How Parents Kill Their Kid's Intuition
Kids know when you’re lying to them. They feel your energy more than they actually hear or listen to your words. When you tell them, “Everything’s fine. I’m fine,” when you’re actually struggling, they recognize that incongruence at a gut level. First they feel the energy of your anxiety and your stress, and then they hear your words.
What this teaches children is not to trust their gut, to not trust their sense of a person’s energy. If we want our kids to be intuitive, if we want our kids to be able to trust themselves and trust their gut, then we need to be honest with them. If we’re not feeling good, if something is stressing us out, it’s important that we tell them what’s going on, but in a way that makes sense for them.
We don’t need to overburden them with excessive details about our lives. We don’t want to dump on them or turn them into our therapist, but we need to be honest with our kids in an age appropriate way, because energy doesn’t lie. The more you tell your kids that everything is fine when it’s not, the more you are teaching them to distrust their intuition.
Here are some other ways that we condition kids to not listen to their feelings or intuition:
Brushing off their feelings quickly with something like “smile,” “cheer up,” or “it’s not that bad” when they’re feeling upset instead of listening and validating. This teaches them to push their feelings away before they even feel them.
Telling them “it’s only your imagination” without listening and asking them to share what they are experiencing to help them get in touch with their emotions. This teaches them that their inner experience is not worth paying attention to.
Telling them they are being “mean,” “unkind,” “hurtful,” etc. if they say they dislike someone instead of validating that it’s ok to not like or not feel comfortable with certain people. This teaches them to ignore their gut feelings about people, and that can be dangerous!
Keeping family secrets. Kids sense everything. They feel that there is something going on that they are not aware of, but no one acknowledges it. Keeping family secrets teaches kids to ignore their feelings and suppress their natural curiosity and awareness.
When you were growing up did you have any of these experiences? How did it affect your ability to connect with your feelings and your intuition?