Remember how in the children’s book Winnie the Pooh and Piglet set a trap for the Heffalump, from which they themselves could not get out later? Now imagine such a trap as an invisible emotional trap. Surely all of us have been in a similar situation. What if it’s not about an adult, but about a child? How to help cope with this, we understand together with Alexandra Kabalevskaya, a family psychotherapist.
Experts call an emotional trap a situation voluntarily or involuntarily formed by parents, into which a child suddenly finds himself, unable to cope with it. Such traps are different, but the main symptom is the same — the child cannot get out of the situation without the help of parents.
To help a child get out of a trap, the parent himself must first recognize such a trap, and ideally, be able to set fewer traps for his own child. As usual, this is easier said than done. But I suggest starting with the first step, learning to recognize trap situations and figure out what help and support can be provided to the child.
Types of traps
discrete love
The most common and most dangerous trap is the unconditional love trap. When parents directly or indirectly broadcast to the child that they will love him only if he is good, convenient, correct. And if he does not behave well, then you can not count on the love of his parents. A common example of such a trap is a mother who suddenly stops talking to her child for a week for some kind of offense.
How to get out of this situation, the child who has already apologized does not know, because the adult’s behavior continues to remain unchanged. That is, the mother punishes the misconduct with a lack of love for a week. This is a fairly common phenomenon, which is very traumatic and disturbing for a child. He will try with all his might to return his mother’s love, to awaken feelings in her, which can result in psychosomatics and even illness.
Ban on emotions
Another dangerous and popular trap is the ban on emotions and feelings, when the child’s emotions are not accepted and normalized in the family, and he cannot express them directly. It is impossible to forbid emotions, it is only possible to limit their manifestation. For example, if a child is sad and crying, but hears from parents in response: “Smile!”, “Just think, nothing!”, “Boys don’t cry!”.
Or another classic situation: the child is angry with his dad for the punishment, but he is forbidden to experience this emotion, it is punishable by expulsion from family activities or entertainment. Will the child stop being angry? Not! But he will be forced to hide his feelings or express them through another channel — for example, offending his brother, showing aggression in kindergarten.
Loyalty conflict
This often happens when the parents are divorced, and the child finds himself in a situation where, for example, nothing good about one of the parents can be mentioned in front of the other. The same category also includes the situation when the child is put in a situation of choice — who do you love more / who is right. Mom wants his son to go to ballroom dancing, and dad sees him as a football player.
Making a choice, the child immediately loses closeness with one of the parents, and in order to level the damage, he plays football (for dad), but he does it very badly (for mom). He does not enter the competition, he receives the label «untalented» from the coach. A long stay in a conflict of loyalty is subsequently fraught with hypofunctionalism (up to alcoholism: drinking so as not to choose, for example).
Most often, the danger of forming traps for a child occurs in families where it is not customary to express emotions.
However, a conflict of loyalty can also arise in a complex family polygon — parents, grandmothers, a child. In such a multifaceted system, a child, in order to earn the love of all its participants, needs to play with everyone according to his rules, often “digging” under other relatives. For example, the child adjusts to the demands of the parents by passing messages from one to the other and participating in their parental or married life.
The older the child, the more often he “learns” this loyalty, but the emotional burden is enormous when parents make the child a messenger serving their communication. The child himself cannot get out of this situation, nor can he be honest with his parents, becoming a hostage to the conflict of loyalty.
Causes of emotional traps
The reason for all these traps is the same — the nature of communications in the family. Most often, the danger of the formation of traps for the child occurs in families where it is not customary to express emotions, all family members avoid talking about feelings and experiences, and the child’s emotions and feelings are not accepted and understood.
However, you can also fall into a trap where it is customary to actively switch the child’s emotions immediately in order to avoid negative experiences. I cried, and my mother answered — “Look, what a bird!”. In such a situation, the child does not have time to learn how to interact with negative emotions, does not know how to cope with them on his own, does not have time to survive and receive support from his mother.
It is through adults that children learn to cope with their emotions and accept them in themselves, allow them to themselves.
Parents themselves do not understand their feelings or avoid them, do not know how to contact them. Most often, this is done by parents who themselves have not reached emotional maturity, do not know how to cope with their own emotions, or cannot present them to each other. But if adults themselves avoid their feelings and do not allow the child to express them, then they will not only divert the attention of the child, but completely ignore his emotions. A classic example: “Cry and calm down!”
If parents defiantly do not notice children’s feelings, waiting for it to “pass by itself”, they thereby do not teach the child to accept different feelings and themselves, they do not normalize emotions.
Traps arise where there is a struggle for power in the family between mom and dad, mom and grandmother (conflict of loyalty); where there are difficulties with matrimony, and parents begin to unite only in case of problems with the child (inclusion of the third in the relationship); where the boundaries are poorly built, and demands are made on the child that do not correspond to his age characteristics and capabilities (excess of responsibility).
How to avoid traps
At different ages, falling into such a trap, children behave differently, and parental support can also be different. We understand in order.
Up to 1 years
At this age, it is too early to talk about typical traps, but it is worth following how the child’s attachment system is formed (using the example of a mother, but this may be another close adult). Securely attached children always receive a response to their needs (their request and signal is crying), seek solace from their mother, rejoice at the sight of her, and worry when she is absent.
It is a reliable emotional base, a bond formed in contact with the mother, that allows children to cope with a short separation. Excessive anxiety and restless behavior of the child or, on the contrary, ignoring the mother or aggression against her is an occasion to think about the psycho-emotional state of the mother herself.
What to do: here the main question is the presence of an adequate response to the needs of the child. If the mother has increased anxiety or she is distant and cold with the child, then the formation of a secure attachment is disrupted. It is important for a mother to take care of her psycho-emotional state: look for resources, ask for help, improve her parental competence, work with a psychotherapist. At this age, the state of the child is completely determined by the state of the mother, it is the adult at this stage who “orders the music”.
From 1 3 years up
At this age, the emotional response of the mother to the child is also very significant. During this period, the future personality of the child is largely laid down, boundaries, self-esteem, self-awareness are formed. What traps are typical for this age? The child presents his feelings and emotions to his parents and receives a ban on expression. «Don’t cry!», «Don’t be capricious!» «Do not shout!» without explanation and acceptance of emotions and further work with them, they can form a persistent trap when emotions accumulate inside the child that he can neither share nor demonstrate.
When there are no boundaries within the family, it is not clear who is in charge in the family and who is responsible for what
How dangerous is this situation? The fact that it can cause various emotional and behavioral difficulties, including provoking psychosomatic illnesses. For example, developmental inhibition, regression, pronounced jealousy may suddenly begin, sleep disturbances, aggressive or anxious behavior, and so on. Speaking of jealousy, it is worth saying that brothers or sisters are not needed for this — a baby can be jealous of one parent to another, demanding undivided attention from everyone.
What to do: First of all, at this stage, you need to deal with emotions with the child. Parents learn to allow their child to show different emotions (especially negative ones), and also continue to reduce their own anxiety, deal with their emotional difficulties, reconsider their requirements and expectations for the level of independence of the child, including emotional. It is worth getting acquainted with the age characteristics of the development of the child at this stage, so as not to require a ten-year-old level of self-control from a three-year-old baby.
From 4 8 years up
At this age, children often fall into an emotional trap, as a certain system of family relations has already developed and the snowball is growing. Often the situation is aggravated by the violation of boundaries within the family — they do not exist or, on the contrary, they are too rigid. In a family where rigid boundaries are accepted, every man is for himself and there is no place for feelings, it seems that any “negative emotions” can destroy the family. Therefore, they are tabooed, and the child has a fear of being «bad» when expressing the wrong emotions.
When there are no boundaries within the family, it is not clear who is in charge and who is responsible for what. In such families, children often become the emotional vests of their parents. The inconsistency of the parents also adds to the complexity. For example, an anarchist system of rules has been adopted in the family — today we have sweets and cartoons for breakfast, lunch and dinner all day long, and tomorrow all this is suddenly forbidden and banned. It’s not clear what to look for.
At the same age, symptoms of a struggle for power in the family may appear, and the child begins to participate in the loyalty system, trying to manipulate parents, sits on the neck of an interested adult (for example, a grandmother who wants to show her mother how she does not cope with upbringing, the child does not obey mother and receives various “buns” from her grandmother).
The fact that the situation has become critical can be indicated here by symptomatic behavior and psychosomatics. For example, if a child is poorly socialized, “sticks” to his mother, whiny, aggressive or anxious, if there is frequent constipation or stuttering, enuresis, jealousy towards other children, parents should seriously think about it.
What to do: First of all, at this stage, it is necessary to exclude the medical causes of the problem. Further work is needed with a psychologist, it is better if it is built on two levels — both with children and with parents. In the family, it is necessary to work on the system of relations as a whole, and most importantly, parents must regain responsibility for relationships and the emotional background in the family, agree on controversial issues and act functionally in the interests of the child, withstand different feelings of the child, resolve them both for him and for themselves, return the concept of unconditional parental love.
The child should not act as a communicator, translator and transmitter of the parents’ relationship with each other
Quarrels are inevitable, but you need to be able to get out of them, reduce the emotional distance, receive comfort and support from each other, and the child from the parents (not vice versa). The adult’s job here is to learn how to deal with their own difficult feelings and give the child the opportunity to get out of the conflict situation.
9 years and older (13-15)
Frequent traps during this period are associated with a conflict of loyalty and interaction between parents, with a conditional system of love (convenient — we love, uncomfortable — we do not love). The fact that the child is in an emotional trap, we are told by the sudden appearance of disturbing symptoms in the behavior and emotional sphere, as well as specific hobbies, headlong into virtual reality, a sharp narrowing of the social circle.
It is important not to confuse these signs with choosing something that mom or dad does not like as a hobby.
What to do: first of all, it should be noted that something is wrong, collect information about the age characteristics of the child and check with reality. Analyze the changes and try to find the starting point and factors. And also find your own part of the responsibility — to hear your child.
An adult even at this age should learn to listen not to his own anxiety and system of requirements and expectations, but to the needs of the child, and learn to be flexible to them. This means accepting the choice of the child, being close, but not pushing from above. It’s difficult, but possible. The child should not act as a communicator, translator and transmitter of the parents’ relationship with each other.
Closer to adolescence, if it has already happened, children are very loaded with parental or other relationships in the family and try to escape from them into the world of freedom, peers, in search of «unconditional» love. Parents should carefully analyze what they broadcast to the child. Does he have to meet their requirements, rules and expectations in order to earn love. And is there a discrepancy between the words (we love you always) and the deed (don’t come to me again this week, I don’t love you now).
If so, then this is the first line of work. Whatever type of traps we are talking about, in case of doubt, it makes sense to seek the help of a specialist in order to find out how you can even out the situation.