A mother fears she’s repeating the negative patterns that shaped her childhood and wonders if it’s already too late to change. She writes that her mother used “guilt trips, the silent treatment, hitting, and what I would deem psychological abuse… She is who I learned to parent from.” While she has tried patience and reasoning with her kids, she still finds herself using harsh tones, lecturing, and yelling. “I don’t know how to fix it.” Janet explains why breaking these cycles isn’t about becoming a perfect parent, but understanding the messages we received as kids and how they may have affected us, so that we can learn to trust ourselves to lead with clarity and confidence.
Transcript of “Can We Overcome Our Upbringing?”
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Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.
Today I have a question from a parent. She’s got a lot of challenges in her upbringing and I won’t pretend that I’m able to address even half of what’s going on with her, but I do have some thoughts for her to consider that I hope will really help. And it’s all about this thing that a lot of us have a hard time with: setting boundaries with respect, being the kind of leader that we want to be, someone who can be gentle because we have that confidence in ourselves.
For a lot of us, and I’m including myself here, it really all comes down to our feelings about boundaries. Do we deserve to have them? And the answer to that is yes, but we may have received a different message growing up. So I’m going to talk about where and how to assert our boundaries and why they’re important. I think a lot of us know why, but I’m going to reiterate that. And I’m also going to talk about what we let go of, which is really the things that we don’t control.
Here’s this parent’s note:
Hello Ms. Lansbury,
I am aware you haven’t enough time to answer questions and address situations. As such, I don’t really expect a response. I’ll write anyway, however, because it may help me sort my thoughts, or maybe you’ll have a spare moment and think “this is the crazy lady I’m going to respond to!”
I’m about halfway through No Bad Kids. I’m enjoying it. It seems reasonable and effective. I’ve previously read The Whole Brain Child and some other parenting books. I think I know what I should do, and I know how I want to be as a mother. But the harder I try, the worse I seem to do. I cannot ever seem to get there.
The problem, I think, is multi-faceted. I’m a naturally high anxiety person, a perfectionist, and a sensitive Pisces. On top of that, I honestly believe I wasn’t raised in such a way to develop my emotional maturity. And while I acknowledge all this, I cannot seem to overcome it.
My mother is a screamer. She also uses guilt trips, the silent treatment, hitting, and what I would deem psychological abuse. I think my sister would wholeheartedly agree. I also believe my mother to be a narcissist, though I’m not a psychologist. And while I understand I’m not her, she is who I learned to parent from. My dad stayed out of her way—she’s no kinder to him than she was to us. I didn’t get married and have kids until my mid-30s, by which time my quick, emotional responses of yelling, lecturing, and using harsh tones were well cemented. I don’t know how to fix it.
I had great ideas when we had our first child (now 5.5). I wanted very little screen time. I wanted very little candy, if any. After having my babies (the second is now 3.5 years), I went back to work. My mother-in-law graciously agreed to watch our babies full time, which was a blessing. My wishes, however, were ignored, and because she was watching them for free, my husband forbade me from pushing anything. Both children watched tv from the time they woke up to the time I got home from work and ate and drank whatever they wanted as far as juice and snacks went. I said I didn’t want any tablets in the house. A tablet was purchased by my in-laws and given to my children. I have since quit and now stay home with them, and every day is a constant battle on screen time.
I have tried giving options, I’ve tried being respectful. I think perhaps I try to reason with them too much. I have such faith in their intelligence that I feel like I should be able to reason with them. But it seems they never listen until I lose my temper and shout. Then I start to lecture. And then I hate myself. I apologize, tell them that’s not proper behavior, and make sure they understand it’s not more acceptable for me to do it than them.
And then my husband also criticizes everything I do. Every word. Every look. Every tone. He walks through the door, and the tension mounts. He’s a fantastic dad, but he counters me constantly, so it makes everything difficult.
How can I overcome my instincts or how I was raised to be a better mother? Am I too late? Have I already caused lasting damage to my girls? I can’t seem to get over this barrier, and I feel worse about it every single day.
Thanks for any advice you have.
As I said before, there’s no way I’m going to be able to address all the issues that this parent has presented and I would never pretend that I could even come close to doing that. I do have some directions I think will help her, though.
First and most importantly, I want to say it’s definitely not too late. It’s never too late. It’s certainly not too late when you have a five-year-old and a three-year-old. Relationships are always in motion. We’re always developing them. That’s true with any kind of relationship. And this relationship that she has with her children that is so precious to her and to each of her two children can grow, can change, can improve if that’s needed.
I feel in this note that this parent is already being very hard on herself. And a lot of the issues she brings up, of course, are things that I hope she might consider addressing with a therapist, if she’s not already doing that. Somebody that can support her much more than I can in a 20-minute podcast. But I do want to support her and anyone listening. Everything here is possible for her to overcome. This is well within her grasp, if she’s able to begin by being kind and patient with herself.
The main message I want to get across to her and to anyone listening is that she deserves boundaries. But sometimes the way that we’re raised as children gives us another message. When this parent says things like she’s a perfectionist, that she has anxiety. Some of us have all these checklists. I have to do this, this, this, and this to be an okay person, to be an acceptable person. I wasn’t given that unconditional feeling that I’m safe, that I’m loved, that I’m accepted, and therefore, I have to be a perfectionist. I have to get all these things done so that I too can be okay. But it’s never quite enough, because we still have to redo those things every day.
For me, sometimes it’s like, I’ve got to do my jogging, I’ve got to do this amount of work, I’ve got to do this, that, or the other to be able to like myself at the end of the day. And I have to say that as you get older, you do get more forgiving. This is probably the best part about getting older. You start to take a look at, What are these “shoulds” that I’ve put on myself? Who did that? I did that to myself, and I can undo that. So that part does get easier, but it’s taken me a long time.
With the kind of harsh upbringing that this woman had, my guess is that she got a clear message that there were a lot of expectations of her and yet she could not make any kind of demand or have an expectation of others or she’d risk their rejection. And that’s really what boundaries are. Saying, I’m doing this because this is what I need to feel comfortable and what, as a parent, I believe is best for you. Therefore, I’m asserting this. And you get to feel however you need to feel about that or want to feel about that. That doesn’t change me expressing and asserting and standing by, holding strong to these boundaries. Again, when this parent grew up with a mother who’s a screamer, uses guilt trips, the silent treatment, hitting, and what this parent says “I would deem psychological abuse”—and I’m sure she’s right about that—there’s no way this parent as a little girl was going to feel like she had a right to stand up for herself.
We hear all these words like self-care and boundaries. It’s all just standing up for ourselves, no matter how the chips fall with other people. That we matter enough to assert what we want. And that’s what kids are really asking of us, because they can’t be mature enough to know how to do these boundaries for themselves. They need us for that.
And there are a lot of indicators in what this parent’s going through that point to her discomfort with asserting her needs and her beliefs about what’s best for her children. That is coming across when she says, “While I understand I’m not her,” meaning her mother, “she is who I learned to parent from.” It also comes across when she says, “My quick emotional responses of yelling, lecturing, and using harsh tones were well cemented.” And even in something else that this parent seems to realize she’s doing too much of: “I think perhaps I try to reason with them too much.”
Lecturing, using harsh tones, reacting emotionally, trying to reason with kids, getting short-tempered when they won’t do it our way, yelling. These are all things that we do when we’re on our back foot. And that’s why they don’t tend to work very well with our children. These come from a defensive place in us. Instead of having a leader that comes in with some semblance of confidence. This is what we’re going to do. You can be mad about it if you feel mad. That doesn’t change it. This is what I’ve decided best for you and best for me at this moment. We’re not caught up in that defensive position.
But we can get caught up in that defensive position because, like in this parent’s case, we don’t feel like we have a right to stand up strong for ourselves or we never learned how to do that as a child. When we did, we may have been emotionally abandoned. So I’m already mad that I’m in this uncomfortable position of having to try to tell you to do something or I’m going to try to talk you into it because I need you to agree with me. And that isn’t setting a boundary, when someone agrees with us. That’s not the challenge of setting a boundary. I mean, we all know that. We don’t need to set a boundary when people agree with us. Setting a boundary is about, It’s okay if you disagree with me, this is still my boundary. But when we’re lecturing, when we’re reasoning, we’re hoping our child will agree with us. And our child picks up on the feeling behind that in us, which is that we don’t want to assert ourselves, that we’re not quite able to be that kind of leader for them. So that is the challenge.
And I think many of us, at least almost all the parents I work with, are challenged by this at some level. This dynamic of, I’m setting a limit of some kind, I’m asserting my boundary. You get to disagree. That doesn’t change my decision. And even if at some point down the road my decision does change, it’s not that you’re changing my decision. I may start to consider, Okay, maybe I need to change my mind. We could do that too. But that ability to change your mind is part of being confident. It’s not like we’re in negotiation. We’re not needing to get your approval. We’re not needing to explain all the reasons why so that you’ll agree. We’re not needing to growl and yell at you. I mean, that may happen anyway. It’s just an instinctive reaction, so don’t blame yourself if you keep falling into that.
But just look at this whole picture: Why am I on my back foot here when I’m this big, mature person? And these are little children who want me to be this big, mature person who’s not on their back foot, who can stand confidently and therefore be gentle and reasonable. Reasonable, but not reasoning with you.
Now let’s talk about the specifics. In this case, I would give them a heads-up ahead of time. Not a warning kind of thing where we’re like, “Tomorrow we’re not going to do this!” but laying it out for them. “I’ve been thinking about this. I know you guys love your tablet. We’re going to take a break from that, I’ve decided. And it might feel really hard. You can get really mad at me about it. That’s okay, bring it on. I’ve decided this is what’s best for you and for our family. So we’re going to do it.” And you take the things and you put them away.
And when you’re making this plan together, you can open it up to them. They’re old enough, especially the five-year-old, to have input when you ask, “What kind of stuff would you guys like to do instead?” And it’s not, “If I give you this, can we take the tablet away?” No, this is setting the limit first. This is what we’re going to do. Is there anything I can do to help this work better for you? That’s how comfortable we want to get to with every boundary.
Again, I don’t expect I’m going to be able to convince this parent that she’s worthy of that in this one podcast, but that’s what I want her to think about. Why not? Why are my kids not worthy of getting a leader that isn’t afraid to be their parent and do what’s best for them?
If you can do this, you’ll see that yes, it’s going to be really messy, gnarly. Everybody’s going to be mad and they’re going to try to talk you out of it and be very reasonable about why they need all those things. And then you can say, “This isn’t changing. All discussion is open, but I’m not going to argue back because this is already decided.” We don’t get mad about them doing their job, which is to resist and have their feelings about it. We have to come from that place of being so settled in our decision.
And this is a really good decision to be settled in. Sometimes it’s easier to say we’re not going to do it for a few days or that we’re not going to do it for these certain hours. The more specific you can be, the easier it will be to stand by it. It’s almost easier for kids to think they’re not going to have it the whole day than to think that they’re going to have it at a certain time. And then they’ll say, “Oh, why not now? Why not now?” It’s still in their brains. They’re not ever able to rest in the idea that it’s not available. So in a way it’s kinder to say we’re taking a week off or whatever and really have that clarity. Scary, right?
I’ve talked to so many parents who have done this and when they had the courage to do it and do it with confidence—that means no lecturing, no need to yell, no need to negotiate or reason with them. Just that firmness that they feel in their whole heart and body that they’re being the most amazing parent right there. Which they are, by the way. Kids are freed up after they have all of this noise about it and try all the things they know, pull on our heartstrings. And you can welcome that too, when you find that place of comfort in being the parent you want to be, which is somebody that can handle a couple of kids and all of their messy feelings.
And you’ll see at some point—just when you think it’s never going to end, keep breathing, keep holding strong, keep believing. You’ll see them turn a corner and you’ll see how freed up they are when they can let go because we were confident and clear and comfortable in ourselves. All these Cs, right? We have to be all these different Cs: confident, clear, comfortable, certain. You’ll see the relief in them. You’ll see them open up to ideas.
Oh, we’re so bored! We don’t know what to do. There’s two of them and they’re going to find something to do together or separate, but probably together. And again, you can brainstorm with them ahead of time. Say, “This is going to happen. Let me know if there’s any materials you want or anything that you think you might want to do. I’m open to it, but I’m not open to discussing whether or not we’re taking the tablets away.” You’re not going to be smiling at first probably, but you’re going to get to where you can do that with a smile. Not a mean smile, but just like, “Yeah, I love you guys. Sorry, but this is the way it’s going to be.” Periods at the end of our sentences.
This is exactly what kids want from us, but they’re never able to tell us that. They will show us if we can wait it out through their gnarly reactions. They will show us, Phew, now I get to be a kid. I don’t have to be trying to control these things. And they can let go of these devices, which, as we all know, are just so addictive. It’s way beyond reason anyway. And when we’re only a little kid, we need help with that. I mean, a lot of us need help with that as adults! But kids need a lot of help with that.
So you’re helping them, you’re rescuing them, you’re giving them a chance to vent a lot of feelings. And the devices, they help us shut down feelings, right? Kids are just learning how to express and feel all the way and move through their own feelings, process them, and that’s getting arrested every time they’re able to just go to a device for that distraction. This parent talks about how she wasn’t raised in such a way to develop her emotional maturity. Devices interfere with that developmental process in a different way than all the psychological warfare that the parent had with her. We don’t want to do that either.
This parent says, “I think perhaps I try to reason with them too much.” I’m sure if she even thinks that, that it’s true. “I have such faith in their intelligence that I feel like I should be able to reason with them.” And sure, that’s true about a lot of things, but not these impulsive things and not when it comes to her setting boundaries. That’s not up for reasonable debate. It can’t be.
She also talks about areas that she doesn’t control that I would encourage her to let go of, which it sounds like she did, like the mother-in-law taking care of the children and doing it her way. It would’ve been nice if the mother-in-law did things the way that this parent asked, but she didn’t. And we’ve got to let go at some point, because if we want this person to care for our children, we kind of have to leave it to them. It makes sense that the parent wouldn’t be that confident to tell her mother-in-law and then she did not have the support of her husband to be strong about it either. So that’s a situation where I wouldn’t even try to have a boundary. I would try to let go and instead use my power where I have it.
Now with the husband coming home and criticizing and countering her and all of that stuff, I’m obviously not a relationship coach and I would never dream of stepping in and advising on any of that. However, this also seems like a place for boundaries. It’s easier to practice setting boundaries with children oftentimes than it is with adults, for me at least. But I would encourage her to say things to her husband. Like when he criticizes her: “That’s not okay to talk to me like that.” Even if this is in front of her daughters, it might be a wonderful thing to show them that it’s not okay to let people talk to you that way. If she could do that, that would be a really healthy place for her to assert herself. Again, not getting all defensive about it, which is on her back foot again, but standing tall and just saying, “No, don’t talk to me like that. That’s not cool.” It’s something to look at.
This parent said, “He walks through the door and tension mounts. He’s a fantastic dad, but he counters me constantly so it makes everything difficult.” I don’t know what exactly he’s countering her on, whether it’s rules or things like that, but I would let him know that, since you’re the one home with the children, you’ve made a decision on screens and this is what you’re going to do. I guess if he wants to say in the evenings they can do it, then maybe you let them or maybe you say, “Look, it’s going to be much easier for me if this goes all the way for a few days,” asserting a boundary with her partner as well.
I don’t know if she’s up for that, but the most important thing is that she starts practicing this with her children and she starts thinking about how she was raised to believe that she didn’t deserve something that she absolutely does deserve and that her children need her to feel she deserves. Right there, just considering this, will be the first step to being the kind of parent she wants to be. Being an amazing model for her daughters because she’s being true to herself, starting this relationship with these children on a path to improvement right away.
Actually, the first step might be what this parent started with. She said, “The harder I try, the worse I seem to do. I cannot ever seem to get there.” It’s really easy for us to go into perfectionist mode if we already have that bent and say, I just can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. So instead of going into this perfectionist mode as to what she should do, start to think about it, start to believe it. You deserve boundaries. No matter what kind of person you feel like on the inside, you deserve to assert yourself and your wishes and your beliefs as a parent for your children. Don’t take that away from yourself.
I hope this helps, at least a little bit. There’s a ton more in my No Bad Kids Master Course. A lot of support for you, a lot of visualization practices. I spend a lot of the course convincing you that you deserve boundaries, because you do.
We can do this.
