Similarities with our kids can be wonderful—there is nothing like recognizing some of your most cherished personal qualities in your child and seeing how he or she takes after you. But, the thing is, they don’t just get our most cherished and best-liked personal qualities, sometimes they inherit or take on some of those things about ourselves which we aren’t too pleased with. This is where I think we can run into communication problems with our children. It isn’t always that we are so different we can’t see each other’s point of view, but sometimes, we are so much alike that we reach a stalemate too.
My eldest daughter and I both have the “habit” of getting irrational and jumping to conclusions when we get exhausted or feel threatened. Most of the time, she and I can communicate perfectly well, but when one of us is stressed or projecting an emotional issue onto the other—our communication can explode and break down. I used to think it was because my eldest and I are so different (which we are, different interests, ideas, philosophies, etc.) but I finally realized that our communication problems stem not from our differences, but from our similarities. When we are each feeling yucky and insecure about our dark sides, we react poorly when we see those coming out in the other.
So, if you find you are having a hard time connecting with your child or that you are throwing up your hands in exasperation—you might ask yourself if it is really because he or she is so different and foreign, or if there are qualities and similarities that your child exhibits that you don’t like in yourself. Is it the similarities that are coming between the two of you? Or is it really the differences?
Also: Love Notes for a Single Parent Family
Improving Communication Through Parent-Child Contracts
Walking the Mother-Daughter Tightrope