What can you do as a parent?
Is your child curious about other people, how they think and feel? If so, this is a great sign for her emotional growth.
When we’re open to thinking about other people’s motivations, we’re open to thinking about our own. We can imagine others from the inside and ourselves from the outside. We make friends and we grow our relationships. We manage misunderstandings and we learn from them. In short, we develop what is called a social sense of self.
So what happens when your social sense of self is disrupted for some reason?
This can often be caused by change: moving home, moving school, changes in the family and changes in the body. Change means uncertainty and we all have greater or lesser degrees of tolerance for feeling a bit out of control.
For many girls and women, changes and disruption can be managed without too much stress; they use these challenges to adapt and grow. For some however, their ideas about themselves start to feel shaky, even fragile; they may need a sense of certainty more than others in order to feel safe.
In some cases, thinking about the body is used to replace thinking about feelings. There’s a sense of measurable control associated with our bodies and appearances: we can weigh and measure or seek positive comments and likes. These activities can become a concrete way of evaluating yourself.
Many researchers and clinicians now agree that problems with the social self underlie many of the body issues that trouble girls and young women: disordered eating, self harm and distorted body image.
It is wonderful to take care of our bodies, to enjoy our health and strength and take pleasure in how we look. However, when we become too preoccupied with our body, it stops being enjoyable. We start withdrawing from the world instead of engaging with it. If we are overly anxious about how we look, it stops us from focusing on other people. We might not be able to manage our anxiety by enjoying our social life and confiding in our friends. We become more stuck in our own heads, so to speak.
At times when a child might feel very uncertain about her own place in the world, the body can provide this certainty. It can be hard to let go of this refuge and your child can seem perhaps too certain: rigid, driven, hard to reach.
So what can you do as a parent if you notice that your child is using her body to manage her feelings?
A targeted, gentle therapeutic approach helps: look for an in-person therapist together and bear in mind that it may be a long process while your daughter builds up trust in the relationship.
Meanwhile, how do you talk about this at home? You might have tried denying her point of view or presenting her with opposing evidence; to talk her out of what seems to be unreasonable behaviour. This is unlikely to work because she is relying on her metrics to hold herself together mentally. Other people’s attempts to take her away from this refuge of stability and certainty come to be seen as a threat rather than a support. This leads to further retreat and even a ‘doubling down’ on these behaviours.
So how do we get around this? The key word here is curiosity.
You are being curious about what is going on for her. You’re not trying to counter it. It might feel difficult or distressing to hear what your beautiful child thinks about themselves without responding. But your goal is to create a tiny sliver of light, to demonstrate that your daughter can use a little bit of space, an oasis even, in your mind to help her start to think safely about herself.
Here are some tips to consider:
- Listen with your full attention. It sounds obvious, but so many of us are looking elsewhere or attending to other things when our child begins to speak. Listen in sympathetic silence; don’t interrupt them or wait for them to finish so you can jump in.
- Acknowledge with a word. Just by saying a small, encouraging word (oh…mmm…I see) you invite the child to keep talking and find her own solution. For many children, the question, Why do you feel that way? shuts them down and this is especially the case when they’re using their bodies to shut down feeling.
- Don’t deny the feeling. Name the feeling. If you can put a name to a child’s inner experience (you seem so angry!), she will be comforted and feel understood. It may well not work the first time; but your child is beginning to learn that she will be heard with openness, curiosity and compassion.
- ALL feelings are permitted. You are not agreeing with the feelings; you are acknowledging them. By naming hatred, rage and despair when they are felt, you are teaching your daughter to trust her own mind. Exploring feelings without judgement will reduce the intensity of the emotion and prevent physical ‘acting out’; which is exactly what an overfocus on the body is. You are telling your child that ALL of her is acceptable, not just the ‘nice’ parts.
If you’re worried you’ve been unhelpful or said the ‘wrong’ thing. It doesn’t matter. Let her know later, when she is emotionally calmer, that you’ve been thinking about this and how they might feel.
Compassion is always welcome, whenever and however it comes.
[Article written for Day of the Girl 2022]
Dr Laura Henagulph, DClinPsy, MA (Oxon), BSc
Chartered Clinical Psychologist
Executive Director, Seaglass Clinical Consulting
Clinical Director, TheraTails at the SPCA