The Conscious Parent

moment later, the lamp fell on the floor and Jacob hurt his foot. Now
Stephanie ran to him to take care of him. Jacob experienced no
consequences, only hugs and kisses.
After a short while, Jacob returned to his play, engaging in the same
behavior. Within minutes, there was another mishap, this time as a result
of a fight between the three boys. Again Stephanie appeared at the door
and said, “Boys, please don’t hurt each other.” The boys continued
fighting. Still standing a distance away from them, their mother again
pleaded, “Please don’t hurt yourselves.” No one listened.
Out of the blue, Stephanie strode over to the boys, pulled them off
each other, slapped Jacob across his face, and yelled, “You are a bad
boy! You are always making me upset. You are in ‘time out’ for the rest
of the day.”
Not having seen this coming, Jacob was stunned. Screaming back at
his mother, he protested that he was being singled out and it was unfair.
His mother, still nursing residual emotion from the mishap in which he
had hurt himself, became enraged, quivering and shaking. Jacob hit her.
She hit him. As the other boys cowered in fear, Stephanie broke down in
tears, blaming her sons for her pain as all three hung their heads in
shame.
Stephanie had no idea that the present scenario was one in which she
had recreated her own childhood feeling of disempowerment.
Superimposing the helplessness she had experienced when she was
young onto her boys, she was unable to separate their behavior from her
own feelings at that moment. Because every move on her part was driven
by emotional avoidance, she couldn’t respond as the boys needed her to.