When our kids trigger us
Kids.
They’re curious.
They’re wild.
They make our world sweeter than we could have ever imagined.
They also trigger the hell out of us.
Years ago, while taking a course with Jayson Gaddis at The Relationship School, Gaddis mentioned that our kids developmentally delay and stall where we, as a child, developmentally delayed and stalled. Further, this developmental stalling was part of what was underneath what happens when our kids trigger us.
While I was curious about this idea, it didn’t seem to resonate with my own experience with my daughter. I banked it and decided to get exploratory when those triggers worked their magic on me.
A few months later, my daughter was showing an unprecedented lack of gratitude. About everything. It felt intentional and irreverent and stubborn. I was 100% frustrated and triggered (despite the fact that she was only six at the time).
And as we so often do when our kids trigger us, I leaned way in—exasperation and threats of consequences and lectures (near and far) about the importance of gratitude. The more I leaned, the more ungrateful she became.
And then I remembered Jayson’s line about developmental delays, and it clicked. When I was about her age, I learned that gratitude (some might even argue “excessive gratitude”) was a brilliant strategy for connection. I learned that by being grateful—demonstratively grateful—adults and my friends would respond with approval or interest or approbation. Gratitude, while honest, was my strategy for connection. Which is to say, it was how I adapted to survive the world.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t resonate with what Jayson said about developmental delays because I had coded the concept as negative (see “delays”). I have always coded my propensity for gratitude as positive.
Gratitude is good.
And look how many people told me how awesome and wonderful I was for being so grateful.
See?
Positive.
That’s the sneaky thing about connection. To get connection—to self-protect—sometimes we act out in ways the world codes as “bad” (see examples such as acting out, defiance, tantrums, class clowning, etc) but sometimes we adapt and strategize (unconsciously) in ways the world codes as “good”. These “good codes” may be even harder to break open and look at because the feedback we have always had from them is that we as a person are so worthwhile due to said strategy.
My daughter was triggering me because I love her and I wanted to give her my maladaptive strategy. I wanted her to get all that connection from the world, to get all the good stuff that comes with being experienced as grateful. Except at the time, she was six, and she is, on the whole, a grateful kid. And I am confident she will be a grown person who knows the value of honest gratitude, sans strategies.
What my trigger helped me look at was a time in my life where something innate within me —gratitude—(mal)adapted for survival. This adaptation was my developmental “delay”. I had to really dig deep and explore how this strategy worked and how in many ways it held me back or was a negative. I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to look at something that had traditionally been regarded as so positive as something in me that instead was an area in need of growth. But that’s the thing about growth—it’s hard, likely because it is so worthwhile.
I started by pulling way back on the gratitude thing with my daughter. Once I recognized the root of the trigger, it lessened. And I made space for her. The results were immediate. The next day? A shower of gratitude. “Mama, thaaaaaannnkkk youuuuu!” and “Mama, I’m so grateful for dinner.”
Sometimes our kids trigger us. Sometimes we impose our strategies—even the “good” ones (see: achievement, orderliness, kindness, gratitude, perfectionism, etc.) on them because we love them and want them to survive the tough world. But if we reflect and look in, these triggers are telling us where we need to grow. And through this growth, we can guide our children into a more authentic and actualized self as we become one ourselves.
