As you well know, parenting young adults is not for the faint of heart. It’s a great exercise in discovering all you don’t know. And it’s an ongoing invitation to expand your capacity to be with your own inner child and develop adult ways of meeting their still-unmet needs so you can be in a healthy relationship with your big kid.
One of those primary needs is belonging - one of those concepts that we don’t often ponder and yet profoundly affects our behaviors and beliefs and the way we connect with others.
Some say our sense of belonging began around the tribal fires of our ancestors, this need to connect with others. Others say it’s been woven in the stars for millennia that we feel part of something greater than ourselves. What’s known for sure is that it’s a powerful force that shapes our thoughts and emotions, influences our social lives and guides our behavior in ways we barely realize.
Including how we interact with our young adult children.
I like definitions: Belonging is the fundamental motivation to form lasting, positive relationships so we can feel truly connected, understood, and valued. Some argue it’s as essential to our well-being as food and water.
This is a need that we all share. And, of course, we have all had our own experiences with it.
Where did your personal sense of belonging begin? Did you arrive on the planet with a gauge set somewhere between 1 and 10? Did you sense it (or not) on your skin the first moment you were held? Did you come to your own conclusions as a 5-year-old at the dinner table? Or did it accumulate like rainwater with each relationship?
Can you, right here and now, connect with your sense of belonging?
Take a moment. How do you feel it? Where do you feel it? How do you measure it?
Somewhere along the way, most children perceived that their need for belonging was unmet to some degree, leaving a deep, often unrecognized wound.
What have been your experiences with belonging or not belonging?
Are you aware of stories or habits they have imprinted on you?
There are 3 main strategies that humans unconsciously develop to cope with this unmet need:
Over-attachment
If as a child, you perceived that your true self didn’t matter enough to belong with your family, you might have developed a habit of tuning into other people and adapting to what they seemed to want from you, as a way of being kept around. Of course, people love children who are easygoing and malleable, so your strategy felt like it was working, except that it left you with an unfilled ache to be truly known and accepted. And a lot of confusion about what was unacceptable about you.
When they grow up and become parents, these people are, of course, very perceptive, laidback and accepting with their kids. They run into problems, however, because they tend to merge energetically with their child and take on their emotions as their own. And because they struggle to say no, they harbor resentments and wish their kids would be gentler and more amenable. And, like a sponge waiting to be filled, they subconsciously expect their children to fill their longtime need for belonging.
Rejection
If when you were younger, you felt like you didn’t belong in society, you might have found a way of dealing with that ache by rejecting people before they could reject you. Pretty smart for a kid, right? You’d still feel the pain of not belonging but, at least, you didn’t have to feel the pain of rejection and failure in relationships as well.
As parents, these people tend to be observant, patient and give their kids room to grow. But they also can be unavailable and/or authoritarian. Secretly, they wish their kids were less demanding. And so, they walk away at times, either physically or emotionally. Keeping their heart separate from their kid’s protects them and, at the same time, perpetuates the pain of not belonging.
Frustration
An unmet need for belonging can also show up as constant loneliness and the sense that you never really belonged here in the world at all. An immature response to this kind of pain is to become idealistic and picky about people, and thus always dissatisfied. “He’s too __. He’s not a good enough friend. If only I could find someone to really see me and include me.”
These people grow into parents who are sensitive to their child’s needs and moods and naturally provide a safe place for emotions. But they can also be self-focused, overly sensitive and dramatic. They might not admit it even to themselves, but they wish their child would display sensitivity and emotional depth and be the one to finally really understand, value and include them.
Perhaps you recognize something of yourself in one of these descriptions, a long-time pattern or deeply rooted belief about yourself. What feelings does belonging or un-belonging generate in you?
~
When we were young, we all found ways of being in our family and played certain roles that gave us a sense of belonging to one degree or another. These patterns are so deeply engrained in us that we may barely even notice them. Or we call them ‘just who I am’.
But when we are parenting, just who I am doesn’t cut it.
Parenting requires change. It asks you to engage in the inner journey and create space for new aspects of your Self to come forth. To bravely peel back the layers of painful interactions with your adolescent, own what’s yours and examine your tender spots.
And if one of your tender spots is feeling like you don’t belong — in your family of origin, with your colleagues, in your teenager’s world, in this era, in the universe — you can turn toward where it hurts and seek to give your inner child the belonging they need.
That begins with self-observation: to be curious about what’s going on for you internally. To notice your physical and verbal reactions, the beliefs running through your head, emotions that sting your heart — and to hold them in your hand like stones on the beach, turning them over and over looking at all the facets.
When you tell yourself that your teenager doesn’t respect you, is it related to your feeling of not belonging?
When you accuse them of being self-centered, is it really coming from a scar from being left out?
When you take on their emotions as your own, is that your attempt to remain of value to them?
When you reject who your kid really is, by being unavailable, critical or controlling, are you actually trying to protect your tender spot?
In what ways are your fights, stand-offs and points of disconnection actually cries from your wounded inner child for a stronger sense of belonging?
What is your soul’s essential knowing about your belonging?
May these reflections bring you a greater sense of self-understanding, self-connection, and self-valuation.
And an even clearer knowing that you are, indeed, part of something greater than yourself, the unending circle of parents, the power of love for our children and the divine mystery of life.
Subscribe to Peace in My Parenting