Children often know more than their parents imagine.
It is better for parents to allow their children to see negative emotions like anger and frustration.
Many parents, though, try to hide all conflicts from their children.
However, children often know when their parents are trying to hide conflict and it confuses them.
They know something is wrong, but see no change in their parent’s behaviour, which is confusing.
Better, say psychologists, to allow children to see healthy conflict and how it is resolved.
That way they learn to resolve their own conflicts and emotions.
Dr Sara Waters, study co-author, said:
“We wanted to look at how we suppress emotions and how that changes the way parents and kids interact.
Kids pick up on suppression, but it’s something a lot of parents think is a good thing to do.”
The study involved 109 mothers and fathers who were videoed playing with Lego with their children after a stressful event.
Half were told to act normally while playing with their children, the other half were told to suppress their emotions.
Dr Waters explained the results:
“We looked at the responsiveness, warmth, quality of the interactions, how the parent provided guidance for the child.
The act of trying to suppress their stress made parents less positive partners during the Lego task.
They offered less guidance, but it wasn’t just the parents who responded.
Those kids were less responsive and positive to their parents.
It’s almost like the parents were transmitting those emotions.”
Kids easily pick up on their parents’ emotions, even when they try to suppress them, said Dr Waters:
“Kids are good at picking up subtle cues from emotions.
If they feel something negative has happened, and the parents are acting normal and not addressing it, that’s confusing for them.
Those are two conflicting messages being sent.”
Let children see the negative emotions, said Dr Waters:
“That helps kids learn to regulate their own emotions and solve problems.
They see that problems can get resolved.
It’s best to let the kids know you feel angry, and tell them what you’re going to do about it to make the situation better.”
Related
The study was published in the journal Emotion (Karnilowicz et al., 2018).
