Is it terrible for a child to feel responsible for your emotions?

[LittleMissPollyHadADolly]

I see these kinds of phrases pop up every now and then, that a (in my case, young) child should not feel responsible for a parent's sadness, anger or whatever.

But this is near impossible when they push you to your limit, isn't it?? I do tell my 3yo (calmly) "you've made me sad because you're shouting", for example. Is this so wrong? If so, how can I rephrase it? Shouldn't a child learn that if they do something or act in a certain way it's going to make people around them have negative emotions?

This is interesting.

' I don't like it when you shout at me. It makes it very difficult to understand what you're saying. Please talk to me politely and you're more likely to get what you want. You can have some time to calm down if you need.'

I think what you're saying isn't okay becuase you're trying to guilt her into stopping.

It's perfectly reasonable to have boundaries. To make it clear that you do not like shouting. That shouting might lead to consequences - you insisting she leaves the room, you leaving the room, the end of the conversation etc. It's even okay to acknowlege your feelings, "I am angry and frustrated because you keep shouting at me". But it's not okay to frame this in a way that is designed ot make the child change their behaviour because they feel bad/guilty.

>Does the bully not have any responsibility for how the victim feels

The bully has responsibility for their behaviour yes.
And needs to know the impact of their behaviour.

The bullied is entitled to feel sad or angry etc
What the bullied does with that is important eg tell a teacher. Walk away. Tell parent.

Maybe it’s helpful to talk and think in terms of good and bad behaviour. When a DC shouts or hits or whatever, I’d say, “That’s not ok to do that, do you understand why?” (They aren’t tiny, so it’s easier to have discussions.)

So a bully’s behaviour would be bad, and I can understand why it would make my DC sad - their feeling isn’t a bad thing, but a reaction to someone else’s actions. It’s about accepting their feelings, whether it’s anger or sadness, validating it, THEN talking about whether and how we can change those feelings. The bully made them sad; what can we do to move on from that sadness and protect the DC from feeling saddened by the bully in the future?

”Bad” feelings will always happen, but I think it’s about teaching children that bad feelings shouldn’t equal bad behaviours. They push us to check we’ll always love them even when their feelings are overwhelming and they don’t yet know how to deal with them properly (god knows, we as adults still do this in difficult situations). As children grow older, parents are there to give them tools to deal with “bad” feelings in a better, more productive way.

@AgileGreenSeal I would agree that what is happening there is emotional abuse as the children have to be wherever they are told. (I'm guessing this is a custody situation?
However I'm not sure that letting a child know that they have hurt someone's feelings/made someone cross is a bad thing as long as it is done kindly. Surely a child needs to be taught that their actions have an impact on other people.

Solidarity, because mothering is very hard sometimes.

However I don’t think it’s necessary or helpful to tell your child their shouting or difficult behaviour makes you sad. You can be firm and create boundaries without connecting that.

I think it’s definitely necessary to help them understand that their behaviour can affect other people. I wouldn’t frame it as

“you've made me sad because you're shouting",

as in the OP but rather

“your behaviour wasn’t good because you were shouting. I felt sad about that.”

And now we find that @LittleMissPollyHadADolly doesn’t feel sad about the shouting after all 🤔

Help your child to understand right and wrong behaviour but don’t try to manipulate them through guilt to teach them the lesson.

Sometimes it's better to show them it's not acceptable rather than try to explain and go down the 'that makes me sad' route.
'It's not ok to shout. I'm not going to listen to you while you're shouting. I'll be making lunch when you're ready to chat or if you want a hug'. Then go and do that ignore any shouting. This message is clear compared to complicating it with your feelings.

IMO there is a difference between teaching children their behaviour impacts others, including adults, and teaching them they are responsible for the feelings and reactions of others.

An example of impact would be "Your sister felt angry because you called her a name and that was unkind".

An example of responsibility would be "Well, you know how your sister is, she gets angry at everything. You just need to watch what you say to her in future".

There is also a distinction between being age appropriately responsible for impact on adults and being made inappropriately responsible for adult feelings.

Lots of age appropriate examples have been shared here - parents expressing they are feeling sad when a child shouts at them or says mean things, or a child who has bullied or been unkind to another child being taught to understand that it makes the other child feel sad or hurt.

Inappropriate responsibility would be like:

"If you go and visit Daddy this weekend I'll be lonely and sad without you"

"I don't know what I'll do with myself when you go to university, I'll be all alone"

"If you don't do your revision I'll be worrying all week about your exams, I won't sleep"

It can also include things that would fall under parentification, like confiding in a child about adult matters such as finances, relationship issues or a relationship breakdown, medical issues in a way that is inappropriate to their age and developmental stage.

I prefer to keep it more matter of fact and start with the word "No" so there's no ambiguity. Some behaviour is unacceptable because it's unacceptable, regardless of how it makes people feel. Likewise, some behaviour (like not wanting to play with another child) is fine, even if it makes other people sad. I see this as what is meant by "Don't make your children responsible for your and other people's emotions".

For example, my youngest has a habit of running through other people's gates and up to their front doors when we're out walking. Most of our neighbours are at work or wouldn't really mind, so it's not exactly making them sad. So I say "No, don't do that. We don't go in other people's houses or gardens without being invited". No sadness, just unacceptable behaviour.

My older one would occasionally hide behind me during playdates and at groups and refuse to play with the other children, particularly one child who they found a bit overwhelming. Yes, this made the other child sad, because they wanted to play, but that wasn't my child's responsibility.

So I say things like "No, stop that noise. Be quiet please, you're disturbing people round about us", "No hitting please, it hurts", "Stop doing that, it's annoying". Rather than "When you do that, it makes me sad".

The short answer is yes. You need to stop defining their behaviour in terms of how it makes you feel. Your child is not responsible for your feelings, you are. Child-rearing is difficult and draining, but you are the adult and need to act like it.

Thank you all for your replies.

I think I've got the idea now, and I'll be considering my words more carefully.

Some posts here dwell on whether or not the shouting actually makes me 'sad' so just to clarify...
ok so I'm not actually crying or anything and whenever I calm my child I do usually get down to her level and explain things calmly. I have said the phrase some of you have suggested: "shouting hurts my ears" but it seemed she wanted to push even that to the limit, almost curious as to how I react or something, which I think is where it lead me to try telling her how it made me feel emotionally.

So should I not ever tell her that she makes me feel happy or proud? How do we teach children to be compassionate and to genuinely want to make others feel happy? I appreciate that this could go too far into then being a people pleaser but I would like my child to know^^ how to please people, without hopefully making that the be-all-and-end-all.

Parenting is a steep learning curve and I am so unprepared for the deep psychological subtleties of teaching. In the heat of the moment sometimes I just say what naturally comes to me, whether it be positive or negative. I find it ironic that the tone of some of the replies on here make ME feel like I've offended you when all I've asked is for a bit of clarity. Are you trying to give me a taste of my own medicine or something?

I don't mean to be negative, but I don't think you need to worry too much about teaching your little girl to want to make others happy. With the way our society is presently structured, she will be given the message loud and clear that women exist to support others and put their needs last. The challenge will be to combat that.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't tell her that you love her and she's wonderful and she makes you proud, but I wouldn't use it as a motivating factor for her actions. So rather than "Mummy will be so proud of you if you behave well and do this and that", I'd just tell her "Here are the rules, here's how you have to behave" and then impose consequences for any misbehaviour. And obviously if she does well, you can say "good job!" or "Mummy was really happy with you".

I grew up with parents who used emotive language a lot - "I was so embarrassed when you did this", "I was so ashamed when you did that?", "Can't you at least try to do this, it would make me so happy". I don't think it's a good way to parent personally. I prefer to say to my DC, "Here are the rules, you can do what you like within the rules. But if you step out of line, there will be consequences". To balance that, we also talk a lot about personal relationship and friendships and how they make us happy but they involve compromise and give and take.

I've been reading this thread surprised by the level of emotion some posters seem to feel, and almost want to berate the OP for being human.

There are new standards now that you are a mother don't you know. A weird kind of competitive parenting?

While children should be treated with respect and kindness, they should not be treated like little gods that we pussy-foot around.

While children should be treated with respect and kindness, they should not be treated like little gods that we pussy-foot around.

I agree with you @Lovageandgeraniums , but this is partly why I personally think it can be helpful to keep things factual rather than about emotions. I don't have much time for "Stop doing that because you're making Mummy sad'. I prefer 'Stop doing that, this is your warning. Do it again and we'll be leaving (or whatever the consequence is)'. This is partly because a lot of children, especially toddlers, couldn't care less if their behaviour is making people unhappy, they haven't developed sufficient empathy yet. And for those more sensitive children who are highly influenced by wanting to please others, I think it can be harmful to use emotions as a control mechanism.

I think it's fine to share positive feedback with your child. Just as long as you are avoiding, as a default, steering their behaviour via your (or other's) feelings in a manipulative way. There are parallels in adult communication where I think it can be easier to see that that's a weird / unhelpful way of communicating.

Imagine a workplace supervisor was orienting you to a new situation or environment, and they spoke to you like this:

"It gets me so down when people do not follow procedure X"... "Oh look you've missed Step A that I've shown you, god I'm stressed out now, you've got to do better than that, you're really making me want to give up" or "I am so happy, someone (you) has finally followed Step A, I will be singing in the car on the way home now!"

And imagining that wasn't light hearted or some kind of joke but genuinely the way your supervisor routinely conducted feedback on a day to day basis. I think as adults, people in the workplace would really have their backs up and frankly, think someone who supervised/taught in this way was a bit unhinged. Or if they didn't externalise it as the supervisor's problem, it really might be quite stressful and confusing dealing with that kind of up and down emotional feedback. They might even be distracted by the essential content of the feedback itself by the delivery style.

It doesn't matter that the supervisor is the expert, responsible for teaching everyone about Procedure X, or that the feedback is correct, when it's delivered in that way it's not as helpful.

Kids don't know better, do they are likely to internalise whatever kind of feedback style you use.

Compare to a supervisor who speaks like this:
"Okay this part is the really important bit, because not following Procedure X means that consequence Y, which really is a lot of extra work for me"... "Ah, you've gone wrong there by not following Step A, this is how you do Step A for next time" or "Great job with getting through Step A that time, you nailed it" - this demonstrates that it is possible to give positive and negative feedback, without the confusing emotional baggage. There will be some occasions where it's totally appropriate to say "I'm really proud of you" of course, but for the little things, "Good job" (or equivalent) I think does a better job of actually allowing a child (or adult!) to feel proud of their own conduct.

Talk about tortured parenting...ffs

I think in answer to your question "how do we teach children to be compassionate and to genuinely want to make others feel happy" there are two things:

1. There is an innate drive in human beings to be compassionate and genuinely want to make others feel happy, and it is especially pronounced in children toward their parents. Your approval is literally the warmth of the sun to your children. A light touch is best with that kind of power! Give them the sun, absolutely, let them bask in its warmth, don't give and take away the sunlight based on whether or not they have eg put their shoes on in time to get to school.

Keeping with an adult communication analogy, this isn't too much different than how a good manager/supervisor handles a desperately needy, emotionally volatile and insecure junior member of staff (that they can't fire, lol)

2. Whatever you want your children to be, you be. If you want them to be compassionate, you be compassionate. If you want them to be curious, you be curious. If you want them to be calm, effective, direct communicators, you be a calm, effective, direct communicator when you speak to them. If you want them to believe that authority can and should sometimes be challenged, you must believe that (your) authority can and should sometimes be challenged. If you want them to be flexible, etc

OP, what is meant by this is that a child shouldn't tiptoe around your emotions and shouldn't manage them. They need to feel safe at all times and by this you need to be emotionally available and attune to their emotions.

This isn't the case for example if a child learns to guess your emotional state in order to keep themselves safe. They will become hyper vigilant. If you are sad, tell them if they ask, but dont dump on them. Dont fly off the handle randomly. Don't give the silent treatment. Don't blame them. Accept them. Listen to them. Treat them like a human with their own personality. Allow them to express their needs and dont shame them for being who they are.

It doesn't mean to hide your emotions. It just means to create an environment in which they don't feel responsible for fixing it in order to receive attention, love etc.

Thank you so much everyone.

I've found your messages inspiring and although I won't get it right all the time, it's nice to have something to aim at.

I have found that a lot of advice these days focuses on what not to do, often with no indication on what to do instead. So thank you for giving me some options so that I have a few things up my sleeve.

Blimey parenting is complex.

@LittleMissPollyHadADolly It's great that you are reflecting like this. As a rule, perhaps ask yourself if your child ever has to 'work' or change or suppress their feelings/needs in order to receive attention and love. Or do the same in order to keep the peace at home. That's the red flag you are looking for. They shouldn't, even during consequences for bad behaviour etc.

Look at your own thought process if things feel a bit much etc.

No Children are not responsible for our emotions or validation. It’s our job to do that for children.

I would rephrase focusing on the unwanted behaviour and your child’s emotion but not making it about you. ‘I can see you are angry, but we don’t shout, what’s upsetting you?’

The problem with focusing on your emotion, is it creates people pleasing and he’s a toddler, he’s trying to communicate, but doesn’t know how to or regulate.