TRUST: The Vulnerable Parent

How  much more might others trust you, if you knew what you trusted about yourself?  

Trust is a funny beastie.  Every day you prove your love or lack of love for yourself and others in how you treat yourself and them.  How you choose to be trustworthy every day, is the provable reinforcement that builds trust or distrust.

Just as showing your love is one big proof in action parenting bundle of trust so is sabotage; you can trust that there will be those times when you talk yourself out of what might have been the best thing to ever happen to you and your family.  What about trusting yourself to repeat the same mistakes your parents made raising you until you consciously work to change history.  AND at the end of it all, can you trust that your kids will see right through you and love you anyway?  

This post is split between What You Trust About Yourself and What Your Kids Trust About You. I am trusting you to be kind and even a little curious as you step inside my life, family history and trust issues because sometimes it's easier to learn from the mistakes of another.

Here goes...  I trust you to see yourself in my vulnerability...

Parental Self Trust Issues never go out of style. As a matter of fact trusting yourselves is the foundation on which your kids, your spouse, co-workers and boss rely on you to be consistently identifiable and valuable to them.  

As a parent, perhaps like you, I sensed what I could trust and not trust about myself even though those trusting behaviours might not have been obvious or top of mind.  My younger self acted from those instincts not from conscious choice. Since then, as a parenting expert, I've learned that most people get confused by the cause and effect relationship between the positive pieces of self-trust and those gnarly bits of self-distrust guaranteed to sabotage what should be our most productive and lasting relationships.  Trust issues cause us to be consistently inconsistent. 

Coach Sue's Trust Issues: As a young parent, I was pretty egotistical about my trustworthy decision making processes but when I messed up... for months afterwards, I could be trusted to beat myself up over my failures. This form of self-indulgent self-abuse reflected in how my kids over-reacted when they made mistakes.   I got lost in the emotions of distrusting myself. And the guilt... jeez... the guilt invaded my sleep, my rare alone time, and my daydreams.   On the positive side of self-trust, I really liked that I could trust in being an incurable romantic because this meant my kids learned positive outlook especially in the face of disaster and we had plenty of disasters that I did not cause.   I learned deep loyalty from my parents and so I grew up loyal beyond all reason.  I see that loyalty being replayed in my adult kids and love watching my grandchildren naturally slide into loyalty as a supportive tool for their parents and playmates.  We are talking about little kids trusting parents who sometimes have to make difficult life altering choices.  

About guilt... Guilt is a funny one, we either have reasonable cause or are just neurotic about it but for the most part, we all suffer from it... my parents demonstrated generational guilt, I copied them unconsciously becoming a equally guilt ridden parent. Back then I actually felt guilt as a pain in my body.  This was one little trust glitch, I somehow managed to reverse before it became a pattern for my own adolescent children.  In divorce, I learned to give away guilt, thus modelling how it's possible to change a life long habit. Now guilt is an occasional tickle rather than a huge body slam.  

In a different vein, my maternal grandmother was pretty special.  I had all kinds of trust issues with her, but she showed me the power of dedication.  In particular; dedication as in... "until death us do part" even if it was killing me.  This one got branded into my own offspring in a positive way. Dedication is one of those things I gladly trust today.  The perfect example is delivering on promises. My husband promised our 5 year old daughter a bird if she did what she was told.  She delivered, but she didn't get the bird.  To this day, 30 years later she still remembers that breach of trust by not being able to entirely trust her Dad to deliver on a promise.  Being the MOM and keeping those promises often meant driving everyone in the family crazy. But promises and how they are kept are the backbone of creating security in home, work and relationships.  

On the other side of the trust coin, my kids could trust that I always had goodies hidden in my coat pocket when I got home, and would be there with them late into the night helping with  homework deadlines. They have also accused me of driving them crazy by being over-protective or hiding the truth when I was afraid of making them feel insecure.  As humans and parents we are vulnerable to our ability to trust and to generate trust in others. 

And this brings us to our kids.  Have you every been called out by your kids for your actions?  Our kids actually do see right through us, they know what they can trust; both the positive and the negative.  They love us anyway.  AND more importantly they copy us without hesitation.  We are responsible for their patterning, just as our parents were responsible for ours AND this is where the divide comes in.  We can consciously choose to change the trust patterns that drive our actions when we become aware that they exist and how they impact not only our lives but the futures of our kids.  

When we take the time to sit quietly and without judgment observe our behaviours, we can clearly see our trust patterns and how they affect our choices and behaviours.  Similarly we see how closely our kids mimic what we do.  This is where trust originates between kids and parents. This is where parents become vulnerable.  Now is moment when you reflect on how trust creates vulnerability in YOU!"

Your Parent the Parent Home-Study Homework: 

1. Identify 3 positive and 3 negative trust behaviours in your kids that copy your behaviours. 
2. Notice how these behaviours affect how much you like your kids when they are displaying these behaviours.  
3. Choose which single behaviour you want to change in yourself.  

• If you let me know which behaviour you want to change, I will post a blog on how to make that change.  
• If you want more help, I will be available with resources.  

Please join me again tomorrow to explore:  "What make you the best person to raise your kids?"

I'm Sue Rumack, your parent-the-parent coach.  My entire goal in writing this blog is help parents who may not be able to access group or individual coaching to get as much help as they can, with each homework to make change begin to happen for themselves. Choose a week, any week and try just one of the suggestions above for that whole week.  Then let me know what changed at your house.  It's FREE and it will change your life.  

Print this post so you have the questions handy and keep it with your journal.  

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Sue Rumack, Parent the Parent Expert, CCFL

Author:  The Pulse of Awakening, How to Connect With Soul and Life Purpose

              The Top 10 Tools Every Successful Parent Needs (release Christmas 2014) 

Blog:         http://parentingsuccesstips.blogspot.ca/

Website:   https://www.pulseofawakening.com/parent-the-parent.html

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