“How incredibly lucky your children are, to have a parent who is reaching for the light of reason despite the difficulties you are experiencing.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
(See also: “What do you have against coercion?”)
“Trying to take my kids seriously is triggering me big time. I feel so great sometimes, but when I end up coercing, I feel a total failure. But I’m also having nightmares about being an irresponsible parent for failing to coerce! I can’t go back, but going forward I’m falling flat on my face so much I’m a mess! Why does it sometimes hurt to think about Taking Children Seriously?”
(See also: The paradigm shift)
First, I want to acknowledge your incredible efforts, your commitment and your courage. How incredibly lucky your children are, to have a parent who is reaching for the light of reason despite the difficulties you are experiencing.
Hugs! I get it. We parents can be so hobbled that sometimes it can hurt even to think about this stuff. When you reach for the light of reason from the pit of hell of coercion, you can feel full of hope, optimism and excitement about what is possible. But then it can feel as if a coercive, anti-progress, hobbling part of your mind is stabbing you through the heart even for raising your eyes towards the light of reason, let alone reaching for it.
That part of your mind is itself hobbled, suffering, stuck. (I find it helpful to think of it as a part of our mind rather than us our Self.) That stuck part of your mind doesn’t know any better. It doesn’t know that what it is doing is problematic. It thinks it is protecting you. It works so hard to protect you. It means so well. It doesn’t know that you would be better off without its efforts.
So what on earth can you do about that stuck part of your mind that seems to want you to remain in the pit of coercive hell?
From the pit of coercion, it looks as if the answer is coercion—either to wall off or deaden the side of your mind that wants to be taking your beloved children seriously, or to fight and shame that antirational stuck part out of existence, to stomp on it to obliterate it.
That just entrenches that part further. Just as everyone tends to react badly to coercion, getting defensive, digging in and fighting, so does that part of your mind. Shaming and blaming and punishing hobble creativity and error correction. They widen and deepen the pit of hell of coercion from which you are trying to escape.
See also:
- “If I am not allowed to coerce my child, surely I am being coerced myself?”
- Help! Child hates eyepatch!
- Time out is not taking time out
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 2022, Taking Children Seriously FAQ: ‘“Why does it sometimes hurt to think about Taking Children Seriously?”’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/why-does-it-hurt-to-think-about-taking-children-seriously/