person is overreacting, or they behave as though nothing significant has actually happened.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of the withdrawal isn't necessarily to punish the other person, although that's not necessarily how they experience it.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: It certainly can feel punitive.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, its immediate purpose is to reduce the avoidant person's own emotional discomfort.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And this pattern isn't confined to the family environment and it's visible as a pattern in their adult relationships.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, a partner might try and discuss something that's gone wrong, but the avoidant adult hears the conversation as criticism and becomes defensive.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: They may say that they don't want an argument, even though the other person is actually attempting to have a discussion.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: They might say, let's talk about it later, but later never arrives.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And if the other person persists, they may become irritated, leave the room, or stop responding altogether.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: The original difficulty is then replaced by a second difficulty, and that's the impossibility of discussing it.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: The partner's left helping both the problem and the feelings created by the other person's withdrawal.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And over time, they may begin to anticipate that kind of response.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, they learn.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: So they choose their words very carefully, they wait for the right moment, they minimize what they need to say, or decide that it's easier just to say nothing at all.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, in this way, avoidance gradually moves from one person into the whole relationship.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Everyone begins to organize themselves around what the avoidant adult can't tolerate.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: There is another expression of avoidance which very often is experienced as selfishness.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: The avoidant adult may receive kindness, generosity, practical support.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Without properly acknowledging it, they might not reciprocate, and they may behave as though what's been given simply appeared and requires no meaningful response.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Now the effect upon the person who gives those things is considerable.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: They will feel taken for granted, invisible, and used.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: They may wonder whether their kindness meant anything at all.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And they then may begin to feel foolish for having offered it.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And eventually they may stop giving, or they might even give more in the hope of finally receiving some recognition.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: And this behavior can, of course, sometimes be selfish or entitled.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't automatically explain it as avoidance.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: But when there's a pattern, something more psychologically complicated is happening.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: So to acknowledge an act of generosity is also to acknowledge that another person has affected you.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: To say, that meant a great deal to me, I really appreciate it, is to reveal that you've been moved by what they've done.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: It recognizes that you've received something you valued, perhaps something you needed.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: It confirms that the other person and the relationship matter.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Sadly, for the avoidant, this can create an uncomfortable sense of emotional exposure.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude may bring them into contact with tenderness, dependency, or indebtedness, even though it's never motivated by those things.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: And it may create an expectation of reciprocity.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: But it may also remind them that if another person matters, that person could disappoint, reject, or leave them.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Ironically, those people will be the ones who disappoint, reject, or leave.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: The defensive solution is to reduce the meaning of what's being received.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: The gesture is minimized, maybe even unlocused.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: The kindness goes unmentioned or not even acknowledged or met with gratitude.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: The generosity is treated as though it were unexpected, but for the other person, it then loses its value.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: By failing to recognize its emotional significance, the avoidant person protects themselves from the feelings that recognition might produce.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: But the person who's given something doesn't experience the other person's behavior as self-protection.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: They experience it as indifference, insult, and being used.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: And this is an important feature of avoidance because the intention and the effect may be very different.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: The avoidant adult may intend to protect themselves from discomfort, though I should qualify that by saying this that makes it sound very conscious.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it is.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: The effect is that somebody else is left feeling unimportant, damaged, and used.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is really important because such people will do this repeatedly.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: And when those who have been treated in this way finally say, Enough, I can't cope with this.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: It's damaging, it's toxic, it's twisted, and they walk away and do the right things for their own self-preservation.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: This becomes a pattern.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's something which the avoidant person will talk about.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: People leave me.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: I always mess things up.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's wrong with them.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: I tried so hard, etc., etc.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And it becomes almost like a kind of mantra.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And of course it wears thin after a while, and the person who's on the receiving end of this will eventually say, Enough, you're not good for me.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And I can see why other people walked away.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a good thing.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Because when we join the dots, what we see is, well, yeah, there might be good reason for the way that you're behaving like this.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, or a good explanation, but actually that doesn't change the fact that you've done damage.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Damage which you will never take responsibility for.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: That's fine because adults can do that.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: But what if you're a child?
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Because the same process occurs between parents and children.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: A child brings emotion into a relationship in a very direct way.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Young children do not carefully regulate how much need they express.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: They become frightened, excited, angry, jealous, dysregulated, disappointed, and distressed.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: They need the parent not only to respond but also to help them understand what's happening inside them.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: But for a parent who experiences strong feelings as threatening, this can be extremely difficult.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: The child's distress may evoke the parent's own helplessness.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: The child's anger may feel like rejection.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: The child's disappointment may be experienced as criticism.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: The child's dependency may activate the parent's fear of being overwhelmed or trapped.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: So instead of thinking my child is experiencing strong feelings, the parent may experience something is being demanded of me that I cannot manage.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: The parent then tries to bring the feelings to an end.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: They may say, There's nothing wrong.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: You're being ridiculous.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Just get on with it.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Stop making such a fuss.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Why are you doing this to me?
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Or I'm not discussing this again.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Now these statements appear to be directed towards the child's behavior, but they may actually be attempts by the parent to regulate their own discomfort.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: The parent cannot bear the feelings, so the child must stop having them.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the parent responds with a practical approach.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: If the child is having difficulty with a friend, the parent tells them to find someone else to play with.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: If the child is anxious about school, the parent might explain that attendance is necessary and that if they don't do it, the outcome could be that they won't make the required grade and progress that's required.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: If the child is grieving, the parent tries to distract them.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: The advice may seem perfectly sensible, but it fails to recognize them to meet the emotional need, just as the same person will do without.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: The child isn't always asking for a solution.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the child needs somebody to remain with them while the feeling is understood.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Avoidance can't do that.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And there's an important difference between solving a problem and helping a child to bear it.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: The avoidant parent may be much more comfortable with the first because it makes them feel better.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Avoidance can also be seen in what the parent fails to do.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: They may not respond to communications about the child.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: They may minimize the child's needs in other ways.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: They may listen to and seek help about the child, but never act on it.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: They may leave difficult decisions to the other parent.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: They may avoid situations with other professionals because they fear being judged or exposed as inadequate, and so they become critical of the other parents.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: From the outside, this can look like indifference or irresponsibility, and maybe sometimes it is, but it may also be driven by anxiety and shame.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: The difficulty is that understanding the reason doesn't remove the consequence.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: The meeting doesn't happen.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: The advice is never taken.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: The other parent still carries the responsibility.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And the child's needs remain unmet.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Avoidance is often maintained because it works in the short term.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: If I don't make the telephone call, I don't have to feel anxious.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: If I leave the room, I no longer have to experience the conflict.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: If I don't recognize a child's distress, I don't have to feel helpless.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: If I fail to acknowledge another person's kindness, I don't have to reveal that I've been emotionally affected.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And the immediate discomfort subsides.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: It's a bit like self-medicating, but using denial.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: And this relief teaches the avoidant person to withdraw again the next time a similar feeling arises.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: But what relieves the parent in the short term creates a longer-term difficulty for everybody else.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: This is how the patterns develop.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: And the child begins to learn which feelings the parent can tolerate and which ones must be hidden, or at least in the short term.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, they might discover that achievement is welcome, but vulnerability and inability to achieve isn't.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Practical conversation may be possible, but emotional conversation isn't.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: The parent may happily discuss schoolwork, sport, everyday arrangements, practicalities, but becoming unreachable when the child wants to talk about loneliness, fear, things which are intangible.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: The child therefore develops a selective way of relating, and they show the parent the parts of themselves that the parent can manage.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: But of course, it doesn't work neatly.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, those parts just burst out.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: But the rest can be concealed, redirected towards somebody else, or acted out through behavior, and there is the big clue.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: And this is how parents' defense can become part of a child's development and part of the child's developing difficulties.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: In psychodynamic theory, sometimes we refer to the exclusion of painful emotions or emotional information from conscious awareness.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, attachment theory also helps us understand how children adapt when expressions of need do not reliably bring consistent comfort or responsiveness.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: The child doesn't stop having needs.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: They just learn not to communicate them.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Or they communicate them indirectly or they become silent.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they develop physical symptoms, and sometimes they refuse to go, sometimes they become angry, uh, they may start self-medicating as they get older, by which I'm talking about drugs and alcohol, they move may move into criminality.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: These are not fanciful notions, they're evident facts.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Some become self-harming.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: The behavior differs, but each child may be attempting to manage feelings for which there's no secure relational home.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And this doesn't mean that every emotionally reserved parent will harm their child, far from it.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Nor does it mean every quiet, self-reliant or anxious child has an avoidant parent.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Child development just isn't that simple.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: We have to think about temperament relationships, the environmental factors, by which I mean the family environment, experiences, and the wider family uh dynamics, that all these things matter.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: The issue is the repeated pattern.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: What happens when the child brings emotional need into the relationship that the parent can't tolerate?
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Can they remain present?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Or can they become curious about what the child is experiencing?
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Can they tolerate not having an immediate answer?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Can they acknowledge hurt and take responsibility for repair?
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Can they receive the child's love and generosity in respond to it?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Or does the child repeatedly encounter withdrawal, minimization, and silence?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And the avoidant parent isn't necessarily avoiding the child.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: They may be avoiding what the child evokes within them.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: But the child can't possibly know that.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: The child only knows that when certain parts of them appear, the parent disappears.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And so the child begins to unconsciously decide which parts of themselves can safely be brought into relationships.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: In the next episode, I'm going to look at this from a slightly different perspective.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I want to look at one of the most significant adaptations to the experience.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: And this has to do with the child who learns not to need.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: This is one component.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: There are others.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And this is often the child who appears strong, mature, and remarkable in many ways, and independent.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: But beneath that independence may lie a very different story.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: I look forward to offering you the first in this series.