One of the biggest mistakes parents make is to deny their children the opportunity to express negative feelings. When children have negative feelings and no one will listen to them, they stuff those feelings down into their subconscious and that’s where those feelings stay and accumulate.

Each time their feelings are ignored or criticized, it’s like adding a brick to an imaginary backpack. Over time, that backpack gets very heavy and it takes energy to haul that backpack around everywhere. That heavy backpack full of bricks affects choices, relationships and behavior.

I teach in the jail and the prison. I hear stories from my students about their upbringing, and my heart breaks when I hear how their feelings were discounted as unimportant when they were growing up. It makes me wonder if their lives would have turned out differently if they had felt heard and understood.

I guess we’ll never know, but it’s my opinion there are a lot of people who do drugs, drink, get involved with pornography, join gangs, and do crimes because they had no one who would listen to them when they were in distress.

How important is it for you to acknowledge your children’s negative feelings? If you want your children to grow up without a backpack full of bricks or a mind full of pain, it’s essential.

The Need to be Heard and Understood

One of the four emotional needs is this:

All children have a need to feel heard and understood.

Picture each of your children. They all yearn to have this need met. However, they cannot meet this need on their own. It takes another person.

What happens if parents do not meet this need? Let’s take a look at a hypothetical situation that illustrates the importance of meeting this need.

11 year old Johnny comes home from school and announces to dad, “My teacher’s mean. She made fun of me in front of the whole class and everybody laughed. I hate her.” Dad says, “Well maybe you should have followed instructions and that wouldn’t have happened.” Dad did not meet Johnny’s need to be heard and understood.

Johnny finds mom. “My teacher’s mean. She made fun of me in front of the whole class and everybody laughed. I hate her,” to which mom says, “She probably didn’t even know she hurt your feelings.” Mom did not meet Johnny’s need to feel heard and understood.

Johnny confides in big brother. “My teacher’s mean. She made fun of me in front of the whole class and everybody laughed. I hate her.” “Dude,” says big brother, “You’ve got to be tough. You can’t let something like that bother you. Forget it and move on. Don’t be a mama’s boy. Be a man.” Big brother did not meet Johnny’s need to feel heard and understood.

These are all examples of Johnny’s feelings being denied crushed. He can’t get anyone to meet his need to feel heard and understood. He tries to push the emotional pain away but it never really leaves him.

The next day Johnny is at school walking down the hall and hears someone call out his name. “Hey, Johnny.” It’s an older boy who he’s seen around but doesn’t know. “Hey, I heard you took some heat from that teacher. That’s f**ked up. Sorry to hear that, man.”

“Oh, I’m ok.” says Johnny.

The boy says, “Me and some guys, we hang out together and we’re there for each other. You should come hang with us. We know how to make bad feelings go away.”

What is the older boy trying to get Johnny to do? Join a gang? Try a drug? Get drunk? Just hang out? The point is, if Johnny’s need to feel heard and understood is not met by his parents, he is going to  be vulnerable to other people meeting that need; people who may not have his  best interest at heart.

You argue, “That’s not going to happen after one such incident?” That may be true, but if this need to be heard and understood continues to go unmet for a long time, the stored up pain can result in Johnny’s desire to numb his pain anyway he can. That could include joining a gang, trying a drug, alcohol, or porn. His interest in school may drop. His desire to be a “good” kid may disappear. He may try to get back at his parents by doing things he knows they disapprove of. He may seek revenge.

When parents do not meet their child’s need to be heard and understood, they put their children at risk. They distance themselves from their children and weaken their relationship. Their influence ceases.

I presented this story to you to get you thinking. Are you putting distance between you and your children by denying their negative feelings? Would your children be drawn to other people who prey on kids with weak relationships with their parents?

Lets give our story a better ending. Johnny comes home from school and announces to dad, “My teacher’s mean. She made fun of me in front of the whole class and everybody laughed. I hate her.” Dad says, “In front of the whole class, that must have been embarrassing.”