Understand and love your child to always have them in your embrace

In one of my spare times, I visited our Truly Inspired‘s podcast channel on Spotify, and after taking a look around to see what topic the channel’s audience was most interested in, I was quite surprised when the topic related to teenagers was one of the topics with the fewest streams among all.

If you know about or follow Truly Inspired on different social media networks, you will easily realise that “Teenagers” is one of the sub-topics under the topic of “Parents and children” which is available on all Truly Inspired online platforms. And this is also one of the topics that I really love to work with and discuss as it has a very strong connection and meaning to me, both educationally and personally. Teenage is the age that requires a lot of upbringing, positive energy and love from their parents, and problems occurring during this time will have a major impact on the child’s future personalities and lifestyle.

Nonetheless, one strange thing that I have noticed is that although most parents are very concerned and worried about their child, especially when they are approaching or currently in their teenage years, yet not many people actually take the time to learn or read more to better understand the difficulties that their child has to go through, both physically and emotionally. It seems that everyone is only interested in how to be a good parent, how to teach their child to be more behaved and how to make their life more abundant, but they ignore one very important thing, which is they need to understand their child in order to love them. My dear friend, your child will only listen to whatever you say when they finally feel safe, trusted and loved enough.

Let me tell you a story that actually happened in my family.

I have a daughter who is also in her teenage years. She has a very bold and fresh personality and can be quite stubborn sometimes – just like many young adults out there. Normally in the family, the daughters tend to be closer and more open with their mother than with their father, probably because in her eyes, dad appears to be a pretty quiet person that makes her hesitate to share things with. Plus, she may think that dad also somehow has the “personality” of an engineer: who talks less and does more, who is a bit dry and blunt, who struggles to say words of love and affection directly, even though all his acts of concern and care for her can be as meticulous as any other dad. And because of that, although they love each other very much, there is still a small, invisible distance between my girl and her father.

One time, my daughter did something wrong and was scolded by her father, so she sat down in a chair and started crying because of annoyance and resentment. When I saw what happened, I immediately understood the problem and went to tell her, “Actually, daddy really loves you, probably even more than how much I love you, but it is just that men are normally not so good at expressing their love and affection compared to women and girls like us. Maybe I can be better in doing things gently and delicately, while he will totally be better than me when it comes to doing big things. Everyone has their special abilities to be better at certain things but also not as good at different things, so you shouldn’t be mad at him since he has tried his best to do things that weren’t his forte.”

She was still shaking her head, and her little anger was still showing in her fussing face. I continued, “Isn’t it that whenever you do something wrong, you will feel very guilty and start asking yourself why on earth you would do something like that. And sometimes you can even go on and start getting really mad at yourself too, right?”

She seemed calmed down a little, and quietly mumbled her “Yes” to me with a head nod. I continued, “Do you still sometimes blame yourself for not being able to do some of your basic things, while other people your age can already do it on their own and sometimes better than you? Isn’t it that you always throw your clothes and things around and make them cluttered inside your wardrobe, your bag and your room? Sometimes you get so mad because you just cannot find a certain thing, or even cry out loud because you think you’ve lost your favourite toys, right?”

She started to lower her head and took a long pause before replying with another “Yes”. This time, I stopped with my rhetorical questions and asked her, “So, do you know why there are so many things, even your most basic and personal things, you still don’t know how to do?”

I patiently waited for her to speak, but she somehow seemed like she was lost deep in her thoughts about what I just said. So I once again spoke up, “It is because daddy loves you so, so much, to the point that he always wants to help you with even the most trivial and personal things. And because of that, he somehow forgets that you also need to practise different essential living skills and prepare for your future, so that explains why you still cannot do well on many of your own things. Daddy has done so many things for you silently, and now I think it is your turn to learn to take care of your own space. If he didn’t love you, then he wouldn’t even be bothered by the thought of having to care for your own thing, right?”

My daughter shyly nodded.

And after that talk, I felt really happy to notice that she has changed her way of talking to her father and behaving around him. My daughter no longer blames her father whenever he scolds her for all the small and trivial things. She has also started to become more open to her father. In the evenings when the whole family gathers for a meal, she already knows how to share everything that happened to her in the day with both of us, not just only me. She also starts to tell her father more of her stories, from all the superstitious things she has in her head to how she feels every day, or about her friends, teachers, and subjects at school. Even if they are quite sensitive issues like her struggles during puberty, she still manages to find a way to express and share with both father and mother, and not just with me like what she used to do.

And you know, it is those little sharings every day that bring all three of us closer together. In our family, there will be zero secrets or distance between the parents and the child. Therefore, I feel a little heartbroken when I realise that there are still parents who do not even care to understand their child and to love them properly. As parents, we are always looking for different effective methods to teach our child and to show them what our expected behaviours are. However, before finding any methods, the first basic thing that parents should remember is that they have to fully understand their child. If we need a method to teach our child, understanding them is one of the best tools to support your child-rearing method that makes everything easier and more effective to implement.

Have you ever thought about why the older your child grows, the more they want to separate from their parents?

Do you think that when they grow up, they will think that the world around them looks more attractive and appealing compared to being around their parents? Not really, though. If their parents make them feel interested and safe enough, and if they are able to show them that home is the place to the best love and protection, then the child will always want to come back and want their parents to accompany them in everything, no matter how old they are.

I have also shared in another article that children are like blank sheets of paper, and they will “display” everything out depending on how external circumstances “write” on them. If you understand your child enough, you will find a better way to teach them and show them that you love them very much, and your child will also see you as an older friend for them to trust, share and learn.

And that is also why I truly encourage parents like you to take time to read and understand more about your child’s colourful emotional world, no matter what age they are, or whether they are in their teenage years or not. By acknowledging their emotional and psychological differences, you will be more able to get up-to-date with teenagers’ viewpoints regarding modern-day emotions, and to empathise and build trust with your child better. Spend as much time with your child as you can, and every time you do that, remember to always be present in those shared moments with all your heart. Every kid is a unique and individual being, and there can be no exact lessons, methods or any applications that can work on the entirety of them. It will be very difficult to find a way to maximise the effect when we apply the same teaching “formula” to different children with different personalities. Therefore, investing the time to really understand your child is one of the best tools that can be used to arrive at the solution that parents aim for.

One more important thing to take note is that never use your “power” or “authority” to manipulate them when you do not even understand them. An adult’s “power” or “authority” will only make the child become more distant and alien to their parents, right?

Much love,
Truly Inspired