How the lack of repair from parents leads to the lack of regulation in children
Let me set the scene for you. It’s a Friday evening and parents are home with their kids. One of the kids (probably the oldest, amiright?) does something to irritate a parent. The parent reacts in a big way. Maybe it’s equal to the offense of the child, but in a lot of cases, it’s a reaction to something in their past that they have not healed from. The argument turns into a fight. The fight devolves into a screaming match. The family goes to bed. The next morning, the parent that had the outburst strolls in the room like nothing happened, they look around and ask “Where does everyone want to get breakfast?”
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Lindsay Gibson, PsyD, writes about this in her book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents. For a child of any age, this consistent behavior does a huge disservice. The child does not learn how to process emotions properly. They do not learn how to have those uncomfortable conversations. The child will likely avoid confrontation later in life, because they never learned how to have it in the first place.
Emotion Repair May Look Like…
In an ideal situation, the morning after would look something like the parent approaching the family (or perhaps just the child they were arguing with) and saying something along the lines of:
“Hey, bud, I’m really sorry that I reacted the way I did. While your behavior was also unacceptable, as the adult, I think I could have done better to say how I was feeling and how your response was triggering some stuff in me that I think I might still need to work on. How about in the future, when we feel like we’re getting into that place, we take a little break and try to express how we’re feeling more constructively.”
Then, Parent #1 may go to Parent #2, both adults, and say:
“Hey Parent #2, I really felt out of control in how I was reacting to Child #1 last night. Can I ask you for help next time, so that I can separate myself and regulate my emotions before I do or say anything that I might regret or may be harmful?”
Like I said, this is an ideal scenario. Some people are just Parent #1, and there isn’t another person to help. Some people have kids that will straight up respond to the first part with “Fuck you, Parent #1!” But, sooner than later, you have to start trying to at least take accountability for your own reaction; your own outburst; your own breakdown. Children learn how to process emotions and take accountability through modeling, so if you never do it as the adult, they never learn it. The child will grow up and show up in relationships the same way they learned to be in relationships with you. This means no repair, no processings, no accountability. There is often a healthy dose of shame, that can lead to some other toxic behaviors (hello drinking to soothe!), but that’s a post for another day.
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