Secret #87: The Emotionally Mature Parent with Dr. Lindsay Gibson
What happens when you want to parent differently from the way you were parented—but the old patterns still show up?
Clinical psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Lindsay Gibson joins Emma and Chris for a conversation about emotional maturity in parenting. Lindsay explains how emotionally immature parents struggle with self-reflection, emotional intimacy, stress tolerance, and taking responsibility—and how those patterns can leave children believing their feelings and needs are simply too much.
But becoming a more emotionally mature parent doesn't mean never losing your temper or getting parenting "right." Lindsay explores the importance of noticing our reactions, tolerating difficult feelings like shame, repairing ruptures, and remembering that children's behavior is a form of communication. The conversation also tackles limit-setting, gentle parenting, yelling, and why being kind and emotionally attuned doesn't mean being permissive.
Ultimately, Lindsay offers a hopeful message for parents who didn't receive the emotional connection they needed growing up: emotional maturity can be learned. What matters isn't perfectly understanding your child every time—it's being genuinely interested in understanding who they are.
Highlights:
Even emotionally mature adults can become emotionally immature when they're stressed.
Children's behavior is communication, even when they can't put their feelings into words.
Emotional maturity requires self-reflection and a willingness to notice our own reactions.
Repairing after a parenting mistake can strengthen connection.
Shame becomes less powerful when we're willing to experience it rather than immediately avoid or defend against it.
Being a kind parent doesn't mean avoiding limits or consequences.
Children need to be recognized as individuals with their own inner worlds, perspectives, emotions, and needs.
Emotional maturity means allowing emotions to become trusted advisors rather than letting them become our masters.
Parents don't have to understand their children perfectly—the effort to understand matters enormously.
We can learn new ways of parenting even when healthier patterns weren't modeled for us.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introducing Dr. Lindsay Gibson
01:41 What is an emotionally immature parent?
04:16 Why emotionally immature parents struggle with emotional intimacy
06:31 We can all become emotionally immature under stress
08:07 Children's behavior is communication
10:44 Recognizing when we've hurt our child
12:36 Going back, reflecting, and repairing
13:21 When your own childhood shame shows up in parenting
14:21 Why Lindsay says we need to feel shame
17:33 You're not a dependent child anymore
18:35 Why setting limits can trigger shame
21:31 Can you be both kind and firm?
22:18 Parenting may never feel completely comfortable
24:15 Yelling, intensity, tone, and intent
27:17 Remembering that children have an inner emotional world
29:17 "Are you getting the results that you want?"
31:20 The real meaning of discipline
32:59 Lindsay's parental mindsets
33:59 Emma's childhood promise never to forget what it's like to be a child
35:47 Why Lindsay focuses on mindsets instead of parenting formulas
37:38 Loving the child you actually have
38:59 Your child is psychologically real inside
40:05 How emotions help children develop a sense of self
42:49 Helping children understand what they're feeling
45:08 The difference between emotional maturity and immaturity
46:34 You don't have to understand your child perfectly
48:30 Becoming a more emotionally mature parent
53:07 You can learn a different way to parent
More about Dr. Lindsay Gibson:
LINDSAY C. GIBSON, PSYD is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker and clinical psychologist with over thirty years of psychotherapy experience. Her bestselling book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, has sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated into 38 languages. Dr. Gibson does national and international training programs for psychotherapists and is the author of eight books, including her latest, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child. She has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, and has appeared on The Oprah Podcast, Mel Robbins, and 10% Happier.
Follow us on Facebook @lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast and on Instagram @lifesdirtylittlesecrets
Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
-
[00:00:00]
[00:00:41] Meet Dr Lindsay Gibson
[00:00:41] Emma Waddington: Welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington
[00:00:45] Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCurry. And today we are honored, privileged, thrilled have with us Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson. She's a clinical psychologist with more than 30 years of experience in public service and in private practice [00:01:00] based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She has a master's degree in clinical psychology from Central Michigan University, and a doctorate of psychology from the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology. She has taught doctoral-level clinical psychology as an adjunct assistant professor and writes widely on emotional wellbeing. She has authored a raft of books, most of them available through New Harbinger Publications, and we will have all the information regarding her books as well as other resources in show notes. Her book, "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents," became a New York Times bestseller with over 1.5 million copies sold. I'm jealous. it's been translated into 30 languages, and this was followed by "Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents," for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents," and "Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People." And her latest book, published just this spring, [00:02:00] is "How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child."
[00:02:02] Chris McCurry: Welcome, Dr. Gibson
[00:02:05] Lindsay Gibson: Oh, thank you for having me. It's so good to be with you guys today
[00:02:09] Chris McCurry: Oh, it's our pleasure. let's talk about emotionally immature parents. Um, how would you describe or define an emotionally immature parent?
[00:02:20] Lindsay Gibson: Well, let's think about it in terms of how people develop psychologically. the way that they develop goes through these predictable stages that I learned about when I was learning to do psychological evaluations as a young psychologist. in the program that I attended, there was tremendous emphasis on what kinds of thinking and of
[00:02:45] Lindsay Gibson: self-development, intellectual ability
[00:02:48] Emma Waddington: every time
[00:02:49] Lindsay Gibson: common at different ages,
[00:02:51] Emma Waddington: do it
[00:02:51] Lindsay Gibson: you did a psychological evaluation, you could look for these things and peg where the person had developed to in terms of [00:03:00] their psychological development. So this set me up to be aware of this for the rest of my, 30-plus years of being a psychologist and a psychotherapist, where I was always thinking about behavior in terms of what it told me about a person's level of development psychologically.
[00:03:19] Emma Waddington: Yeah
[00:03:19] Traits And Impact On Kids
[00:03:19] Lindsay Gibson: So when people came in to see me for psychotherapy and they were describing their spouse or, but most particularly their parents, I'm listening to it thinking, "Whoa, these people are, at a very young age psychologically."
[00:03:34] Lindsay Gibson: They're extremely egocentric. All roads lead to them. Everything is about them and their needs. They are not self-reflective. They're not taking responsibility for the pain that they've been causing my, my client. And they're very impulsive. They showed a very poor stress tolerance.
[00:03:53] Lindsay Gibson: They would blow up over small things, or they would hold a grudge forever. They would withdraw [00:04:00] love. And these things were all-- I got to see personal aftermath of being raised by parents who were really like overgrown toddlers. that's no I'm not casting aspersions on toddlers or emotionally immature parents, but it sure makes life hard on the people that have to live with them, and it makes life especially hard on dependent children who look to these parents for help in developing their own sense of self and their own emotional control. Now, one of the things that emotionally immature parents have a really hard time doing is they cannot let down their guard enough to connect with their children at a deep emotional level. They're practically phobic about deep feelings and emotional needs. And I think it's because they don't have a very well-developed sense of self. So when you start getting close to them and [00:05:00] trying to connect with them, or you come to them with a problem or an emotional issue, they get panicky because they're not really very well organized inside themselves to contain your emotion along with theirs. So they avoid emotional intimacy, and they actually psychologically back up from their children and withdraw from their children the more the child is
[00:05:26] Emma Waddington: And you can have
[00:05:26] Lindsay Gibson: get something from them emotionally. And what that does is it makes the child come to the conclusion, "Oh, there's something weird about me. There's something wrong with me. My needs are too much. I'm too dependent," or, "I'm too easily upset. I'm too sensitive. I'm not gonna be that way in my life. I'm not gonna get-- try to get too close to people because see how it upset my parent and made them pull away from me."
[00:05:54] Lindsay Gibson: That's just one example of how it can affect people. But emotionally immature parents [00:06:00] are, people who, like many of us, find themselves in a position of shaping a child's life using the only tools that you have and the only history that you have from your own life, maybe not being able for many reasons, to give that child the sense of security, feeling loved, feeling understood,
[00:06:27] Emma Waddington: E,
[00:06:27] Lindsay Gibson: feeling lonely because you can give them that, that sense of connection. Emotionally immature parents have a tremendously difficult time doing that with their kids
[00:06:38] Emma Waddington: In.
[00:06:38] Chris McCurry: Wow, okay. That's a lot to unpack. I-I-I've been working with parents for, over 30 years as well, and as a parent myself, I know that e-even the most emotionally mature of us can become immature under the right circumstances. I often talk about how under stress we all [00:07:00] regress, and any one of us can become a raging five-year-old. And all those things that you just described, the egocentrism, the black and white, all or none thinking inability to see another person's perspective thinking your thoughts are facts, not just ideas.
[00:07:14] Lindsay Gibson: Yes
[00:07:16] Chris McCurry: all of that, the rigidity, all of that stuff, we can become that when we're stressed out. And then you have two five-year-olds going at it, one of whom is, three times taller than the other. how do we recognize, that this is something that's impacting our parenting? What are some signs that people could possibly recognize? I know you mentioned that some of the folks that you've worked with who are emotionally immature as parents don't have a lot of self-reflective capacity and don't take a lot of responsibility.
[00:07:46] Chris McCurry: But how could we begin to, initiate that in,
[00:07:49] Chris McCurry: folks?
[00:07:51]
[00:07:51] Lindsay Gibson: One of the things that I make a point about in my new book is that children's behavior is their communication. for all [00:08:00] our lives, we communicate through our behavior. Our verbal communications, especially about our feelings and our needs, is really a tiny little portion of the communication that flows between people. We can have a body posture or a look we can have a vibe that communicates volumes. And so we have to realize that w- we don't always get the child coming back to us with words saying, "Mom, I feel emotionally lonely," or, "Dad, I feel misunderstood." They're not gonna do that. But they're going to show with their behavior that something's not right that they're agitated or that they're fussy or they're clingy.
[00:08:41] Lindsay Gibson: They're gonna show us in our of our non-verbal way that humans h- have, and animals, that there's something the matter. And so if we get the basic idea that our child's behavior is always communicating to us how we're doing as parents. If the child is, [00:09:00] fairly relaxed, happy, fairly calm, we can assume that the, the quality of our relationship with them is probably okay at the moment. Just as we would with our partner or our workmate. We can tell when things are good between us and when there's some tension. But people seem to forget to do that with their children. it's like they imagine that kids don't have the same sensitivity or the same internal reactions to things that, that they have an inner world like adults do. But they they do. And they'll let us know that if we're looking. for people that are not looking, people that are basically self-preoccupied that they're not able to reflect on their behavior, and they're really not able to notice the messages that their child is sending them, there isn't too much that we can [00:10:00] say to them until the child really starts creating problems with their behavior. And then the parent might be willing take a look at what's going on in the family. That's when go to therapy and you get that kind of feedback.
[00:10:15] Repair After Parenting Missteps
[00:10:49] Lindsay Gibson: But if you're watching a program like this and you're interested in being a better parent, and you're curious about your child's experience, you probably have the ability to notice when you have done something that's going to create some kind of or tension or bad feeling in the relationship with your child. In other words, if we do something that's going to hurt our child or make our child feel unloved or misunderstood or you are going to have a bad feeling inside. You're gonna get a sinking feeling. You're gonna feel regret. You [00:11:00] may feel shame. You may feel some guilt. You will have enough sensitivity and empathy for your child that you're gonna get that feedback internally. The problem is that culturally, and I say that really in a worldwide way, the old model of the parent as the infallible authority kind of prevents us from listening to that message. instead of saying, "Oh, I think I did something wrong. I need to fix that with my child," you might say, "Well, they've gotta learn, and I've gotta be the authority here.
[00:11:36] Lindsay Gibson: I can't be appearing weak to them. I've gotta act like I know what I'm doing so that they'll feel secure." And so the, there is no repair made about it. But for most of us who are interested in issues like this, who might be listening to a program like this, will know that whatever it was that you just did, would not [00:12:00] like someone else to have done to you. It's as basic as that. And once you realize that, that is your prompt to go back in and when I say go back in, I mean that two ways. I mean you go back in to talk to your child about it, but you also go back into your own inner world find out what really just happened with me. Why did I lose my temper?
[00:12:25] Lindsay Gibson: Why did I use that awful word, okay? And you try to understand where you were coming from before you take it up with your child in a, a repairing kind of way to apologize or to explain what happened from your standpoint and to hear how you made them feel, which of course is the hardest part because that hurts.
[00:12:47] Emma Waddington: Yeah. And do you think because of those, if we've been parented by an emotionally immature adult, a lot of the parenting has been done through the sort of shaming, [00:13:00] coercive control that you talk about in your book. Which means that some of these moments, even when we perhaps we do raise our voice or perhaps we, say something that we regret, that shame that we experienced as a child can feel very big, and we'll want to detach a bit like perhaps our parents did with us.
[00:13:20] Emma Waddington: We wanna take space. We're so ashamed of, "How could I be such a terrible parent?" And this sort of inner critic can be incredibly loud. What is your invitation in those moments for those, who have-- who do have that inner dialogue, who did have those experiences of shame when they did something wrong or when they upset the parents in some way?
[00:13:39] Emma Waddington: What do you recommend?
[00:13:41] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah. The thing that works best with getting over shame, which nobody wants to do, is to feel the shame. As soon as shame comes up in us, it's like we are out of there. We get defensive, we get avoidant we try to rationalize, we try to [00:14:00] intellectualize. We do anything we can to get away from experiencing the shame it's so toxic feeling. But what I recommend to my clients and to anybody who's trying to change their behavior for the better or, n- not to sound too grandiose, but to reverse generations of parenting that may have been harmful to children, if you're trying to do that, it means that you must become conscious of your own emotional reactions to your child and to your own behavior. Because that self-knowledge, actually, there's fascinating research to this, that self-knowledge actually makes you create a more secure attachment with your child. And when you are more securely attached and the child is feeling that, and the child is showing that kind of faith and trust in their parent and in the [00:15:00] relationship, your ability to give them all the things that you really wanna give them is there. But if you don't start with your own tolerance for your shameful feelings, can't be there for your child in their worst feelings, in their suffering, okay? So I always counsel people, I say, let's just sit here for a second. This is shame. Let's feel it. This is what has held you back. This is what you run away from.
[00:15:30] Lindsay Gibson: This is what makes you feel terrible about yourself. just sit with it. Let's
[00:15:35] Emma Waddington: I know it
[00:15:36] Lindsay Gibson: it and name what this is,
[00:15:39] Emma Waddington: Spirit
[00:15:39] Lindsay Gibson: not the end of you. It's just a feeling that you had from childhood, but you've been running from it, so let's just stop and sit with it for a minute." And when they do that, when any of us do that, the shame gets really bad, feels awful, and then it starts to lift and [00:16:00] dissipate because all it ever wanted was to be felt. And when you're receptive to it, it's like letting that inner child bring that feeling into the relationship where it can be opened up and cleared out and healed through the relationship, through the kind and, companionable relationship with that other person. That's how the shame starts to go away.
[00:16:24] Emma Waddington: And I guess you can start to be the parent that you really wanna be in that moment
[00:16:30] Lindsay Gibson: but yes, because, the-- think about it this way, fewer times we do things that we feel shame about, probably the better for our kids, right? it's worthwhile to become aware that we may be ashamed of our behavior at times with our children, but we're grown-ups now, okay? We have other resources.
[00:16:51] Lindsay Gibson: We're not dependent children anymore. We can feel those difficult feelings
[00:16:57] Emma Waddington: Gyerünk
[00:16:59] Lindsay Gibson: that. [00:17:00] I know how I made them feel. My mother used to make me feel that way all the time." And I'm going to acknowledge that this is part of my history, this is part of my hurt that I've carried all these years, I'm gonna do something about it for my kid. And I'm gonna go in the next room and I'm gonna say, "Honey, I am so sorry.
[00:17:22] Emma Waddington: Yeah, so
[00:17:23] Lindsay Gibson: sorry that I talked to you that way, and I want to know how you're feeling. Can you tell me what that was like for you? Because I feel really bad about it. I know I hurt you." And then you o- you're opening up the dialogue
[00:17:37] Emma Waddington: I think that's so powerful.
[00:17:39] Limits Without Harshness
[00:17:41] Emma Waddington: And what's also really powerful in your book is the sort of lists that you give the gifts of good parenting. Because I think for some people, the shame can also show up when you're being a good enough parent. Like, it doesn't just show up when we're making mistakes.
[00:17:54] Emma Waddington: It also shows up when we set a limit. Like, for some of us, setting limits with our kids feels [00:18:00] really difficult, 'cause limits perhaps were set in a very coercive, shaming way. So you feel bad for setting a limit. But actually, it's really important. So I think, in your book, talking about what you need, your job as a parent, there is a job to do
[00:18:16] Lindsay Gibson: Absolutely. Yeah, because you can't there's a a way of describing sensitive parenting as gentle parenting, and that
[00:18:24] Emma Waddington: equanimous
[00:18:25] Lindsay Gibson: like we don't set limits, we don't give guidance, we just let them run wild and say, "Aren't they cute?" But that's not what we're after. If we don't have the container for them, if we don't provide those limits, and we don't provide the guidance, they don't become socialized.
[00:18:42] Lindsay Gibson: They
[00:18:42] Emma Waddington: That's right
[00:18:43] Lindsay Gibson: Good enough citizens
[00:18:45] Emma Waddington: Yes, that's right
[00:18:47] Lindsay Gibson: Get by in the world. So we don't want to do them the disservice of pretending that everything they do is just fine. We
[00:18:53] Emma Waddington: It's,
[00:18:54] Lindsay Gibson: going to butt heads, but
[00:18:55] Emma Waddington: that's me
[00:18:56] Lindsay Gibson: Emma. If we grew up with parents who were very [00:19:00] shaming toward us, or maybe they withheld love, which is practically the same result, then we may not feel good when we set a good limit or when we've made our child very unhappy or angry with
[00:19:14] Emma Waddington: You hear I've had to
[00:19:15] Lindsay Gibson: We'll have that automatic knee-jerk reaction to feel shame about that because it's like our parent is reacting to us again.
[00:19:22] Emma Waddington: Det her
[00:19:23] Lindsay Gibson: But if we understand that, again, that goes back to the self-knowing. If we understand that, then we are freed to do it, to feel bad about it, and yet use our thinking mind to say, "Nope, they really should not be out until 2:00 in the morning."
[00:19:38] Emma Waddington: That's right
[00:19:39] Lindsay Gibson: And we're gonna have to do something about this.
[00:19:41] Emma Waddington: Yes. So true. Chris used to say, what did you use to say to Ian to y- to his now 32-year-old? That I'm representing society
[00:19:49] Lindsay Gibson: Yes.
[00:19:51] Emma Waddington: I think about that so often 'cause I have two teenage boys and a nine-year-old girl, and I think about, I'm representing society here, so this is not okay. [00:20:00] It's not just on behalf of me, myself, and I. It's actually a whole community that I'm taking about
[00:20:05] Chris McCurry: Yeah.
[00:20:06] Emma Waddington: this behavior.
[00:20:07] Chris McCurry: unusual in being annoyed by your behavior right now. Other people I'm sure will be annoyed by this very behavior, so think about
[00:20:14] Lindsay Gibson: I, I lo- I love that
[00:20:17] Chris McCurry: He thought he was doomed being raised by two psychologists
[00:20:20] Emma Waddington: It's ... Yeah, it has its own challenges, doesn't it? Yes. Yes.
[00:20:24] Emma Waddington: Yeah, it's so important, 'cause limit setting, it seems to be out of fashion actually, like this gentle parenting movement and this sort of I can't remember, there's another term as well, that sort of suggests that almost that limit setting, natural consequences which is all very well.
[00:20:39] Emma Waddington: Obviously, we don't wanna be harsh parents, but limits are incredibly important information, and we need to get, we need to get comfortable doing that in a warm ... I talk about you need to be kind and firm. We don't need to be mean and firm. We can be kind and firm. But that, if we haven't had that template, that's very difficult.
[00:20:59] Emma Waddington: We need [00:21:00] to do the work to figure out how to do that.
[00:21:02] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah,
[00:21:03] Chris McCurry: it m-
[00:21:03] Lindsay Gibson: it's
[00:21:03] Chris McCurry: never be comfortable. Y-
[00:21:05] Chris McCurry: y-
[00:21:05] Emma Waddington: Also true.
[00:21:07] Emma Waddington: Great point
[00:21:07] Chris McCurry: that you may sit with the shame and it, dissipates, but then it'll come back, because that's
[00:21:14] Emma Waddington: Yes
[00:21:14] Chris McCurry: And under those contexts, you will feel that feeling, you will have those thoughts, but it's-- but over time, with that experience as you described it'll be like, "Oh yeah, that,"
[00:21:24] Emma Waddington: That. Yeah.
[00:21:24] Chris McCurry: to, "Oh my God!"
[00:21:26] Lindsay Gibson: Yes.
[00:21:26] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:21:27] Emma Waddington: Very true. Yeah
[00:21:29] Chris McCurry: Yeah, I think it's part of the deal, just being a parent
[00:21:32] Gentle Versus Permissive Parenting
[00:21:32] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah and the idea of somehow limits and consequences and whatever took on this there's only one way to do it, and that's in a authoritarian way. And that's really unfortunate because that should not be appropriated by that style of thought that you have to be mean in order to be strong or, that you have to be cutting in order to be, firm or tough enough to set a limit and [00:22:00] enforce it. It's really unfortunate that those wires have gotten crossed, and that somehow being gentle is associated with being weak and permissive, which of course not. If you're a a basically gentle parent, that's great. But the world is not gentle.
[00:22:15] Lindsay Gibson: Bosses are not gentle.
[00:22:17] Emma Waddington: This is
[00:22:18] Lindsay Gibson: Academic standards are not gentle.
[00:22:21] Lindsay Gibson: And we have to, I love that Chris. I used to tell my son that he, when he'd say, "It's-- we live in a democracy. I should get a vote." And I said, "No, you live in a benevolent dictatorship, son. I'm acting in your best interest
[00:22:37] Emma Waddington: That's right
[00:22:37] Lindsay Gibson: and I, you gotta count on me for some things here, and I'm deciding that this is not cool."
[00:22:43] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:22:44] Emma Waddington: so hard, isn't it?
[00:22:44] Chris McCurry: but there's so many ways to do it, some of
[00:22:47] Emma Waddington: Yeah
[00:22:47] Chris McCurry: work better than others. I know in your most recent book, one of your r- I guess you would call them rules. You call them things for parents to avoid, but you talk about yelling, and I really have no problem with [00:23:00] yelling, but parents don't do it well.
[00:23:01] Chris McCurry: I tell parent, I tell parents, "Yell sooner." If you just know that this is one of those situations, like it's Monday morning and the kids aren't getting their shoes on, you take on the manner of a very enthusiastic coach or, cheerleader or something. So the yelling is more like, "Come on, campers, let's go," opposed to, the angry, "I've been, trying to keep my cool," and then I finally explode. So you can yell in ways that are much more playful but it'll get their attention and cut through the fog and get people moving hopefully.
[00:23:34] Lindsay Gibson: Yes. I think the yeah, you're talking about the volume and the intensity. And that can be, both of those things can be very positive, like you're saying. I think when you say the word yell though, you are that you're trying to putting the other person into an acute arousal state. You are trying to generate some cortisol in them to motivate and to get them going. So when I say yelling I think [00:24:00] I the actual title of that section is Yelling Is For Emergencies Only.
[00:24:04] Chris McCurry: had six
[00:24:04] Emma Waddington: And
[00:24:06] Lindsay Gibson: So we-
[00:24:09] Chris McCurry: kids and couldn't be bothered, with, but,
[00:24:11] Lindsay Gibson: she's probably trying to survive, yeah
[00:24:14] Chris McCurry: exactly. Exactly. But yeah, it's all about tone
[00:24:17] Lindsay Gibson: Yes, and intent.
[00:24:18] Emma Waddington: It's not about shaming and you're a bad kid. It's like, "Here we go. We've gotta go. Come on. We've gotta get moving." And that you matter
[00:24:26] Lindsay Gibson: all you have to do really is just imagine what would work on you.
[00:24:30] Emma Waddington: Yes
[00:24:31] Lindsay Gibson: you would you be motivated if somebody was, enthusiastically, "Come on campers," kind of thing? Yeah, you probably would because it's contagious. It's fun. It's motivating and energizing.
[00:24:42] Lindsay Gibson: So, there can definitely be that of yelling, like at a sports event or something. It's to energize. It's to bring up the energy. But if you're trying to bring up an energy that creates fear creates a, a feeling of like low tone or bad feelings about [00:25:00] oneself, we wouldn't want to be motivated that way. Yeah.
[00:25:04] Kids Inner Emotional World
[00:25:04] Lindsay Gibson: So really it's just I think it's easier to remember when you're raising kids, it's like, just don't do the thing to them that you would hate to have done to you. I- it's so simple, but it's like I said before, people forget that kids have this internal emotional world that is pretty much just like ours.
[00:25:26] Lindsay Gibson: They're not our intellectual equals. They certainly aren't our equals in terms of life experience or judgment, that kind of thing. as far as emotional reactions, they are just like us.
[00:25:38] Lindsay Gibson: We can remember that even though they don't communicate it in words, and sometimes they're so shocked they don't even communicate it on their faces. So we're thinking, "Hey, I'm not getting through to him," "He's not taking this seriously because he's just looking at me like a deer in the headlights." There's a lot going on behind those headlights. Well not, that's the deers. Let me start that over again. [00:26:00] There's a lot going on in the kid that is looking like a deer in the headlights. They may not be able to show it on their face because they're at a state of alarm. if you just trust that, yes, they are as upset inside as you would be
[00:26:18] Lindsay Gibson: if you were in the same situation
[00:26:21] When Parents Defend Yelling
[00:26:21] Emma Waddington: What do you do in the cases where, you have parents, like perhaps I'm working with parents or even an adult, and they're saying, "
[00:26:31] Emma Waddington: I don't see an issue with yelling," "I don't mind if people yell at me," or, "It worked with me and my parents."
[00:26:38] Emma Waddington: How do you work with that? I know that's slightly tangential, but as you were saying, don't treat your children as you, wouldn't wanna be treated.
[00:26:46] Emma Waddington: I think that's so important, and yet some people don't mind being treated with a rude force and authority, and yet maybe the kid does mind that. What do we do then?
[00:26:58] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah. I think [00:27:00] it's one way to think about that if it bother you, doesn't, you don't really think it's bothering your kid that much, you're gonna keep yelling 'cause this is what your parents did and whatever. What I say to people is I don't fight with them and say, "You shouldn't do that." I say, "Are you getting the results that you want with the kind of feelings that you wanna have afterwards?" Okay, so when you've yelled your head off and gotten in the car in a lather, do you feel good about how you handled that? Do you feel good about how it went? If you do, okay. Who am I
[00:27:34] Emma Waddington: Yeah, great
[00:27:35] Lindsay Gibson: That is not something to do if it's working for you?
[00:27:39] Lindsay Gibson: I'm just saying just be aware that it may not be working for your kid.
[00:27:43] Emma Waddington: Yeah, and the impact
[00:27:44] Lindsay Gibson: think about how you might feel if your boss motivated you by yelling at you or giving you, what seems to be arbitrary deadlines and times to be, have something done, and then makes you feel terrible about it if you don't get [00:28:00] it done on time. You might wanna consider that even though it feels very comfortable to you, there might be other ways of getting exactly the same result that you want with less distress
[00:28:15] Emma Waddington: I am
[00:28:16] Lindsay Gibson: Now, you may not this as a high priority on your list of things to do with parenting or how the family gets along, and I understand that, but keep in mind that there might be some other ways of handling this that could teach your child how to get along with other people when one person isn't doing what the other person wants them to. And what are some other ways that we can be more collaborative or we can motivate each other without all the yelling? Let's just keep that in mind as a possibility, and we can talk about it down the road if you like
[00:28:52] Discipline Means Teaching
[00:28:52] Chris McCurry: And I'm always reminding parents that the root of the word discipline is to teach.
[00:28:58] Chris McCurry: And, so asking the [00:29:00] question, is your child learning what you want them to learn through
[00:29:03] Chris McCurry: these techniques?
[00:29:05] Emma Waddington: Yeah
[00:29:06] Lindsay Gibson: Yes. if your child is learning that raising your voice and coercion and shaming, is what gets things done, then what kind of partner are they going to be? What kind of boss are they going to be? How are they gonna handle...
[00:29:21] Chris McCurry: a boss
[00:29:22] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah, if they get to be a boss.
[00:29:24] Lindsay Gibson: Unfortunately, a lot of that personality type does.
[00:29:27] Emma Waddington: Yeah, that's- Yeah. Yeah
[00:29:30] Lindsay Gibson: But yeah we wanna be thinking about in this coming world there's not going to be the opportunity so much, I don't think, for people to indulge their personality inclinations at will. There's going to be more expectation of being treated with some basic respect. Unless, you have so much money that you can afford to lose and gain people, without
[00:29:57] Chris McCurry: w-
[00:29:57] Lindsay Gibson: consideration.
[00:29:58] Chris McCurry: any names.
[00:29:59] Lindsay Gibson: We won't mention any [00:30:00] names, but it is a thing that if, once you get enough power, enough money, you can start to n- look at the cost of that kind of behavior as, as acceptable because you
[00:30:11] Emma Waddington: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:14] Chris McCurry: Right
[00:30:14] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:30:15] Emma Waddington: I would love to touch on your seven parental mindsets. We may not do all seven, but a couple of them, just because When I read about them, I- they s- oh, I just thought they were so useful, just as a framework for parents. Those of us that perhaps haven't had the best templates, we can use those as, as references.
[00:30:35] Emma Waddington: And also because when I first read your book and I think I mentioned it to you, I made two promises to myself as a child. My first was never to be an expat parent, and I broke that one 'cause I now live in Singapore. Yes, I remember talking to Chris about it when we got given the the post in Singapore, and I was devastated.
[00:30:56] Emma Waddington: I'm, like, breaking this huge promise that I made to myself, never to be an expat parent. [00:31:00] Anyway, it's been okay. And the second one was never to forget what it's like to be a child.
[00:31:05] Emma Waddington: I remember I was about eight or nine years old and thinking, "What happens to adults that they forget that children have their own world, their own version, their own ideas, their own worries?"
[00:31:18] Emma Waddington: I remember thinking, "My worries matter, too," and was regularly told that my mo- worries were really small, that the real worries came later, and I'd get really frustrated and upset. So I said, "Emma, never forget this. This is important for you to take into your adult brain, that this is really important to children and that you need to listen to children."
[00:31:38] Emma Waddington: And so when I read about this as one of your mindsets, I thought, "Yes, children are unique, and they have their own worldview, and that is really important for us to respect and also to savor." I think it's one of my favorite things about being a parent, is actually to hear the perspective of my children, 'cause sometimes they have some fantastic versions of the world that had [00:32:00] never occurred to me, and I learn so much through all of them.
[00:32:03] Emma Waddington: I have, different stages and-- But I've learnt through, through each stage of seeing, "Actually, that's a really cool way of using a dustpan," or, "That's a, a new way of climbing up the stairs," whatever it might be, or, you have teenagers who decide that actually this is an interesting political party and that it's got an agenda that might really...
[00:32:24] Emma Waddington: You know, it's just like open, open yourself to this version of the world, 'cause we can get really narrow and rigid and not particularly creative as we get older.
[00:32:34] Emma Waddington: think it's super important, and I loved that you had that in the book as your number one, 'cause I think it is so true and so powerful and so much fun if you embrace it as a parent.
[00:32:45] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah. I did the orientation toward mindsets as opposed to, here are the four things to do when your child is having a tantrum, or here are the six steps to what. My [00:33:00] brain turns off when I hear about steps and, uh, those modular lists and things. It's like I start to glaze over.
[00:33:07] Lindsay Gibson: But if somebody gives me a mindset, like just have this attitude, have this way of looking at them, I find that very useful and very comforting, so that's why I put it in the book like that, like at toward the very beginning, which is if you have these attitudes and cultivate these attitudes toward your children, keep this kind of mindset going, everything else is gonna fall into place around that.
[00:33:36]
[00:33:36] Lindsay Gibson: It's, it just makes it easier to have that overarching attitude toward your child, that they are a unique individual with their own specific emotional needs, and they are going to be that way whether you want them to be or not. And that can be [00:34:00] very hard to accept and get your head around. There's a, there was an older book, came out in I think 2012 by Andrew Solomon called Far From The Tree, he has a beautiful line in there. On the first page of the book he says that being a parent is committing to caring for a permanent stranger
[00:34:22] Emma Waddington: Dude
[00:34:22] Lindsay Gibson: And what he's saying there is you can't just love what you expect to see in your child. That's easy.
[00:34:31] Lindsay Gibson: What you have to try to do
[00:34:34] Emma Waddington: Oh gosh,
[00:34:35] Lindsay Gibson: to understand and these individual differences that they're gonna come to you with. And when you do that, you create a sense of connection with them, where in a way you're beholding them. Carl Rogers said we should look at our children the way we look at a sunset. That is, [00:35:00] that we behold it without judgment, without expectation, without a sense of familiarity like, "Oh, yeah, I know all about sunsets. Next." No, to appreciate these, these unique qualities in our child, to try to see things from their perspective creates empathy, and that satisfies the child's need for connection and meaning and purpose.
[00:35:28] Lindsay Gibson: All of that goes back to the emotional connection, the quality of the emotional connection with the parent, the feeling of being seen for who you really are. maybe the most basic attitude that I would espouse for
[00:35:44] Emma Waddington: Stop
[00:35:45] Lindsay Gibson: toward their children to just try on the idea that your child is psychologically real inside, okay?
[00:35:55] Lindsay Gibson: They're not little empty vessels. They're not little stimulus response machines. [00:36:00] are as real inside, having their own experience, as you are, And we tend to forget that because we do tend to see them as these empty vessels these malleable pe- little people that we can form into who we want them to be.
[00:36:18] Lindsay Gibson: It's like, well, we can give them a lot, but we can't form them into really who they were meant to be. We have to be looking for that and helping them discover that
[00:36:32] Emma Waddington: Give an example, because that feels really important, of where we may be treating them as empty vessels versus actually discovering who they are and what they stand for.
[00:36:43] Emotions Build The Self
[00:36:43] Lindsay Gibson: if we keep in mind that a child's sense of self is based on their emotional experiences we tend not to make that connection because harried parents, a child's emotion is [00:37:00] draining. It's exhausting to deal with the many and the very, very frequent emotions of children. It is-- that's true with adults too but children really let it hang out, okay? And so we forget that those emotions, that part of the brain that has to do with registering somatically the, the experience of instantaneous emotion, part of the brain is just as online for them as it is on us, as I said before. when you recognize that and accept that as not only something they can't help, but that it's, it is the basis of their sense of secure selfhood. You can't have a sense of self unless you have become aware of your feelings, you make sense of your feelings, you understand their signals, you understand what they mean in terms of your [00:38:00] relationships with other people, what they're telling you about other people, develops your intuition. And emotion is your through line your life.
[00:38:11] Lindsay Gibson: That is your autobiographical narrative that creates a sense of self. "I am a person who moves through time having experiences, and yet I stay the same. am who I am even though I grow and I change." And that development with that solid sense of self through time, I can remember what I did back here and how it felt, I can imagine how it's gonna feel over here and what that will feel like, your cause and effect awareness. how do we have a successful, happy adult life if we don't have that basic cause and effect awareness? It's all based on emotion. It's all based on the strength of our [00:39:00] sense of self, and that's what that deep relationship and connection with our child is going to give them.
[00:39:07] Lindsay Gibson: It's easy to forget how important those emotional experiences are, but they're absolutely foundational
[00:39:15] Mirroring And Naming Feelings
[00:39:15] Emma Waddington: And as parents, I guess it's those skills that you talk about in the book, like the mirroring, right? That's something that's really important in their emotional development to help them understand what is happening inside of them, what they're thinking, what they're feeling, what that is like, right?
[00:39:29] Lindsay Gibson: with that.
[00:39:30] Emma Waddington: And I guess some of us have to do the work to know how to do that, 'cause if we haven't had it modeled.
[00:39:34] Lindsay Gibson: Yes. And the process of taking those physical sensations, which that is the substrate of all emotion, translating that into words Dan Siegel has done a lot of work on this with his Whole-Brain Child book. But you're bringing the prefrontal cortex, the, the thinking, the planning, the self-control part of the brain, the language part of the brain, all that is being [00:40:00] brought into coordination with those emotional, physical sensations. And they're like, "Oh, this is th- this is called being mad," or, "Oh, I'm sad. That's what this feeling is." And when you get that, that other layer on top of your emotion where you define it and you understand it, and you understand that then that there are degrees of anger. I can be irritated, I can be enraged. And you begin to have a sense of mastery, because now you've got a kind of a catalog of emotions to describe how you feel. You begin to feel like you are more in control of yourself, you understand other people better, and that is tremendously important in terms of developing a sense of competence and efficacy in everything.
[00:40:54] Lindsay Gibson: Not just in relationships, but in how the world works, why people do things for each other, why[00:41:00]
[00:41:00] Emma Waddington: उह
[00:41:00] Lindsay Gibson: f- fight with each other. It's the whole
[00:41:02] Emma Waddington: Right
[00:41:03] Lindsay Gibson: of understanding of the human experience
[00:41:05] Emotional Maturity Skills
[00:41:05] Emma Waddington: And it also reminds me of something else that I heard you say that, it helps our children and eventually ourselves no longer be the servants of our emotions and more the masters, right? We get to understand our emotions and make decisions, and not necessarily get driven by our emotions when we know what they are and when they show up
[00:41:25] Lindsay Gibson: Excuse me but that is that's the basis of, most definitely of the difference between emotional maturity and immaturity. That in emotional maturity our emotions have become our advisors, our trusted advisors. They're not our masters. They don't push us around, like, pieces on a chessboard willy-nilly because I had this impulse, I had this emotion. You develop a thinking capacity that can allow you to use your emotions as information and communication, to see the big picture and [00:42:00] again, to see the cause and effect of things
[00:42:02] Emma Waddington: Yeah, so powerful, isn't
[00:42:03] Emma Waddington: it? And I love that you brought it back to that maturity piece, 'cause it is so true. And that is, those of us,
[00:42:09] Emma Waddington: Have to do the work, have to do the work. And we can learn it as we parent, which is what's so magical about parenting, is that as we parent and we know that we wanna do a good job, and I think, what was really reassuring in your book is that, you can have a poor experience of being parented, and you can still do a great job.
[00:42:30] Emma Waddington: Because the fact that you care to do a good job is so powerful. It means that you're reflecting one of the skills that perhaps your parents didn't do. You can start to do better
[00:42:40] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah.
[00:42:40] Effort Matters More Than Perfect
[00:42:42] Lindsay Gibson: And they've done i- and research on do you have to get it right with the other person in order for them to feel to you and to feel basically, like positively toward you? And what they found was that as long as the other person was [00:43:00] trying to understand, that was actually more important than their hit rate of actually understanding. B- because it's the feeling that what goes on inside me is important to you, you are trying to make that connection with me on the basis of how I see things. M- that is everything in terms of fostering that sense of, "I'm being seen, I'm being connected with." It's the effort. And so when parents are making that effort, even if they're failing at times, which of course they will, it's still communicating to the child that, "I know you're real in there. I know that you feel things as deeply as I do, and I'm very interested in that."
[00:43:45] Emma Waddington: And that's making them feel like they matter and they're really important, which is such a basic need, isn't it, as a human being, to feel like
[00:43:54] Lindsay Gibson: foundational
[00:43:55] Emma Waddington: It's foundational, yeah. This has been wonderful. Do you have any quest- f- [00:44:00] final questions, Chris?
[00:44:01] Chris McCurry: No, I was just to say-- I was just about to say in the interest of time any, any final thoughts that Lindsay may have that we can send our listeners off with something they can do today to, make some small steps or even big steps in the direction of being more emotionally available and mature, emotionally mature parent.
[00:44:23] Lindsay Gibson: Yeah. . It's unfortunate, I think, that people have gotten the idea that being an empathic, receptive caring parent is somehow more work than just reacting to your children with whatever it is that's happening in the moment and trying to parent that way.
[00:44:43] Lindsay Gibson: It is reactive parenting. Reactive parenting, where we are basically, expressing our feelings and our... acting on our impulses in the moment to bring about the result that we want with our child, is actually m- gonna [00:45:00] create more work for you as the child gets older and becomes more invested in their building their own identity, their own independence, their own friendships, their right to make mistakes.
[00:45:14] Lindsay Gibson: All these things that happen, beginning even with preteens. if you have not set up this relationally based consideration for your child's real individuality and their motives, what it is that drives them, what they're interested in working on, working toward. If you don't pay attention to that and meet them that level of their interest, your job as a parent is going to get so much more difficult older they get because you won't have created the basis for a relationship based mutual understanding and a kind of a collaborative spirit with your child.
[00:45:59] Lindsay Gibson: And then, [00:46:00] of course, when they grow up and they get to be young adults and whatever you want to continue to have a relationship with them I would hope. And if you have not had that basic respect and that basic curiosity about them as a child, you've not created the atmosphere between you that's going to make it a pleasant experience for them to come back and visit with you or to maintain some kind of connection. So we wanna think about, again, long-term. We think about the cost-benefit ratio. It's not more work give your child consideration of their individuality and their motivations. It is less work in the long run when we think about the amount of empathy and consideration that you have to put into your child. And also, once you get into it, it's easier and it's more interesting to be curious about [00:47:00] what is going on inside your child- As an, an individual. Like Abby, you said a new way to go up the stairs. I just got an image of my son going up on all fours. But it becomes more interesting.
[00:47:13] Lindsay Gibson: Curiosity goes up. You have a sense of playfulness and appreciation for creativity. Th- that gives you energy as a parent when you can regard that in your child and have a, put a value on that as something positive. It's a... To me, it's an easier way of parenting than always feeling like I've gotta make things come out the way I want them to, by being reactive in the moment. It's not an easier way to parent, any way you look at it
[00:47:50] Emma Waddington: Yes, so well said. Thank you so much, Lindsay. This has been amazing. I've really enjoyed our conversation, and I think it's got lots of nuggets, um, for [00:48:00] those parents that are really reflective and wanting to do the best job, and to connect in that really deep way with their kids, 'cause it is so fun.
[00:48:08] Lindsay Gibson: Yes.
[00:48:09] Emma Waddington: both fun
[00:48:09] Keep Learning And Closing
[00:48:09] Lindsay Gibson: and I wanted to mention too, Emma, that, we can learn all kinds of behaviors that make things go better. If you're worried about whether or not you did the right thing with your child, or you're feeling bad about how you've been up until now, you have to do is learn. you can read books, you can listen to a podcast, you can talk to friends whose relationship with their children you admire. There's so much you can do because, once we reach the age of 12 and we move into formal operations thinking, it means that we have the ability to observe ourselves and learn new behaviors, and we become self-changing organisms as adults. And if we apply that to our parent, to our parenting role, and if we apply that to our [00:49:00] parenting role, will have a much easier time of it, and it'll feel good to us as we do it
[00:49:09] Chris McCurry: All right
[00:49:11] Emma Waddington: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Yes
[00:49:14] Chris McCurry: Lindsey Gibson. We'll have links to your books in the show notes, and if there's anything else that you think would be useful to have in the show notes as a way of like l- a resource, websites, whatever, shoot those to me, and I'll make sure that they get in. But it's been a, a real pleasure, and I'm
[00:49:32] Emma Waddington: I'm really husband
[00:49:33] Chris McCurry: the vast majority of them being emotionally mature adults, but a- anybody could gain some, some nuggets of wisdom and some, strategies for more effective and compassionate parenting from what we talked about today
[00:49:47] Lindsay Gibson: Well,
[00:49:47] Emma Waddington: Right
[00:49:48] Lindsay Gibson: so much for having me. This has been such a interesting and energizing
[00:49:53] Emma Waddington: Oh.
[00:49:53] Lindsay Gibson: I've just enjoyed it so much
[00:49:56] Emma Waddington: Me too
[00:49:56] Chris McCurry: as it we. So thank you[00:50:00]
[00:50:00] Emma Waddington: Thank you
