Our children are our mirrors whose behavior reflects ours--in more ways than one

Madona and I discuss the idea that children mirror the behavior of their parents and how parents can hold themselves accountable for their actions. We also talk about the essential role of prayer and relying on God's guidance in parenting.

Did you agree or disagree with our points? Send us your opinions via email at raisingupcopts@gmail.com or via IG @raisingupcopts, @copticlaura or @madona_writes.

Episode Transcript

Laura (00:00):

Hey friend, it's Laura. Before we start this episode, I just want to apologize that Madona's mic wasn't working quite the way we expected. So forgive us for the little bit of an echoey podcast episode.

Madona (00:12):

Welcome to Raising Up Copts, the podcast about raising Coptic kids in western culture. My name is Madona and I am here with my amazing co-host, Laura. And today Laura has our topic for us and I can't wait for us to talk about it. What is it, Laura?

Laura (00:27):

Yeah, so I sent Madona this quote on Instagram that I saw that I thought was so cool, which is from Amanda Erickson, I believe. She's an author of parenting books for those of you who are interested in that kind of thing. And here is the quote, a question we must ask ourselves is, did my child learn this behavior from me? And if so, am I disciplining myself and holding myself accountable? If not, our attempts to discipline and hold our children accountable are hypocritical. Better behavior in children always starts with better behavior in adults who influence them. So again, did my child learn this behavior from me? And if so, am I disciplining myself? What do you think, Madona?

Madona (01:13):

That is a great one. And also equally painful. I don't think it's any secret that our kids will do what we do and say what we say and act like we act, but that extra piece where it's telling us that because our mode of repair is fix the kid, fix the kid, don't make them turn out. You don't make them turn out like you. But truly, if they are just doing what we do, then really the repair is fix ourselves.

Laura (01:45):

Yes, absolutely. And I think, man, I'm thinking back to behaviors that really bother me in my children and all of those behaviors that really bother me are my own behaviors are things that I do just magnified in this little person taken out of me and somewhere else. And I'm looking at it objectively now because it's coming from a different source, but it's so me and it's so terrifying to see yourself in your children.

Madona (02:13):

Absolutely. And it's the worst too. And for me, I always say, it's not that I don't know that, but if I could fix it in myself, I would have. And that's the part that makes it so challenging and equally frustrating. Like I don't want them to be like that, but if I knew how to not be like this, I would've done that a long time ago.

Laura (02:33):

Absolutely. If I knew an easy fix for this, I would've just fixed it. But I think that's where God comes in, where we know we can't fix ourselves anyway, but we know that with the grace of God that we can make changes, small changes, noticeable changes over time, compound changes as we grow more and more in maturity, and maybe we can find a way to fix it in ourselves and in doing so, model this new behavior for our kids.

Madona (03:05):

And I think if your kids are as honest as mine, they will help hold you accountable. They'll help hold you accountable. I think that there is some value in sharing with your kids that this is something that mommy has not figured out, and this is something that I don't know how to do. All I know is that it's not good, and now I'm trying to figure out how to go back and fix it. I need you to help me. I think that that right there, that vulnerability with your kids allows them to give you so much grace and also it helps hold you accountable in real time. And I want you to say that I want to point out when my kids correct me when I'm in that moment of anger or whatever, it's the worst thing in the world. It's so annoying. I'm just being completely honest.

(03:54):

I'm like, this is not the time. This is not the place. And yet that's exactly what we do to our kids. In their moment of heightened emotion and heightened anger, we're like, absolutely not. You can't do that. You can't talk like that. We do that to them. So I think it goes without saying then that it should be some intentional family time to think about, pray about, talk about these things. What do I do when I feel that way? Or what do I do when this situation comes up? How do I fix it? How do I stop myself? And then everybody's in on the plan and everybody's working on themselves. So it's not all the pressure to just, you have to be a hundred percent in order to start talking to your kids. No, it's a process and it's a process for a reason.

Laura (04:40):

Yeah. This reminds me of something I was talking about last week with some of my friends. The idea that relationships are built based on rupture and repair, and I don't even remember where I read this, but a relationship is going smoothly, and then there's some kind of conflict and there's a rupture, a loss of trust, a mistake made, whatever it happens to be, this is very normal. It happens every day in small ways every week. It's going to happen. But the key is how do you repair afterwards? Let's say Abu and I get into an argument. What happens after the argument, after the argument? Do we bounce off in different directions and then we don't talk for a week? Or do we immediately make a joke, lighten the situation, reset, right, and repair that relationship? Same with our kids. I feel like I've talked about this before, but when my father would discipline me and would give me a lecture or a punishment or whatever it happened to be afterwards, he would come back, he would give me a hug, he would tell me how much he loved me and how he only wants what's best for me and blah, blah, blah.

(05:43):

And sure, there were some years in my teen stage, did not want to believe that second half of the conversation, but that would repair the relationship and reset it for future growth. And that's the only way. That's how people build muscle. You tear a muscle and then it heals stronger or your skin, it's injured, and then it builds a callus there, and then it's tougher and it knows this part's going to rub against the shoe. Let's not be so gentle next time or whatever it is. But this idea that in our correction in our own, when we make a mistake, when we go back and have a conversation afterwards with our kids and we say, I was really upset in this moment, and I see now you're right. I shouldn't have been yelling. And I know I'm always telling you to keep your voice down and this is something I'm working on. This moment of repair is so important. So important.

Madona (06:36):

That's a really good one, Laura. And I think that a lot of times we use the word that our kids are our mirror. And so a lot of times, Laura, we say a mirror, we say it's an exact reflection. But do you know what goes even deeper than that? Because what mirroring is actually talking about, especially in psychology, and this has just been very, very brief search. So nobody have my head on a platter if this is what happened, not right. But my understanding of it is it's their ability. They know you so well that they're even able to perceive your emotion of something that's going to happen, and they come in with that emotion themselves. So for example, if you're the type of parent who gets very angry when something breaks, then they come and say that this thing broke in a very angry way.

(07:25):

So they'll come and they will mirror your emotion, the perception of what they perceive you're going to do in order to match you or in order to maybe as a defense mechanism. I'm not exactly sure, but it tells me that their subconscious mind is way more at work than the reality of things. So it's all the stuff that they're internalizing, it's all the stuff that they are that they're hearing, but not saying. So the coolest thing that I found out, Laura, and I hope that you love this as much as I did, is that a lot of times we say mirroring is a bad thing. Like, oh, our kids are mirroring our actions. So we have to be careful and we kind of see it as a cautionary tale. But what this article also said was, if your kids are not mirroring you, then there is a loss of connection. There's an absence of connection there. So you want that as hard as it is, as challenging as it is, we want them to be connected enough to us that they would be mirroring our emotions and our actions. It's a good thing.

Laura (08:36):

And mirroring our emotions and actions. We have a lot of positive emotions and actions too, and we want them to mirror those and they do. And I think that's the incredible thing is we are always, like you said, we're always looking for what's wrong with us and what's wrong with them, and we're focused so much on that. But then wow, the things that are right are so beautiful. For example, my son is a counselor to his best friend at school. His best friend at school is sensitive and a little bit emotional and takes things really hard and often is having a hard day. And when I hear from this child's mother later, oh, do you know that Michael sat with my son and talked him through this situation that he was having and calmed him down and reset him? And I know that that's from what we do. That's what we do as parents. When they're upset, we take them and reset them. And so to see them at a very early age, beginning to mirror, yes, our bad traits, but also our good traits and to know that's amazing, this fact that this is a sign that they have a healthy attachment to their family. This is what we, this is all we want. This is all we working towards. Game over. We won.

Madona (09:56):

It's, and you touched on something important when you said your son helped reset another person. So this article also gives some tips about when you want to reset with your kid and what are some ways that you can positively mirror some things. So for example, one example they give is following an episode of high anxiety that the child feels prior to a test or a project completion date or something like that. What can you do in that situation? You go to them and you mirror their perceived emotion, which is you seem worried and upset about this homework project. I sometimes feel those same things when I have big things to do at work. Let's walk through a real simple step that can get us going in the right direction. Let's brainstorm about how we can figure out what to do first, second, third, and maybe when we walk the steps through, it won't be as scary for you.

(10:45):

I love that. It's not just, I like this because it's not just a reactive thing, it's also a little bit, it's not passive is what I mean to say. It's not passive. This is active mirroring. I'm coming instead of waiting for the blowup to happen or waiting for something to be really, really bad and then address it. You can say, Hey, I know that you've got something really big happening. I see that you're kind of possibly stressed. Am I right about that? Okay, let's talk about it. What can we do that's perfect? Because it's also giving them the tools in the future for themselves to be able to walk themselves through a situation.

Laura (11:25):

I think that's one of the things we sometimes forget as parents is, and this is something we learned in ed school, that when you're teaching something, you model it and then you do it with the child and then the child tries to do it by themselves with your assistant, and then they're on their own and they can do it. And that's so important even for just dealing with everyday life situations. So when we were talking before about if I lose my temper and sorry, clinking it back to an old episode, talking about our basics of parenting when we talked about how you want to educating your kids is just a matter of narrating. So narrating your own, let's say temper tantrum. Okay, I'm losing my temper right now. As soon as I realize that if I start saying, wow, look at me, my body, what's going on?

(12:12):

I'm really angry. I need to take a step back. You're talking about yourself and you're talking about your situation and your feelings and all of that, but you're verbalizing to the kids that right now you're going through this tough emotional situation and you're trying to work through it. And then the next time, if they're losing their temper and like said, you say, I noticed that you're very upset about this and look at your body language, something's going on. You walk with them through it this time, and then next time you prompt them to walk through it. And then after that they grow up and they do it without you. They don't need you anymore because taught. So. Yeah. But you know

Madona (12:49):

What, Laura, sorry. Sorry to interrupt you, Laura, too. Another part of this that we want to be careful of, I would like to draw everyone's attention to including my own, is even though we're talking about it being active and we're teaching them how to walk through things and we're going to come to them and say, you seem stressed, you seem worried. We also have to be careful not to feed them their emotions too. Have you ever seen a baby fall? And the mom was like, what does the baby do? Immediately? They start crying and they start freaking out and they're like, something very bad just happened to me. And then on the flip side of that, there's some people who will be like, it's okay, but no, the baby's actually hurt and you're trying to make them sound like they're okay, also not, okay. So what you said, which was very important about narrating is exactly the easiest way to go about it.

(13:44):

So the child fell, you go, oh, you fell. And then wait, are they crying? Address it, are they happy? Address it. We don't need to feed the emotions of the kid. Like, oh, you have a really big test coming up. Tell me more. Okay, let's wait and see what happens. I think that I love that practical advice because sometimes I get caught up, you're telling me not to say their emotions, and then you're telling me I need to perceive their emotions, and you're telling me, no, this act of narrating is the most neutral thing you can do. And then you'd go to step two, just what you said, I am feeling whatever. Or I see this and I see that you're staying up all night working. How's that going for you? Okay. And then you go from there.

Laura (14:31):

Yeah, because that sort of independence or giving them a little bit of that leash to run around, that's how they strengthen themselves and how they develop their own internal mechanism for coping and dealing with things. And I love the example that you gave about the falling child because that just happened to me recently where my nephew tripped and fell and when I picked him up, I saw a scrape and I barely kept it together. And then later as in two seconds later, I realized, oh, this is an old scrape that's healed over. This is from a few days ago. He didn't scrape himself right now, but can you imagine if I had just freaked out, I would've thrown him into a whole tizzy for nothing, for nothing. And this is hard, guys. It's easy for us to tell you do this and make sure you say it this way and walk them through it. We know in the moment it is hard.

Madona (15:35):

Yeah. How annoying are we right now?

Laura (15:39):

We know it's hard. We do this two times out of 10. Does that sound like an accurate,

Madona (15:45):

Yeah, two

Laura (15:46):

Two times out of 10 were successful in doing this. But those two times matter. Those two times make a difference. Significant difference. Kids really are sponges. They pick up things faster than we do.

Madona (15:59):

But the best thing, Laura, is when you do make that effort, that one or two times, like you said, and it makes a difference, and then they use it on their sibling or on you or on friends or whatever, it's really, really nice to, it gives you that little bit of motivation to make it three times out of 10 instead of just two.

Laura (16:20):

Yes, yes. I know. I had this conversation with my kids. I was like, look, you want to break generational curses? Go ahead. We didn't do any spanking, but the yelling someone else is going to have to fix. I don't know how to fix my yelling. Just deal. That's on you now.

Madona (16:36):

I totally, I totally did the thing that I'm not supposed to do with my kids the other day. And I told 'em, you're lucky that I'm the one that's here because if this was my mom, you don't know what would've happened to you. This is my dad. This would've been the end of you. I just want you to know.

Laura (16:54):

Yes, yes. And I actually still use them. Sometimes I'll be like, if Teta was here, this is what she'd say. If Gdo was here, this is what, get to what I'm saying.

Madona (17:06):

It's kind of cool that okay, it's both stressful and cool that the solution is in our hands, right? You have to exert a level of self-control in order for the solutions to work, which are very hard. That's the frustrating part of it. But it's not a no solution thing, which is very cool. That's a good thing. And like you said, Laura, we've seen God change people in ways that we would've never imagined. We've seen it in the Bible, we've seen it through the saint stories. We've seen it in people around us. If you're looking closely enough, people go through drastic changes that you never would've seen coming in a million years, and it's by the prayers of the people. This is where intercessions are really important. So the top advice that really I would say trumps all of this is that you're praying for your kids constantly and praying for yourself. Like, Lord, I'm struggling with this. I need you to take this from me or help me or open, soften my heart towards this thing so that I'm better at relaxing or better at managing or better at whatever. And then Lord, help them to see the good and forget the bad. That's one of my prayers always.

Laura (18:19):

Well, this is so funny because this happened to me literally the last two days. So I had a situation with a Sunday school kid on Saturday, and I was so stressed out, and then I was like, I can't do anything about this. I'm just going to pray. And I prayed and by the end of the night it was completely resolved in a way I could not have predicted or imagined or anything. The next day I had another situation like that and I was freaking out, freaking out, freaking out. I think I was just super tired. This was the weekend for freaking out. And Abouna texted me and he was like, God is Pantocrator, and I was like, okay. And then two seconds later, it was fixed in a way I would not have imagined or created or just God's solutions are just so easy, so easy.

Madona (19:10):

This really goes back, Laura, when we were talking about being able to mirror shows a level of connection. This really goes back to our own spiritual lives then, doesn't it? Because if we have that real connection with God, then we are able to perceive and mirror how he would deal with this. And if we maintain that really close intimate relationship with him, it won't be such a struggle. Not to say that there will be no struggle, obviously we know that. But it won't be such a struggle to go back and repair or go back and say, I messed up, or whatever. And also in that moment of heat to be like, okay, what do I need to do in this moment? God. God, give me the words. Say the words. I actually learned that from my sister-in-law. She never said this to me, but I noticed her doing this that out loud when she's about to say something difficult, she'll say, Lord, please give me the words.

(20:11):

Okay, I want to tell you X, Y, and Z. I loved that. I love that because it also, it peeled back a layer that me standing in front of her, I know that she's not sure. I put on my grace filter for whatever's about to come out. And I understand that this might be difficult, but she's, she's not trying to attack, she's not trying to come at me. By the way, she never attacks me to comes at me just FYI. This is just something I noticed that she did and I thought was really special. I really enjoyed. I really loved that approach.

Laura (20:48):

And actually, this brings me to another point. So we've been talking about the kids mirroring us and mirroring us in bad behavior and good behavior, but there are some behaviors that we struggle with so much that we feel like we absolutely cannot fix in ourselves. Like you said, I've been trying, Lord, for years to fix this. I cannot fix this. So how can I possibly fix it in my children? And I want to say in those moments is when God really comes in clutch. Because when we think we have power, we keep trying to fix things ourselves and it makes us more anxious. We're like, wait, but this is a choice and I have to fix the choice. And we really work ourselves up as long as we feel like we have a little bit of power. But as soon as we realize how helpless we actually are, and we just put it all on him, things become beautiful.

(21:43):

Things are like light flows back into the situation. And I think that's in a way what your sister-in-law does. She says, okay, in this moment, I don't know how to bring the words together that will bring the right end results. I don't know how to put it, the words together, I'm helpless. God, you talk. You know how words, you know how I work. You know how my lips work. You know how their ears work and their brain works. That whole cycle of understanding, God knows the whole thing. He is not just working with a little bit of the information. So I feel like when you get to those behaviors in your children that are a real struggle for you, then you have to relinquish control to God. You have to.

Madona (22:30):

Absolutely. And I think this is encouraging for us again, because we talked, the episode really is about the fact that our kids mirror us and what do we do? And they're doing the mirroring the wrong things. Again, I would like us just to focus on the positive that their mirroring of us shows a connection, shows that they are making an effort to be close to us. And that's not a bad thing. We just have to be mindful of what they're mirroring. So we know it's a challenge because we've been there and that's the only reason we know we struggle with it ourselves, but be encouraged by the fact that it's in our hands, it's in our hands, and it's in God's hands that we can stop the cycle of whatever that we used to have done to us. We don't have to do to our kids. And we can be active about how we handle things and we can repair when we don't successfully get ahead of something, we have the opportunity to repair. Being a parent is a lot more hopeful than society makes you believe. It's a lot better than society wants us to think it is. So stay on the positive. Keep up the good fight. And this is a long journey, but it is a worth it. One, it is good for you and it's good for your kids.

Laura (23:42):

Raising up Copts is a production of Coptic Dad and Mom. This podcast is hosted by Laura, Michael, and Madona Lawindy. None of the views expressed during this recording are the official stance of the Coptic Orthodox Church or its hierarchy. These are our personal opinions, collected experiences, and organic discussions on selected topics. If you'd like to reach out with any questions or comments, you can reach us at raisingupcopts@gmail.com.