Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When Your Kids' Positive Emotions Trigger You

Transcript

When Your Kids' Positive Emotions Trigger You · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show, today, I'm going to be talking about a topic that
• 0:11
  people don't really address, which is when your kids positive
• 0:16
  emotions trigger you. So, I'm not talking about when
• 0:21
  they get angry and sad and that makes you really upset.
• 0:24
  But rather when some people and I'll talk about who feel
• 0:27
  uncomfortable when their child is feeling really happy or
• 0:31
  excited. Let's say, so, before we do
• 0:35
  that, I just wanted to tell you guys all to subscribe.
• 0:38
  I have a lot of subscriber episodes coming out.
• 0:42
  Like why fixing things does not always impress your wife.
• 0:46
  So a lot of guys fix things around the house, they think
• 0:49
  this is really masculine and really helpful and some of their
• 0:52
  wives don't give a shit and I get into y.
• 0:54
  So, that is your next subscriber episode?
• 0:57
  And there's like, probably now close to 60 subscriber episodes.
• 1:01
  So, anyway, getting back to the issue that we're going to
• 1:03
  discuss. So if you are Raised in a
• 1:05
  dysfunctional, family of origin, you may have learned that
• 1:09
  emotions are very dangerous and specifically it's dangerous to
• 1:15
  first of all, dangerous to get any attention.
• 1:17
  So you kind of always have to watch your emotions because you
• 1:20
  don't want to trigger a parent. When you're always walking on
• 1:23
  eggshells around it, very difficult, parent parent, who
• 1:25
  struggles with substance, abuse issues with depression with
• 1:28
  bipolar, with things like that. You really don't want to trigger
• 1:32
  them, so you don't want to stand out.
• 1:35
  Kids walk on eggshells, they try to blend into the surroundings.
• 1:38
  So if you come in yelling because you're so happy, that's
• 1:42
  not going to go well, and if you come home Happy really about
• 1:47
  anything it's it's going to attract attention and attention
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  is not a good thing, you may get hit, you may get yelled at.
• 1:56
  You may have woken the parent, you may be disturbing the parent
• 1:59
  who is extremely irritable and who doesn't like to be bothered
• 2:04
  now. Now also you learn that if
• 2:07
  you're happy, somebody might take that away from you,
• 2:10
  whatever the thing is that made you happy.
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  So in very abusive households with parents who are more
• 2:15
  severely mentally ill, they they're very abusive and they
• 2:19
  don't they don't know what to take away from you if you don't
• 2:23
  like anything. So you learn that.
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  If you like something, you should not share what it is
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  because it will get taken away from you.
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  And I just shared a meme about this on my Facebook page where
• 2:33
  somebody wrote about it. About the experience of having
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  to learn that if you like something, then then that gets
• 2:41
  taken away from you first. So you should always hide what
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  you like. So it's the same with happiness.
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  You want to show nothing you want to be totally stone-faced,
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  because if something makes you too happy gets taken away.
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  So, for example, if you're really excited to eat your ice
• 2:55
  cream, then when your parent gets mad at you, they throw out
• 2:58
  your ice cream and this is like, you know, really sad to think
• 3:02
  about if you've experienced it, then it is no shock.
• 3:05
  To you that this happens, if you haven't experienced anything
• 3:08
  like it, but your partner has said that, they come from an
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  abusive household with parents who acted spiteful and violent.
• 3:16
  Then you can maybe think about whether this actually happened
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  to your spouse, the same spouse that may have trouble with your
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  children. Now, when they express
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  happiness, even if they don't do that same thing.
• 3:26
  So, so in, so if you're raised in a dysfunctional family of
• 3:31
  origin, you also didn't get a lot of positive experiences,
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  which Also important for later as we're trying to develop the
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  context for why somebody would be, particularly attuned in a
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  negative way to their own child positive emotions, even if they
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  loved the child, so you didn't get a happy childhood.
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  And honestly, this can make you jealous can make you jealous of
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  your own kids, and that's like really taboo to admit, but it's
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  normal. It's a normal human emotion.
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  So a, you may be jealous of your own kids for feeling, happy
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  about things. Even as you with one hand, tried
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  to give them the good things. With the other hand, you are
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  basically trying to not take them away, but minimize them.
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  So like if you were somebody, let's say who grew up with in
• 4:21
  extreme poverty, then you could be trying to give your kids a
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  lot of stuff, material stuff. But you're also kind of looking
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  down on them at the same time and almost diminishing their joy
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  in these things because you Jealous of it.
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  Nobody ever gave you that stuff and it isn't true that you just
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  as an adult, as a parent, becomes some kind of a saint.
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  You can be jealous of your own kids, and people frequently are
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  jealous for example, of their kids in that, their spouse seems
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  to prefer the kids to them. And this is another thing,
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  you're not allowed to say out loud, but it's a total normal.
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  Human experience of the parent and another one is being
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  jealous. Literally of the childhood that
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  your kids are getting even even as you're giving it to them
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  because you love them and you walk.
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  Them to have all the best of everything.
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  But still you feel very resentful and particularly when
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  it's kind of obvious. So when they're obviously so
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  happy you, you're happy. But then you're also conflicted
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  and none of this is to say. So if you do experience, these
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  triggered feelings, when your child experiences, positive
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  emotions are not a bad parent, you know, at all, you're just
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  somebody who's choose. Obviously did not have a good
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  upbringing, has a lot of conflicted feelings toward
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  happiness. Word emotion.
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  In general toward kids and parents toward everything and
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  everything interpersonal. And and you're trying to figure
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  it out, which is why you're probably listening to my podcast
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  overall. So that's admirable, right?
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  This doesn't to say anybody's a bad parent.
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  So another reason again is because you feel you were never
• 5:54
  allowed to have big emotions as a kid, because they could
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  trigger somebody a parents volatility or at least their
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  attention, which was not a good thing.
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  So you learn to keep your emotions.
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  Is really close to the vest there and to keep your your
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  face, you know, like a poker face.
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  And so then when your kids are like really happy and just
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  bounding around and like laughing and all of that, they
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  look very vulnerable, they look like they could get hurt and,
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  you know, intellectually you're not going to hurt them, but you
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  feel like the world will hurt them somehow that they are being
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  too obvious, you know, it's like a version of what people used to
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  think about the evil eye that used to fit.
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  So, In, in in Eastern Europe. There was the idea that if you
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  compliment your children, then you're just attracting the
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  attention of the bad spirits who think that you're bragging.
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  And therefore, if you say anything good, then you should
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  spit over your shoulder or do something else to get rid of the
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  evil, spirits attention. Because if the evil spirits know
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  that, you love your child too much, they'll take your child
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  from you and it's so people in those cultures which were like,
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  you know, my grandparents era and before Are so it's not
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  currently but people in those cultures they learned not to
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  advertise positive emotions about their kids because they
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  felt they had the Superstition that that was just cording, you
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  know. Fate and that bad things would
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  happen if you basically brag too much and the bragging would be
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  expressing positivity and there is a lot of that that was passed
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  down even if people don't remember the original
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  Superstition or old wives tales, I went along with it, there is
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  still the idea if you grew up in a family that was very guarded
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  about emotion and where emotion was not a good thing and could
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  get you made fun of could get you hit, could get you yelled
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  at. So then now, even though you're
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  trying to be a good parent, you want your kids to be happy when
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  they are too happy. It makes them feel like seem
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  very, very vulnerable and unsafe to you.
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  It makes them Feel like makes you feel like they're too soft,
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  like the world is just going to take shit from them and it's
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  almost like hard to watch. It's like staring into the sun,
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  it's like too hard to watch them being happy because you think
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  that something bad will happen and this isn't because of
• 8:21
  anything real and it's important to her.
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  If this resonates with you, it's important to recognize this is a
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  cognitive distortion. That arose in your upbringing
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  from how your positive emotions were treated by your family.
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  This does not really Mean anything, it's a Superstition.
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  It's derived from Superstition, even if that's NADA, articulated
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  or not even known and what you when your kids are happy doesn't
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  mean that they are going to be more vulnerable to attack later.
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  It means in fact, the opposite that they are going to have
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  money, they have a layer of protection because happiness,
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  and feeling secure, which is how your children are expressing
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  secure. You.
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  By the way, this is a positive on you as a parent that they're
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  able to express positive emotions, freely.
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  That is protective if bad things do happen to them.
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  If there are bullies, if there are things that happen, you
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  know, that that are out of their control out of your control, it
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  is is a protective to have had a foundation of happy secure
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  childhood. That is actually a, it isn't
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  true that you can toughen up kids by Hurting them, you know,
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  getting them used to pain it whether emotional or physical,
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  nobody really thinks physical anymore, but sometimes people
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  can think emotional like, oh frustration is good, your
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  frustration is good if it happens naturally, frustration
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  isn't good. If it's a parent that is
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  specifically making life hard for you on purpose and the
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  people that do this usually had so much bad shit happened to
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  them, that they are. Really doing it out of mistaken.
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  Mistakenly doing it out of the best intentions out of love for
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  the child to all the dads that want to toughen up their
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  sensitive Sons. They're not doing it because
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  they hate the kid. They're doing it because they
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  love the kid and seeing the kid be so kind of sensitive and
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  happy and just walking around, they think man you are going to
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  just get fucked by the world. You have to learn the world's
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  not a happy place and bad shit happens now of course bad shoot.
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  May not happen to this kid that much, you know, because this kid
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  is more protected. This kid is your kid and you can
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  kind of be in charge of at least a lot of the stuff that happens
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  in their childhood. And their childhood, may not
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  have really much overlap with yours at all and as I said, it
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  is, it is protect protective and strengthening for a child to
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  have a strong base. Has a foundational level of
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  thinking, the world is good. This is actually helpful.
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  In fact, a One of the factors that leads to an increased
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  likelihood of combat-related PTSD and I may have mentioned
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  this in a podcast. I know I mentioned in sessions a
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  lot is having had an abusive childhood.
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  So if it were true that you could tough and kids up then the
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  people with abusive childhoods would then not have
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  combat-related PTSD. They would be used to all the
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  bad shit already instead. It makes them more likely
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  because when you're a kid and you have all this cortisol
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  released in your brain and you become hyper-vigilant to it,
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  Attack. All that does is wire.
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  You two to have a greater likelihood for depression,
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  anxiety, PTSD, and any other negative mental health outcome.
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  So that's the the empirical basis for not trying to toughen
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  up a kid. The other basis is that you
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  don't want to be that kind of a parent.
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  So even if you are just uncomfortable around your child,
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  happy emotion on some level, you're showing them, that it's
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  not. To be happy and it is okay to be
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  happy, it's good to be happy. You want them to be happy and
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  the best way to be happy, adult is to practice by being a happy
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  child. So sometimes people really can
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  just challenge their beliefs in this way.
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  And and kind of openly look at the distorted ways that they've
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  been viewing these emotions in their kids and choose to act
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  differently. And that goes back to my fake,
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  it till you make it podcast, you know, even if it doesn't feel
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  feel real to you and genuine at first.
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  If you notice that when your kid asks to happier, too excited,
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  you kind of like shit on it. A little bit, whatever they're
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  talking about or you avert your eyes or you just get kind of a
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  free-floating resentment or jealousy or anger or some
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  negative emotion like that you can practice.
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  Coming forward with a smile and saying, oh I like to see you
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  happy buddy or something like that, even if it seems.
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  So Outside of your character, you can practice.
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  And when you see the child can be even more relieved and
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  happier that can create a virtuous cycle where you are
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  realizing then that you are breaking the intergenerational
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  transmission of trauma and you are being a parent.
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  That's happy when their kid is happy.
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  When you, you may not genuinely feel like that, but but you can
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  get there and your own parent wasn't happy when you were
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  happy, likely your own pair and had lots of shit to deal with of
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  their Own. They pass some of it on to you.
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  And now you want to pass even less on to your child.
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  That would be the goal. So if you are somebody who has
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  experienced this, and you have a spouse who grew up in a more
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  securely attached family. They may not even really
• 13:48
  understand what you're talking about.
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  If you try to share this but it would be something valuable to
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  share because I'll bet anything that they've picked up on it.
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  And that they, and that, they'll say, oh yeah, I know, I noticed
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  that I noticed that whenever Jimmy's really happy you like,
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  look to the Or you say something bad about it or he comes home
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  and he says I got this book for free from the book fair.
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  And you say yeah well you're not going to get things for free or
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  whole life. So enjoy it now and he's five
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  you know. So and if you're thinking,
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  what's wrong about saying that to Jimmy it's a really fucking -
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  cynical kind of depressive worldview, not to mention that
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  you're not joining him in his happiness which is the
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  definition of empathy. Is being able to join somebody
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  in their emotion. So if you want to shit on,
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  Jimmy's free book from the Scholastic Fair didn't think,
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  right? Then that you're probably
• 14:44
  setting Jimmy up to recognize that reaction as familiar and
• 14:48
  when one day he has a wife where he comes home.
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  He says I got a raise and the wife says well it's about time.
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  We got something out of that shit job of yours.
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  Well then you're setting him up for that and nobody wants Jimmy
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  to be married to some woman. That's not happy for his race or
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  whatever the hell he likes to do.
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  Or does or a Shit. So this is another motivating
• 15:09
  factor here for changing your world view on this.
• 15:14
  And more importantly, at least at first, your behaviors.
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  And what you say is that you are setting your kid up to assume
• 15:21
  that relationships are and you're going to recognize this
• 15:25
  from your upbringing relationships are not safe
• 15:28
  relationships, are where people are trying to drag each other
• 15:31
  down and they're trying to point out problems.
• 15:35
  When the other person is happy and to poke holes in the balloon
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  of the other person's happiness and you probably recognize that
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  yourself from a dynamic that happened in your family growing
• 15:45
  up, if you're someone who struggles with this.
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  So you do not want your child to think of relationships like that
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  because there's plenty of relationships where people are
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  happy for one another. You didn't happen to see many
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  growing up, but you want your kid to see them in your house.
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  Now, some people are happy when their kids are happy, but
• 16:03
  they're not happy when their partner is.
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  Walt then, just think about it in terms, again of the family of
• 16:08
  origin. Likely, somebody was happy when
• 16:10
  you were happy, at least some of the time.
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  It wasn't quite as bad as the real bad cases that I'm talking
• 16:15
  about, but your parents weren't happy for one another.
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  So you had no idea what it looked like for somebody to come
• 16:20
  home and say something good happen, and somebody else to
• 16:22
  turn around with a smile, somebody came home, so that
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  something good happen. First of all, they'd be some
• 16:26
  kind of moron to do that because the other person.
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  So obviously wasn't going to be happy for them.
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  And second of all, if they were stupid enough to do it than the
• 16:34
  other person, shadow all over whatever they said and this was
• 16:37
  not usually one victim in one perpetrator.
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  Usually it's two miserable people that are very sad in
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  their lives and take it out on one another by tearing each
• 16:46
  other down. And if you saw anything,
• 16:48
  resembling that between your parents, then it is likely very
• 16:51
  hard for you to be happy when a partner is happy now because
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  you've seen no template for it. So again, what am I going to
• 16:56
  say? Fake it till you make it try to
• 16:58
  change the dynamic with your partner because aside from
• 17:02
  directly, how you treat your child?
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  The most second, most important Into your child's development at
• 17:06
  how this watching, how you treat your spouse, the relationship
• 17:09
  between the child's parents, which they're observing at all
• 17:12
  times. So try, when your partner comes
• 17:15
  home and says, you know, oh look, I got this special cereal
• 17:20
  to be like, oh, that looks good. Instead of how much was it, or
• 17:23
  whatever. You usually say, as you know, a
• 17:26
  paragon of optimism. So this, this sort of idea of
• 17:31
  being triggered by positive, emotions is usually something
• 17:34
  that people have to dig. Deep to see.
• 17:36
  But the, your partner certainly knows it and they will have said
• 17:39
  stuff. Do you like why you never happy
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  for me and things like that? Children will not say that
• 17:44
  because they don't know of anything else.
• 17:46
  They've never really they won't say, daddy, why are you never
• 17:50
  happy for me? Mommy is they won't say that
• 17:53
  because who the hell wants to get into that kind of discussion
• 17:55
  when you're already. Probably somebody that they're a
• 17:57
  little bit intimidated by, if not outright scared of, but a
• 18:00
  partner will usually have said it to you outright.
• 18:04
  So hopefully. This podcast gave you something
• 18:06
  to think about it is it is hard to parent and to be partnered as
• 18:11
  an adult child of dysfunctional families bought.
• 18:14
  But that does not mean that you cannot try and improve.
• 18:18
  And people constantly do in therapy.
• 18:20
  They learn how to think about things differently, how to act
• 18:24
  differently, it's an incremental process, but it's something to
• 18:26
  be incredibly proud of your reason, the Brady Bunch, you
• 18:29
  know, you go and have your happy family.
• 18:32
  Okay, that's cool. You know, parenting is hard for
• 18:35
  Anybody but it's a little less hard for that person.
• 18:38
  So if you were raised though in pretty much, you know, shit,
• 18:42
  then if you can approximate anything healthy, that is a lot,
• 18:47
  a lot, a lot to be proud of. So really, you know, it would
• 18:51
  certainly be easier for you to have an automatic default, a
• 18:55
  template of loving, and close parenting, and secure
• 18:58
  attachment, and all of these wonderful things.
• 19:01
  But if you don't, you could be even prouder of yourself
• 19:04
  forward. Working on it and trying to
• 19:06
  break the intergenerational intergenerational transmission
• 19:10
  of this functionality. And to be the person who decides
• 19:14
  to really take a hard look at your own behavior and and
• 19:19
  reframe things, and try to get outside your comfort zone and be
• 19:22
  the parent that you wish that you had.
• 19:25
  That can actually be very healing.
• 19:27
  It can allow you to process and grieve your childhood and to
• 19:32
  understand that you have stopped something.
• 19:35
  Terrible from continuing, at least in part, it was much as
• 19:38
  you can. And that your own kids are going
• 19:40
  to be even better parents than you were because you set them up
• 19:44
  in ways that your parents did not and could not sit you up.
• 19:47
  So think about these things, these are really, you know, deep
• 19:51
  life-changing sorts of realizations to have about
• 19:54
  oneself and to make these links between your family and your
• 19:57
  current function is apparent, but there's really no work.
• 20:00
  That's more meaningful than that.
• 20:03
  I hope everybody has a good. Day and I will talk to you soon.
• 20:06
  Bye, bye.