We were eating dinner at our kitchen table, the site of many of our interesting conversations. And as Daniel was consuming his second plate of Annie’s macaroni and cheese he began to tell a story from his day. In school that morning he was drawing a picture and the kids began to laugh at his drawing. Daniel didn’t mean to make his drawing funny, but they still laughed at his drawing. “Why did they laugh?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and I immediately followed with another question, “you really don’t know?” He responded, “I don’t really care, it didn’t bother me.” Unable to accept this for face value I followed, “It must have hurt your feelings that they laughed.” He insisted that he didn’t care. I followed, “If you didn’t feel bad, how did you feel? It didn’t bother you or hurt you even a little bit?” Again Daniel repeated it didn’t bother him. He continued by saying, “they just laughed and then they stopped laughing because the teachers told them to stop.” I continued to probe. And yet again, Daniel restated that he didn’t mind and he wasn’t upset.
As the conversation began to trail off I began to ask myself, “Why, why did I need to continue to probe?” Daniel shared a moment of his day, he shared it in a matter of fact way, he didn’t come home with scars or bruises, so why did I need to keep probing? Why couldn’t I accept that in fact he wasn’t upset, or even better, congratulate him on not taking his friends’ heckling to heart. Dr. Michael Thompson, a preeminent child psychologist describes what I did that evening as “interviewing for the pain.” Dr. Thompson warns that while we may be interested in our “child’s deepest psychological experience, don’t interview your child only for pain! Too many parents get hooked on their child’s terrible situation, and ask only about the things that have gone wrong.”
In my efforts to be sympathetic and responsive, I was sending a message of worry, not listening to his words, and perhaps invalidating his feelings. While we as parents want to open up the floor for our children to share their feelings, and to feel safe sharing negative and difficult feelings, we sometimes end up discouraging dialogue and focusing on the wrong aspect of what we are hearing. Instead we should also show that we are interested not only in their pain but also in their resilience and their coping skills.
What would it have looked like if instead of my asking over and over whether Daniel’s feelings were hurt I could have communicated my confidence in his approach to the situation and agreed that sometimes pictures can seem funny even when we don’t mean them to. What if I had asked him what he would have done if the teacher hadn’t stepped in? Or asked, how did you get so smart and know not to take it personally? Dr. Thompson reminds us “a child believes the story that comes out of his or her own mouth. If the story you elicit is one of strength and adaptation, your child will feel strong and capable; if the story you elicit is one of pain and victimhood, your child will experience him or herself as perhaps friendless and overwhelmed and he or she will be ashamed.”
One of the hardest parts of being a parent is watching our children experience pain. It is probably in our DNA-makeup to want to protect our children, as it a fundamental to our species’ survival that we step in to protect our children. But I think we have taken it too far! We need to remember that our children need to negotiate friendships. They need to navigate complex situations in school precisely when we are NOT there. Even as adults we struggle to navigate the muddy waters of friendships, marriages, co-workers, and so much more. Don’t we want our children to have countless opportunities for successes AND failures in these early years, when the stakes, though they feel big, are in fact quite small? If we can focus our attention on their strategies, their successes, their efforts at finding peaceful resolutions, and their efforts to regulate and manage their feelings along the way, we have given our children a great gift.
As a psychologically minded parent it is not easy for me to avoid “interviewing for the pain.” I work hard to create a home where my children can feel safe with their feelings and it is a fine line between offering the possibility that they might feel hard feelings and negating their healthy instincts to move on. On the other hand, I know that there are many times when I had a bad day or a hard conversation where I don’t want to revisit this painful or unpleasant encounter. When my husband or friends probe and ask, what happened, how did you feel, what happened next I sometimes ask to change the subject. It doesn’t always feel better to visit and revisit those tough moments. Why shouldn’t we give our children the same option? I am also acutely aware that if I make a big deal of every incident that Daniel shares, he will want to stop revealing these stories.
Ilana received her B.A. from Harvard College and a Master's Degree in Education from Bank Street College. She was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her husband and three children.
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