Q&A: My Child Hates Having their Feelings Validated! {EP 128}

What are some possible reasons why your child hates having their feelings validated? Well, let's also recognize that I don't actually know while your specific child hates this. I'm just going to be guessing here based on what I've seen from other kids and adults. So I'm going to actually go through five different things. Number one, being seen feels too vulnerable. Number two, it feels intrusive. Number three, you're wrong. Number four, you're on the watchdog or possum pathway. And number five, your child is too far down the watchum- watchdog or possum pathway themselves. The idea of validating other people's feelings, and yeah, in the show we're typically talking about parenting and ways to help our kids. So the idea of validating our kids' feelings, generally speaking comes from really good important theory on attachment and the importance of being seen. And being like truly seen, right? Not just seeing behaviors, but seeing what's underneath the behavior. We talk about that a lot here, right? Like we talk a ton about putting on our x-ray vision goggles. Putting on our x-ray vision goggles involves a lot more than just seeing our kids' feelings. But that's what we're talking about today, validating feelings. 

And there is research that shows that labeling a feeling, putting a cognitive label like happy, mad, sad, especially to a feeling that is overwhelming or feeling really hard to articulate in the moment labeling that feeling brings about a sense of regulation, integration, coherence to the nervous system. All of those things are good. 

That's what Dan Siegel's talking about when he says, ‘let's name it to tame it’. Let's name the emotion to tame the emotion, which is excellent parenting advice. But y'all this is also a really great example of how too much parenting advice without truly understanding the neurobiology of what's really happening and the neurobiology of behavior can leave us overwhelmed, frustrated, confused, and really stuck in that endless game of behavior whack-a-mole. There are some really important things, also, to consider about labeling feelings without curiosity. Particularly with someone who has a history of oppression and marginalization. Folks with neuro divergence like autistic people or people with ADHD. People who have experienced race or ability related othering. Right? There can be this message of infantilizing this group of humans, who has already been repeatedly dehumanized and othered, right? When we start labeling folks feelings who have a history of feeling othered, we're running the risk of continuing that power dynamic, that oppressive power dynamic that's saying, I know more than you do. You should orient to me to tell you about your experience in the world. So acknowledging the harm and labeling the feelings of folks who have a history of oppression and marginalization is a super important conversation. And I'm going to just kind of highlight this truth and then really encourage you to listen to the lived experiences of the folks who are autistic or are who are experiencing forms of oppression and marginalization and listen to what they have to say about things like labeling their feelings or their experiences. 

What I want to focus on today are those top five reasons that I'm most familiar with for why folks hate having their feelings validated, as the listener who wrote in articulated. Why does my child hate having their feelings validated? In my work as a therapist with folks with histories of taum- trauma and toxic stress. And then now my work with folks in The Club, I do have some additional ideas about this. And I'm going to speak to those ideas, while also really encouraging you to remember that I am not all inclusive. There's other nuances that factor into everything we talk about here on the podcast. And I really encourage you to go and seek out those resources and those ideas as well. 

So some folks with a history of trauma, toxic stress, especially if it's been relational or attachment related trauma toxic stress, they've had really devastating experiences of being hurt, while also being seen, right? Like they've been the victims of serious abuse, or they've been so unseen that the intensity of that level of unseen-ness feels like annihilation. So now the experience of being seen, even in a safe way, by someone who is safe and curious and- and really truly interested in seeing the real them, that can feel simply too unsafe that the feeling of being seen has been over coupled with a feeling of terror or annihilation. Some folks have tied together being seen with the experience of toxic shame. Maybe their primary attachment figure saw them only through the eyes of projections and- and showed them that they were dangerous or disgusting, which of course they weren't. But some folks who are experiencing being parented by individuals who have their own really serious histories, significant histories of trauma toxic stress, and up the recipient of their caregivers projections. And then what they internalize is something like I'm dangerous, or I'm disgusting. So they learned that being seen might mean seeing themselves for how bad they are. And now they've organized their protective system around being seen. That might mean push away behaviors, or rejection behaviors, or- or collapsed behaviors like on that possum pathway. These people have developed ways of being in a world that helps them be seen in a way that they think will keep them the most safe. Like they behave in a way where they're seen as the quote unquote good kid, or the well behaved kid, or they're got a lot of people pleasing behaviors, or the kinds of behaviors adults describe as “that kids a rock star”, right? Or maybe their protective behaviors have them falling further down the watchdog or possum pathway. And they have more intense, more dysregulated behaviors that then kind of distract folks from trying to see their true selves. So behaviors like substance abuse, aggression, disordered eating, big behaviors that really are also a distraction.

Similarly, for folks who have a history of intrusive parenting or parenting that maybe leans towards that kind of side of anxious attachment, folks who have struggled to feel a lot of separation or individuation, or the strong sense of I am me. Those folks develop porous energetic boundaries. And it's possible, then, that having someone else validate their feelings just kind of feels like more of the same. More intrusiveness more a way of someone else having kind of dominance over their being or their autonomy. It can feel really controlling which is then going to flip their nervous system into protection mode. 

Sometimes the attempts at validating somebody else's feelings are just straight up plain wrong. [laughter] And so it feels yucky for somebody to validate our feelings and be incorrect, especially if that validation wasn't paired with curiosity, but felt more like a fact. And then for that to also be wrong, can feel really just kind of gross, intrusive, and controlling. And so that also is going to flip a nervous system into protection mode. 

Another reason that I see why kids express not liking their feelings validated is that sometimes we, as the adults, the person who are working to do the validation, we lose our own owl brain. And we end up getting too preoccupied with just getting their behavior to stop. And so we use something like validate their feelings as a behavior tool. We use these tools of regulation, and connection, and felt safety as- as a technique to get a behavior to stop. Which ultimately is really then a tool of manipulation. That's the hard part about tools and why I tend to only teach tools in the context of what behavior really is. Because the moment we start using a tool like a tool instead of as an offering that emerges from our way of being with that person, the moment it becomes just a tool to get somebody else's behavior to stop. That is emerging from our own nervous system that's shifted into protection mode. Our owl brain is starting to fly away. And once we shift into protection mode, our kids are neuroceiving that and that reduces felt safety, and leaves our kids feeling objectified and dehumanized. And that could absolutely flip their nervous system into protection mode. Especially with somebody who's nervous system is vulnerable in the first place. 

And the last thing I'm going to say today about why sometimes your kids might hate having their feelings validated is that they are simply too far down the watchdog or possum pathway. And any language, any verbal attempts at connecting with them are just going to be way too hard given the level of arousal and activation in their nervous system. 

So of course, your next question as well, like, “well, what do I do instead”? So some potential ideas include thinking about validating your kids' experience with nonverbal cues and with your own energy, as opposed to always relying on validating your kids verbally, who we might have to match the energy of our kids, but without the dysregulation. Which I have a training that's called exactly that: Match the Energy, Not the Dysregulation that lives inside The Club video library. And it's a pretty advanced parenting skill, because it's just really easy for us to try to match the energy without matching dysregulation. And when we just end up unintentionally matching the dysregulation too. It really requires a lot of our own owl brain to be able to use this skill effectively. But if we practice it a lot, we can definitely work to be what I would call like a nonverbal mirror for our kids. Which is validating and helps them be seen for who they really are. And in a way that might be less vulnerable than having their feelings like verbally reflected or verbally validated. And also it might not be something that is more effective, right? It could still just be too much, too vulnerable, too intrusive to even have that energetic matching. So for those kids, we just have to really titrate the intensity of the matching, the intensity of the mirroring, the- the intensity of the message that's, I see you. 

Overall, y’all, the most important thing here that I want you to walk away with is how important it is, kind of regardless of what tool or technique you're offering to your child to help them with their owl brain. The most important thing really is staying in your owl brain. And y'all know that that doesn't mean calm, right? You can go to RobynGobbel.com/LisaDion to hear the episode about how regulated doesn't equal calm. It means staying in connection mode yourself. The owl brain, which emerges from connection mode, has characteristics of curiosity and compassion. If you stay curious, you'll offer reflections and potential validation to your child as curiosities, not as labels. And that has more of a potential to be received by your child. Then if it's not received, if it's still too overwhelming for them. If you're in your owl brain, your owl brain will allow you to receive that rejection from your child without you feeling rejected. You'll be able to receive it as information that you just got it wrong. And being seen in that way isn't what feels helpful to their experience of felt safety and their autonomy right now. And then your owl brain will just stay open and curious about what to do next. 

Thank you all for continuing to send in your questions so that I can do these Friday Q&As as they work for me and my schedule. I really enjoy doing these Q&As. I hope that you're finding them helpful. I will see you back here again next week for our regular podcast schedule.