Let me describe an all-too-common conversation I've had with increasing frequency over the course of my career:
A parent enters my office and quickly begins crying. "My son speaks to me horribly. He is constantly berating me and criticizing my performance. Just last night he told me I'm the worst mother he knows. My feelings are so hurt."
Wow. Take a look at that last sentence. This mother's feelings have been injured by the comments of her child. The fact that her feelings have been hurt speaks volumes about the nature of her relationship with her son. And what it says is not good.
Let's begin with this fundamental contention: parents should never give their children the power to hurt their feelings. Our children can frustrate us, disappoint us, annoy us, delight us, or make us proud, but the relationship should never be one where our feelings can be hurt by anything our children say to or about us. Let's explore why.
Who is it that can hurt our feelings? Peers whose approval is important to us-friends, spouses, colleagues, other adult family members. But if our children can hurt our feelings-that is, if we give them the power to do so-it means that we want their approval. And if we want our children's approval, we don't have the sort of relationship with our children that they need from us.
Our job is to guide them, direct them, nurture them, restrain them, teach them, but it is not to have a good relationship with them or win their approval. They should be seeking our approval, not we theirs.
If you have given your children the power to hurt your feelings, then you have more of a peer-to-peer relationship with your child than an adult-to-child one. It seems preposterous to me that any child could ever hurt the feelings of any adult, no matter the relationship.
So when children make those kind of comments to parents, parents need to see them for what they are-rude statements, expressions of frustration, or manipulative outbursts. Those statements should be stopped, punished, or cleverly parried, but never taken seriously.
Why should a parent allow the comments of a not-yet-mature, still-undeveloped little person with limited life experience to hurt their feelings? The answer, clearly, is that they should not.