Family Feedback, The First Half

A Simple Word to Increase Receptivity

Hi friends,

Here’s something I have been thinking about lately: The role of feedback in creating a home where my children experience safety, belonging and mattering, where they are seen, heard and understood.

But first, here’s a humdinger - even when used with the best of intentions, because of the power difference between adults and children, feedback from adult to child can still land as manipulative, critical or shaming. It takes a foundation of trust, understanding and then skill to help it land as helpful, caring, informative, or a gift.

Side note - the above is useful information for any situation involving a difference in social location. We could go down a rabbit hole here, so we will stick to the purpose of this post - parent/child interactions

And, feedback from our children can be hard to recognize. They don’t yet have the skill (nor do most adults) to offer feedback with care. It is our job to look for the meaning under the hard-to-hear messages.

So, this post is first about why I want to carve out a home culture in which feedback is embedded, and then how to go about receiving feedback. I’ll cover offering feedback in another post.

Quickly: Feedback is not criticism. And feedback is not manipulative.

But feedback offered and received as an informational gift can contribute to intimacy, trust and growth.

I believe that the gift of feedback is a potent ingredient to a home where everyone knows they matter. Different from everyone getting what they want - that’s not possible. But it is possible for everyone to believe they matter.

When we trust that we matter, getting what we want is less important.

When our children receive age-appropriate feedback as information from a needs-based perspective, it can give them useful data about how the world works, how people are affected, can prepare them to receive feedback as an adult (hands up! How many could use help receiving feedback?), and orient them to an interdependent, connected mind set.

When we adults are open to receiving feedback from our children, we are moving from a power-over, individualistic structure to a power-with, interdependent dynamic where the experiences of all of us matter.

Spoiler alert - it is so very nuanced.

To navigate the nuances, sensitive observation of our children and a knowledge of their age and stage of development is helpful, so that we know what we’re receiving from them. I also want to distinguish between useful information about what’s going on with our child and feedback that I take to heart and respond to with openness.

For example, a four year old screaming, “I hate you,” when I don’t allow halloween candy to be taken to bed, is not feedback. That comes from a place of dysregulation and asks us to coregulate with a child; to be present, available and attuned. Maybe it’s late, maybe they’re already on a sugar crash. So, I might recognize that this four year old already knew I would say no to taking candy to bed and picked this battle because they had upset they needed to get out (and trusted me to hold that limit and space for the upset). It’s information about the real-time inner turmoil of a child. Not feedback.

But a fourteen year old telling me, “Gah! You’re so annoying,” could be feedback. Underneath the judgement there could be information that brings us closer to our teenager by deepening our understanding of them. For more on what that would look like, check out A Gift Wrapped in Thorns. Curiosity and openheartedness can help us get to the message underneath.

From my six year old, feedback might sound like, “Argh! Mummy, you make me so mad. You interrupted and didn’t even listen to me.” This is a direct quote. Even though this is not coming from a relaxed place, I can still relax and receive it as a gift, and as information. This sweet child wants to be heard! Wants the respect that would come with me letting her finish. She wants to be seen as having something of worth to say.

And even though this is not a relaxed request, but more of a demand (ack! we CAN’T give into our children’s demands!) I can recognize that what she is demanding of me is actually how I want to behave anyway. My job in that moment is to self-connect and see the bigger picture.

Hopefully, I would relax and respond with, “Thank you for pointing that out. Yup, okay, sorry. I did interrupt you. Say it now and I will hear it all.” And then I follow up with a reflection to make sure I heard it.

Right there is my biggest tip. First order of business when receiving feedback is a thank you. For me, an automatic thank you, even if it is not authentic right then, can be the stimulus that brings me into authentic, relaxed curiosity, and open-hearted receptivity.

This can also work when our partner is wanting to give us feedback. If we can catch ourselves before our defenses pile up like Level 29 Tetris, creating further disconnect, we can offer a thank you for letting me know and see, just see, if our curiosity is piqued, to where we can find out more about what’s going on for our partner. Easier said than done.

Earlier this year, Joseph, now 8, went through a loooong phase of…just struggling. Yes, I was dealing with cancer/chemo blah blah. And still, he seemed to be angry and frustrated in a way I couldn’t make sense of. We had several relaxed conversations. Turned out, he didn’t like my fleece sweat pants, or any of my fleece clothing. Or any of Aubrey’s. Grandma’s, also no, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Daddy’s want that fluffy.

It was soooo hard for me to figure out how to respond. On one shoulder, I had a voice saying you’re not going to let a seven year old dictate what you wear, are you? You believe that? He’s just being [insert judgement]. Tell him to grow up and sort himself out. Every fiber of my socialized being was screaming at me to show him who’s boss and that he has NO SAY in what I wear, damnit! This voice was so strong that it actually alerted me to the idea that I might be more aligned with my values if I heard him and explored options, rather be reactionary. I knew I had received information in the context of some relaxed and vulnerable conversations. Did I really want to give him the message that when he tells me what’s up I ignore it, dismiss it, or punish him for it? I wanted to trust him, and trust that he could discern his difficulty and come to me for support. Also, he wasn’t trying to pick my outfits. He just said he didn’t like the one kind of texture.

So I experimented.

Instead of my fleece pants and fluffy sweaters, I wore leggings and a smoother sweater for a while - super easy adjustment. Instant improvement. Joseph was so much more pleasant.

He had given me the gift of his trust and his own self-connection and shared vulnerably what was impacting him.

Now, as I write this, I am wearing those horrid fleece pants and the disgusting fluffy sweater. I don’t remember when I began wearing them again, but he hasn’t mentioned it and appears to have moved on or matured enough to have the skill to handle his dislike of fluff.

There was no power struggle. There was listening, self-connecting, responding, observing and poof, gone. He got some relief when he most needed it, I am back to wearing whatever I want, and we got to move through that phase with connection and trust intact.

Other feedback for me sounds like, “Ew, Mummy, your breath stinks.” This can be highly triggering for some people. For me, it is feedback I truly want. While I would hope that Matt, my husband, would say it with more care, I don’t expect my kids, at 8 and 6, to figure out how to be kind about it. It’s helpful information for me because, yes, my breath does sometimes stink. Chemo makes it really awful, apparently. And the fasting that I do to complement my cancer therapies makes me halitosis heavy. Yes, I can be unpleasant to be around. So when they say, “Ew, gross, don’t breathe on me,” I can easily respond with, “Oh thank you for telling me. I’ll go brush my teeth.” And then I try not to breathe on them.

This next example shows what is possible when we steep our family culture in the language of needs.

When my daughter was five she offered feedback to my husband one night at the dinner table.

Aubrey: “Daddy. ‘Member when we were in the car and you said something and I didn’t like it? ‘Member that Daddy?”

Matt: “Um, maybe, I don’t know.”

Aubrey: “Well I asked you to stop and you didn’t and my need for respect was unmet.”

She serves herself some coleslaw while she’s telling him this, completely relaxed. Matt gives me a look. I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face.

Matt: “I was making a funny noise which is within my rights.”

Aubrey: “Well, my need for respect was unmet.”

She was clear, specific, and self-responsible, letting Matt know how his actions had affected her, rather than labeling him as wrong! or unkind! or mean! Hooray for five year olds solidly grounded in their own needs!

No, this doesn’t happen all the time.

Here’s the recap:

It’s nuanced. Sensitive observation is helpful.

Say, “thank you”.

Get curious. When I’m triggered, I’m not in choice about how I respond. I want to have that choice.

Why? Mattering, belonging, intimacy.

How has this landed so far?

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