Richard Hogan: Is your child tough enough for the real world?

Richard Hogan says you're doing your child a disservice if you don't teach them how to stand up for themselves

Richard Hogan: Compassion for others is a wonderful attribute to develop in your child. But you have to also teach them how to value themselves and how to stand up for themselves.

Working clinically with parents is one of the great privileges of being a family therapist. You gain such insights into families and their issues. Being a parent to three wonderful girls gives me further insights and helps me to formulate a lot of the interventions and theories I develop in relation to family therapy.

Something I see, time and time again, in my clinic, are families seeking out therapy for a child who is struggling with peer relationships. It can be incredibly disturbing to watch your child suffer at the hands of other children or find it difficult to connect with their peers. In my conversations with parents of a child who is struggling like this, I often hear the same story. The parents delineate their early desire to make their child compassionate, above all else.

And instilling compassion in your child is a very worthy pursuit, but if it is the only pursuit in relation to a child’s development, it can do them a disservice.

We have all been children, and we know what it is like to rely on peer feedback for our sense of wellbeing. We also know how children can be cruel and insensitive to the feelings of other children. So, a child who has only been taught to be empathetic and compassionate can find this period of development particularly difficult, because they have not been taught how to stand up for themselves.

Having teeth is an important characteristic to develop in your child. Teaching them not to take abuse from other children/people and teaching them how to stand up for themselves is a very important part of parenting children.

If you don’t, you are not preparing them for the real world. Sending a child into the world ill-equipped to manage others who are difficult or perhaps even mean-spirited will only cause that child a considerable suffering and pain.

We teach people how to interact with us. We implicitly tell them what is OK to say or do to us and what is not.  

A child who has been taught their worth and is confident that they can manage conflict, while also being compassionate, is a child that will thrive in childhood and, more importantly, in adulthood.

I meet so many anxious children in my work. Many of the children I work with are terrified of conflict. When I unpack it with them, I often find the idea of getting into a heated conversation with people at school is at the root of their anxiety. So much so they avoid meeting people. When we feel we are deficient, it causes us fear, and when we are fearful we have three responses: We avoid, we look for reassurance, or we attempt to control what is causing us fear. Most children avoid, and by avoiding they only compound the problem by feeding the destructive paradigm that they are deficient and not capable of dealing with the issue. Once this has taken hold, the child’s confidence is completely obliterated.

As a parent, you have now helped your child to become isolated and stuck. This is not about blame, but understanding that our ideas about the type of child we want to create can often cause suffering for our children.

There is nothing wrong with wanting your child to be tough. And when I say tough I mean able to stand up for themselves. I’m not talking about physical violence here. The toughness I’m speaking about is that internal voice that speaks to them and tells them not to pay attention to the words of people who are trying to put them down or hurt them. Internal toughness is something we have to teach our children.

Compassion is a beautiful thing to develop in your child, but they also need toughness for the world. Agreeableness is one of the five personality traits. Agreeable people do well in life, but if it is overdone as a personality trait it can cause huge amounts of suffering. They will want to please people before themselves. Think about the child you have and ask yourself: Do I want my child to only think about others, while allowing themselves to be taken advantage of, or do I want them to have empathy, while also believing that they are strong and powerful?

Compassion for others is a wonderful attribute to develop in your child. But you have to also teach them how to value themselves and how to stand up for themselves. I have worked in schools for nearly 20 years. A child who is confident and believes in themselves is a child that has inner strength and toughness. In my experience, that type of child never gets into a physical fight, because they don’t have to prove anything. Everyone sees it, and you generally don’t put your hand into the mouth of a dog you know has the potential to bite you. When you develop that in your child, you are giving them a gift for life.