Stand Properly, Child!

““Releasing children to be who they truly are may be one of the most loving things any parent can do.” Jane Nelsen & Cheryl Erwin, Parents Who Love Too Much

“Let’s take a picture of you. Go over there.”

The seven- or eight-year-old girl was hopping on the soft grass, humming cheerfully. When she reached the colourful rose bed indicated by her mother, she stopped, raised her arms into the bright summer air and smiled radiantly.

“Stand properly.”

The girl’s arms did not move; her beaming smile did not change.

“Stand. Properly!” the mother’s stern voice echoed through the quiet park in Bucharest.

The girl’s smile vanished. She dropped her arms to her sides – they now looked like two fragile branches. Her shoulders hunched.

She looked lost.

Checking her phone, the mother looked pleased.

“So this is what a proper pose means twenty years after Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime had collapsed,” I thought, a wave of melancholy and sheer frustration washing over me – back in the 1970s and 1980s, “standing properly” meant almost the same. The only difference was that no one had to remind me, my siblings, friends or school peers how to stand for a photo.

Wake us in the middle of the night and ask the question – eyes half-closed, we would have yawned our answer: “Pro-per-ly.” If necessary, further details would have come, dry-mouthed: shoulders back, arms neatly by our sides, no fidgeting, no tugging at our clothes and no smile – at most, a mild one.

How could it have been otherwise? How could we have forgotten – even in our sleep – our duty to reflect the core values of the communist regime: discipline, solemnity, modesty, uniformity? How could we have forgotten that following rules – all the rules – mattered the most?

Who would have dared look genuinely happy in photos, other than babies?

In childhood photos, I remember my younger sister (bless her soul) always looking serious – puzzled, even lost, her hands hanging awkwardly at the sides, as if her body had frozen. Sometimes, however, she grew impatient and the photographer caught her fidgeting or making absolutely ridiculous faces that made us laugh our hearts out years later. As for me, I always had a slightly hunched posture, accompanied by a shy smile (why was I smiling, anyway?).

I know there is a chance that what I had just witnessed was one of those I-am-so-exhausted-I-just-want-to-collapse-into-my-snug-bed moments that parents sometimes go through.

Fervent supporters of positive thinking might actually insist, “The mother must have had one of those lousy days, you know… We’ve all been there. Who hasn’t snapped at their child? I’d be at top of the list, ha ha. Plus, it’s only a matter of minutes before the girl totally forgets about the incident. And, let’s be honest: after all, nothing harmful happened.”

But what if something harmful – albeit invisible – did happen?

What if that wasn’t just a one-off incident, but part of a series of inherited responses that fire automatically, even in what could have been an endearing experience between a child and her parent?

What can we as parents do to identify the inherited responses that keep us imprisoned in the present and break the vicious cycle of unhealthy behaviour toward our children?

The answer is making sense of our own early-life experiences. According to Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell, “by freeing ourselves from the constraints of our past, we can offer our children the spontaneous and connecting relationships that enable them to thrive. By deepening our ability to understand our own emotional experience, we are better able to relate empathically with our children and promote their self-understanding and healthy development.”

Only when we understand and integrate our emotional experiences as children will we avoid the otherwise likely situation in which “we recreate the damage to our children that was done to us in our own childhoods.”

Let’s not forget that making sense of our life narrative will essentially help us: “we will come to live a more vital and enriched life because we have integrated our past experiences into a coherent ongoing life story.”

In this continuing process of self-reflection, let’s ask ourselves questions properly:

How can I explain to my child why their behaviour isn’t proper?

What am I really teaching my child if I do or say this?

Am I more interested in my child’s harmless self-expression or how other people may judge my child and, by extension, me?

What is more important: a “perfect” photo or my child’s joy and delight in life?

Do I say something to my child just because I can? After all, I am an adult – I have the power.

While rules, boundaries and guidelines are essential in children’s life, we should give them the space to be curious, explore the world, make choices and express themselves freely.

While growing up, they’ll do more and more things “properly” – not necessarily because they’re happy.

How I wish I could rewrite history – I would go back in time, lean close and whisper in my younger sister’s ear:

“Don’t worry about a thing, sweetheart. Whatever you do, the photo will be perfect.

Just like you.”

Resources:
Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell, Parenting from the Inside Out