“Projection” has become one of those psychological buzz words in recent years and it is used to describe when we try to put our issues and personality traits onto someone else and then accuse them (or interact with them as if) of holding and exhibiting these issues that are actually our own. We’ve certainly all experienced when someone accuses us of something that we can clearly see is “their issue” and not ours. Projecting doesn’t make us bad people or bad parents, but it can get in the way of a genuine interaction and understanding.
As parents, we can project onto our kids in all sorts of ways–we can expect that they will have the same interests and talents as we do, or we can even project our own shortcomings onto our kids instead of facing them in ourselves. I remember as a child, mother telling me that I had a big nose and big ears. For years I was self-conscious since I had totally believed her and took this on as my reality. The fact is, I actually have small ears for my head and my nose is perfectly proportioned. She was projecting her own stuff onto me and since I was a child, I had no way of knowing until years later that this wasn’t my thing at all.
I have a friend who is extremely weight conscious for a similar reason. She remembers very clearly her mother telling her right about the time that she hit puberty that she was going to be fat and have a big rear-end “just like all the other women in the family”–her mother’s projection became a battle to stay thin and light that she has carried with her for over thirty years.
As parents, we need to own our issues and watch that we aren’t projecting our stuff onto our kids. Surely they will have enough of their own issues and realities and personality quirks to deal with, without having to take on ours too.
Also: When You Think You Should Give a Child More of Yourself
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Parents, Watch the Nonverbal Messages You Send Your Kids