This blog on parenting is a nice description of an instance of how parents often misread a child’s behavior. I recommend that parents always look for the deeper emotion beneath a child’s actions or words, and the most powerful of these emotions are fear and shame.
The blog notes how a parent missed the sign of her adolescent’s need for connection in an everyday conversation and how recognizing it helped the mom stop “parenting” and start connecting.
Staying mindful and calm is key in allowing a parent to pause and reflect on a child’s motivations, then choose and healthy response. Many times, parents REACT based on their own psychological issues — also often involving shame!
It’s a complicated thing, these human relationships. Check out this short blog:
https://www.acesconnection.com/blog/i-m-here-and-i-matter