One Lesson I Learned as an Estranged Parent
One of the biggest traps that estranged/alienated parents can fall into is a belief that our adult children know us best. After all, they are our closest family. They speak about us and label our parenting as if they were the only ones present during this lifetime experience. They can speak with certainty as if they are the authority of who we are as people and as a parent.
I’m here to challenge this assumption.
We typically raise our children in our home for at least 18 years and our financial support often continues into their college years. There is no argument that we could have lived with each other for 18 years and had daily interaction in many direct ways.
What do we know about a child mind’s development during those 18 years and how this is related to our ability to comprehend human behavior and evaluate interpersonal relationships between primary family members?
Researchers believe that we must first understand the development of a human mind.
Being able to navigate in our social world is essential to the success of our human interactions with each other and is linked to our human survival. This takes skill, an ability we develop as we grow older. Between ages 3 and 5 years, young children begin to become aware that they can think and feel differently than someone else. And equally important, they become aware that someone else can think and feel differently from them. Kendra Cherry[1] states that “while we can make predictions, we have no direct way of knowing exactly what a person might be thinking. All we can rely on is our own theories that we develop based on what people say, how they act, what we know about their personalities, and what we can infer about their intentions.”
Kendra Cherry references the work of Wellman, Fang, and Peterson[2] when describing the five mind abilities:
Do you believe that we are done learning about social competence by age 18 or so? I will readily admit that I continue to learn at age 64 years. I am aware that I shouldn’t pick my nose in front of others if I don’t want them to have a disgusted reaction. However, there are times, when I am arguing with my husband, that anyone might wonder about my degree of social competence in interpreting his tone and behaviors in order to understand him and not just understand me.
If we wish to be kind, considerate, and socially competent people, I believe we must continue to build our abilities to understand the other person. To understand one another requires a talent developed from skill-building. I might argue that the most important skills are a willingness and desire to understand ourselves and to understand another person who is thinking differently than you are.
My children don’t know me. Our estranged adult children, who lived with us for the first 18 years of their lives, really don’t know us, their parent, with a thorough comprehension of the five mind abilities described above and social competence. If they were completely competent in these areas, I would argue that they would not be acting as they are. As Tony Robbins[3] says, “Because if you are going to blame someone for the pain they caused, then you better blame them for all the good that came out of it too. If you’re going to give them credit for everything that is so messed up, then you have to give them credit for everything that is great.”
And I do not know my children. My memories of my children are from when they were first born until age 22ish. They are now in their 30s. I do not know if they like their jobs or what they do on the weekends or if they are at peace with themselves. Critically, I do not know the son or the daughter that I bore, who over the past decade, can decide to ignore their mother’s pleas to talk together and work out whatever grievances they may have with me instead of dead silence.
What is clear to me is that if concentrate on what I can change, I will continue to work on my social competence so that I can continue to understand myself and to understand others, which includes having compassion for my children. Being proud of myself in following “Do Unto Others…” is how I build a strong sense of my-Self.
[1] Kendra Cherry, “How the Theory of Mind Helps Us Understand Others”, https://www.verywellmind.com/theory-of-mind-4176826 , (October 1, 2019).
[2] Henry M. Wellman, Fuxi Fang, and Candida C. Peterson Sequential Progressions in a Theory‐of‐Mind Scale: Longitudinal Perspectives”, https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01583.x , (March 23, 2011).
[3] Tony Robbins, https://www.tonyrobbins.com/mind-meaning/life-is-happening-for-me/ .
One of the biggest traps that estranged/alienated parents can fall into is a belief that our adult children know us best. After all, they are our closest family. They speak about us and label our parenting as if they were the only ones present during this lifetime experience. They can speak with certainty as if they are the authority of who we are as people and as a parent.
I’m here to challenge this assumption.
We typically raise our children in our home for at least 18 years and our financial support often continues into their college years. There is no argument that we could have lived with each other for 18 years and had daily interaction in many direct ways.
What do we know about a child mind’s development during those 18 years and how this is related to our ability to comprehend human behavior and evaluate interpersonal relationships between primary family members?
Researchers believe that we must first understand the development of a human mind.
Being able to navigate in our social world is essential to the success of our human interactions with each other and is linked to our human survival. This takes skill, an ability we develop as we grow older. Between ages 3 and 5 years, young children begin to become aware that they can think and feel differently than someone else. And equally important, they become aware that someone else can think and feel differently from them. Kendra Cherry[1] states that “while we can make predictions, we have no direct way of knowing exactly what a person might be thinking. All we can rely on is our own theories that we develop based on what people say, how they act, what we know about their personalities, and what we can infer about their intentions.”
Kendra Cherry references the work of Wellman, Fang, and Peterson[2] when describing the five mind abilities:
- The understanding that the reasons why people might want something (i.e. desires) may differ from one person to the next
- The understanding that people can have different beliefs about the same thing or situation
- The understanding that people may not comprehend or have the knowledge that something is true
- The understanding that people can hold false beliefs about the world
- The understanding that people can have hidden emotions, or that they may act one way while feeling another way.
Do you believe that we are done learning about social competence by age 18 or so? I will readily admit that I continue to learn at age 64 years. I am aware that I shouldn’t pick my nose in front of others if I don’t want them to have a disgusted reaction. However, there are times, when I am arguing with my husband, that anyone might wonder about my degree of social competence in interpreting his tone and behaviors in order to understand him and not just understand me.
If we wish to be kind, considerate, and socially competent people, I believe we must continue to build our abilities to understand the other person. To understand one another requires a talent developed from skill-building. I might argue that the most important skills are a willingness and desire to understand ourselves and to understand another person who is thinking differently than you are.
My children don’t know me. Our estranged adult children, who lived with us for the first 18 years of their lives, really don’t know us, their parent, with a thorough comprehension of the five mind abilities described above and social competence. If they were completely competent in these areas, I would argue that they would not be acting as they are. As Tony Robbins[3] says, “Because if you are going to blame someone for the pain they caused, then you better blame them for all the good that came out of it too. If you’re going to give them credit for everything that is so messed up, then you have to give them credit for everything that is great.”
And I do not know my children. My memories of my children are from when they were first born until age 22ish. They are now in their 30s. I do not know if they like their jobs or what they do on the weekends or if they are at peace with themselves. Critically, I do not know the son or the daughter that I bore, who over the past decade, can decide to ignore their mother’s pleas to talk together and work out whatever grievances they may have with me instead of dead silence.
What is clear to me is that if concentrate on what I can change, I will continue to work on my social competence so that I can continue to understand myself and to understand others, which includes having compassion for my children. Being proud of myself in following “Do Unto Others…” is how I build a strong sense of my-Self.
[1] Kendra Cherry, “How the Theory of Mind Helps Us Understand Others”, https://www.verywellmind.com/theory-of-mind-4176826 , (October 1, 2019).
[2] Henry M. Wellman, Fuxi Fang, and Candida C. Peterson Sequential Progressions in a Theory‐of‐Mind Scale: Longitudinal Perspectives”, https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01583.x , (March 23, 2011).
[3] Tony Robbins, https://www.tonyrobbins.com/mind-meaning/life-is-happening-for-me/ .
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