God help me, I'm one of THEM

Thanks, flushd. It actually has helped a lot just to talk about it and admit to the negative feelings. I think it's going to be fine.

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freeduck wrote:

. . .They don't involve being a ballerina . . .

Yeah, right. You totally want her to be a ballerina. I bet you're already making her diet and put her hair in really tight buns.

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How did you know. When I put her hair in really tight buns, she says "mommy stop, it's hurting". And I say "suck it up, sweetheart, no pain, no gain."

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FreeDuck wrote:

How did you know. When I put her hair in really tight buns, she says "mommy stop, it's hurting". And I say "suck it up, sweetheart, no pain, no gain."

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This is absolutely fascinating!

I usually won't even look at a thread that is already at nine pages but THIS is indeed worth it.

I'm thinking back to my thread where I was trying to figure out when to start Mo on piano lessons. So much of the advice I got on there regared the fact that he will eventually NOT want to continue but that I would have to make him.

I'm a big believer in piano lessons.

And excercise.

Also....

I have often been criticized for NOT enrolling Mo in more activites. I have been told that our goof around and loaf lifestyle will "ruin" him for school.

And....

I don't understand why it is such a horror for a child to see their parents disappointed about something.

I probably learned more about myself and life in general from the times I disappointed my parents than from any other experience ever.

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That's an excellent point, boomer.

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boomerang wrote:

I don't understand why it is such a horror for a child to see their parents disappointed about something.

I probably learned more about myself and life in general from the times I disappointed my parents than from any other experience ever.

Ack.

I think experiencing your parent(s) expressing disappointment at you for not doing what they want you to / turning out the way they'd have hoped / etc / is probably one of the worst things for a kid's natural self-image or self-confidence or sense of inner security.

I mean, sure, every parent will be disappointed once in a while, but its kinda hard to underestimate the hurt of feeling you failed your parent(s) (once again).. fucks you up.

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If it's "once again", sure. That assumes a context that neither Boomer nor FreeDuck have provided, though.

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Boomer, I'm so glad you joined us. I was wondering what your take would be.

I will address the disappointment issue since that caused me the most angst. I think it's ok for her to know I'm disappointed in her if it's something that's important, like poor behavior or something that she should be expected to do. This was something that I wanted for her more than she wanted for herself, and she's only four, so I felt like anger and disappointment were inappropriate reactions to have at a peewee soccer game. And I'm trying to be very cautious about conveying expectations to my kids.

But the truth is, she doesn't respond to disappointment anyway. She just doesn't seem to care. She could be hiding it, but I don't think so. She's been that way from the time she was a baby. She's pigheaded, like me. Still, I feel like she's getting messages anyway, and whether she responds to them or not, I want them to be the right messages.

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Correction, I should have said "inappropriate emotions" not "reactions" since that implies that I was actually expressing myself.

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Perhaps I was insanely lucky in the parent lottery because they would express disappointment at specific behaviors I displayed but I never doubted that they loved me and accepted me.

I understand the hurt that a child can feel when they disappoint their parents. I disappointed my own enough. I can clearly recall how it felt.

From that I learned that my behavior rippled out to affect other people.

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boomerang wrote:

This is absolutely fascinating!

I usually won't even look at a thread that is already at nine pages but THIS is indeed worth it.

I'm thinking back to my thread where I was trying to figure out when to start Mo on piano lessons. So much of the advice I got on there regared the fact that he will eventually NOT want to continue but that I would have to make him.

I'm a big believer in piano lessons.

And excercise.

Also....

I have often been criticized for NOT enrolling Mo in more activites. I have been told that our goof around and loaf lifestyle will "ruin" him for school.

And....

I don't understand why it is such a horror for a child to see their parents disappointed about something.

I probably learned more about myself and life in general from the times I disappointed my parents than from any other experience ever.

The problem with kids seeing their parents disappointed, without more explanation from the parent, is that there's a very real danger that the child won't understand that it's a disappointment with the behavior (quitting, bad temper, not listening, whatever) and not a disappointment with who the child is. A child who thinks their parent is disappointed with them as a preson will carry that with them forever, and that's not a light or easy burden to carry. There are ways to challenge a child, encourage them, push them to test their limits and get out of their own comfort zones - all of which is good, imo - without making them feel they are letting the parent down if they don't immediately seize it. Parents' feelings about their children shouldn't be dependent on whether the child is into the things the parent likes, and the child shouldn't mistakenly think that is the case, either.

Sometimes kids grow into liking things. My older daughter has always loved to dance, but it wasn't until now (at 4, and now in ballet) that she's gotten really excited about displaying her dancing. I take that as a sign that the ballet has really clicked with her, and that now, at this age, she's ready to grab it and really enjoy it. Had I stressed out when, at 3, she didn't want to show me what she learned in her dance class at preschool, I suspect I could easily have made her turn the other way and never want to perform publicly, which would have meant I'd shut her off from something she so clearly enjoys now. Had to find the right activity, the right age, the right venue for her. It's about the child, not the parent. And there's time to fit everything in.

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I share my life with a child whose comfort zone takes up approxamately one square inch. He has his reasons to feel this way. He'll try just about any activity as long as I go along for the ride.

I am seriously careful about expressing disappointment.

And frustration.

The only way anyone is going to find the right activity and the right venue for any child is to help them try it on for size.

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boomerang wrote:

Perhaps I was insanely lucky in the parent lottery because they would express disappointment at specific behaviors I displayed but I never doubted that they loved me and accepted me.

I understand the hurt that a child can feel when they disappoint their parents. I disappointed my own enough. I can clearly recall how it felt.

From that I learned that my behavior rippled out to affect other people.

I gather that, in your perspective, having the parent(s) express disappointment is just a useful learning tool for the kid. That's what it says here, anyway.

To me, that sounds too "short through the curve", as we say in Dutch.

But yeah, whatever. To respond in similarly defensive (and slightly passive aggressive) mode, perhaps the others of us who have piped up have just been insanely unlucky in the parent department - or have failed to just be good about the experience and take one's parents disappointment as, you know, a learning experience.

To me, that sounds more like something to expect from an adult rather than a child <shrugs>.

sozobe wrote:

If it's "once again", sure. That assumes a context that neither Boomer nor FreeDuck have provided, though.

Ehm, FreeDuck no - but then I wasnt replying to FreeDuck.

Boom's remark I was responding to was, simply:

"I don't understand why it is such a horror for a child to see their parents disappointed about something."

I read that as a general remark about how it is or shouldn't be "such a horror". It doesn't sound like referring to a "once only" thing. Her post quoted above also isn't about a once-only thing. <shrugs>

Also, I've gotta join Chai on it becoming a bit much how you keep jumping in to speak up for others, considering that the others will in turn answer themselves as well. It seems to just make for piling on.

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A meta note:

This thread evokes to me the image of a bunch of 'outside' criticizers rushing in with various comments and pieces of advice, some reasonably well-targeted, others wholly misguided; and a core group of parents who know each other well here in response circling the wagons and swatting those outsiders away. Perhaps a bit dramatic an image, but then, thats how metaphors work... ;-)

I realise that part of that may be that, you know, the outsiders take things that were literally said or described in this thread at face value, and respond (strongly) to that; while the fellow-parents know that, in reality, there's more to the context, and that the persons in question hardly actually act like what their individual posts literally say or imply at all. Like, the soup isnt eaten as hot as it is served, to throw in another Dutch saying. So they know that many of the critical comments are just undeserved. That makes sense.

Still, pretty unhealthy dynamic.

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I've been sitting here trying to remember my parents being disappointed in me. The delay is that that was all long ago.

I think their expressed disappointments were all about my failure to clean my room or drink my milk, and not about school work or competence at athletics. My strongest memory is of a long talk with my father the day I got a D in... wait for it.... theology. Or was it the C in organic chemistry...
basically he was supportive. So given that I still remember the support talk, though I was well beyond 4, it was typical in that the support wasn't a surprise - I can see a pattern of disappointment about achievement and 'not trying' would be very, very erosive. I still save some loving and supporting letters from one or the other of my parents to me when I was a child, which is handy since they have been dead for many years and that old support helps me now.

This is not about anyone here being 'disappointed' for moments in time. I'm just on about the whole concept of support.

Having never parented a child of my own, I'd still guess that I would screw up sometimes on the right way to deal with situations - I can easily guess that some anger and frustration are virtually inevitable, and that the trick is to analyze and resolve it.

I've been a close aunt to a very troubled child, so I've a little sense of pushes and pulls a parent could go through. But close-aunt-viewed-positively-by-both-parents-and-the-child is almost a carefree position in practice, in that one is not so much there to instruct, much less control or discipline, but to listen and nurture. Not so much a parent-child interaction as a big person-smaller person thing, closer to plain friendship across a bunch of years.

I have sympathy to both edges of this discussion.

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For me, yes, disappointing my parents was a useful learning experience. It taught me to make better decisions. It taught me to examine my actions and to consider the consequences. It taught me how to ask for advice and how to listen to it and sort through it and apply what pieces of it are right for me. It taught me how to stand up for myself.

I'm not trying to be defensive or passive aggresive. I'm pointing out that I was lucky. I had parents that let me learn lessons on my own. They allowed me to make mistakes and they didn't hide their disappointment when I made them. They never said "I told you so" but they asked "What did you think was going to happen?" a million times.

Of course, this all comes from the daughter of a man who spent two months in a Mexican jail for trying to help his Palestanian friend defect from Russia.

They're concept of disappointment was perhaps a little odder than most.

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nimh wrote:

A meta note:

This thread evokes to me the image of a bunch of 'outside' criticizers rushing in with various comments and pieces of advice, some reasonably well-targeted, others wholly misguided; and a core group of parents who know each other well here in response circling the wagons and swatting those outsiders away. Perhaps a bit dramatic an image, but then, thats how metaphors work... ;-)

I realise that part of that may be that, you know, the outsiders take things that were literally said or described in this thread at face value, and respond (strongly) to that; while the fellow-parents know that, in reality, there's more to the context, and that the persons in question hardly actually act like what their individual posts literally say or imply at all. Like, the soup isnt eaten as hot as it is served, to throw in another Dutch saying. So they know that many of the critical comments are just undeserved. That makes sense.

Still, pretty unhealthy dynamic.

OH NIMH - I'm falling in love with you (and you're long and lean too :wink: )....That's EXACTLY what it's like. That's why I've said here and on other threads I have this feeling of being discounted.

It does feel like there's a circled wagon, and it occassionally opens to let another familiar parent in whose soup is the same temperature. But if you're reading what's being said at face value, it sounds very intense for the child. That's what I was saying when I asked someone to read that initial post as if it was that persons first time here.

It's seems like it's only piling on tosome only when it's something that doesn't work with the unspoken agenda.

BTW Freeduck, and I mean this in a joking way, I hope you take it the same....When you made the statement that you weren't under the obligation to respond to my interrogation....I chuckled and thought, "must be nice to know you can't be forced to do something you don't want to do"

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Expressing disappointment is actually prescribed as a discipline tool. You express sadness, disappointment, etc. at behaviors while assuring the child that it is loved and safe.

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Of course, there's a big difference between "I'm disappointed that you chose to yell in the restaurant" and "you are a big disappointment."

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God help me, I'm one of THEM

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