Being Honest And Authentic With Our Children: A Key To Building Trust!

By Eliane, founder Parenting For Wholeness

A lot of parents are puzzled by how to get children to listen to them, do what they need to do, behave appropriately, without using any kind of punishments or rewards, without any manipulation and coercion.

Without even, as I recommend, ever using the word 'rule.' (Stay tuned for a full article on this soon. Click here if you're not already on my email list, to be sure not to miss it.)

One key condition that needs to be in place for this to happen is that THEY HAVE TO TRUST YOU.

Your children's deep trust in you is one of the most powerful tools you have to influence them.

And possibly the only real one left once they are teens and you no longer have much control over them.

So how do you develop that trust?

I've written about some of those ways before:

• Having realistic expectations
• Being a clear and benevolent leader
• Trusting THEM
• Being on their team
• Addressing the underlying cause of their behaviors and providing support instead of just controlling behaviors

But the one I want to focus on today, is one that blew the mind of a mom I'm currently working with in my Clean Parenting program, when she came yesterday to the module on "How To Express Yourself When Guiding Your Children."

And made me realize it was time for me to write an article on it.

This key to having your children trust you and want to listen to your guidance is BEING HONEST AND AUTHENTIC with your children!
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Here's an excerpt from my Clean Parenting module that teaches this topic:
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Be honest.

Whenever you state an opinion or a potential consequence as a “truth,” you’re damaging your credibility with your child, as well as her trust in you. You’re also teaching her to be manipulative in order to get a result she wants. 

This is so rampant in our society that you may not even be aware it’s happening. 

Examples of it are:

• “Your teeth will rot if you don’t brush them.”

• “You won’t be healthy if you eat this.”

• “You’ll die of cancer if you smoke.”

• “You need to wear a bike helmet to stay safe.” 

The truth is that YOU DON’T KNOW IF THAT IS TRUE!

Some proofs of that:

• My daughter with the healthiest teeth of the family is the one who took the least care of them. 

• Some people are incredibly healthy even though by all standards they live an unhealthy lifestyle, whereas some get sick all the time and die young even though they did everything “right.” 

• And then there’s the woman who was asked what her secret was to living to 100, to which she responded that she attributes it to quitting smoking at age 78. 

• There was a recent article that stated that bicycle helmets give a false sense of security and block some of the senses, which may actually interfere with safety. (I don’t personally have an opinion either way, I’m just using it for the sake of the example.)

So here you need to seriously ask yourself why you want your child to do a certain thing. Just this can lead to some serious personal growth.

Examples of honestly expressing your request: 

• “I would like you to put on a sweater, because I’m afraid you’ll get cold and could get sick.” 

• “I’d really like you to brush your teeth, because I don’t want you to have cavities and have to go through the trouble of getting them fixed (or whatever is true for you in that instance.) Brushing them regularly will really help with keeping your teeth healthy.”

• “I’m uncomfortable with you using this sharp knife, because the last time you did you got distracted and almost cut yourself.”

• “I’m not comfortable with you holding the dog’s leash, because I’m not seeing you watch out for what she’s doing.”

​By honestly expressing yourself, you’re naming the real issue. Your child then has a chance to respond and address it. You’re starting a dialogue.

She gets to learn how to be safer, healthier, more appropriate, from a place of information, not control. 

In your list of situations, notice if there’s anything you say to your child which you can’t know with absolute certainty to be true.


Be authentic.

Children (humans!) respond to authenticity, because it is alive. It is what is unarguably true. You can HEAR and FEEL authenticity. It creates goodwill. It inspires. It connects. It taps into their innate desire to please you. It awakens what is alive in them. 

When you’re authentic you’re taking responsibility for your feelings. It can be challenging because it can force you to be vulnerable. 

Examples of authentically expressing your request: 

• “Hmm, I'm feeling nervous watching you use the knife in this way. Please grab the carrot with your fingers underneath your hand to make sure they're safe.”

• "It makes me feel so happy when I wake up to a neat house. Can we please come up with a strategy to have it picked up before we go to bed?"

• "I'm really having a hard day today. Would you mind helping your sister out with her snack?"

• "I love seeing how much fun you're having with your friend AND I'm also thinking that dinner time will come soon and I need to get home to prepare it. How about you play for 10 more minutes and then we pack it up?"

Now think of a situation in which someone is trying to CONVINCE you to do something. 

How does it feel? How do you react? 

Now think of a situation in which someone would like you to do something for them, and they are honestly and authentically expressing their reason for it. 

How does that feel? How do you respond to that? 

Write your experience of that reflection below.

And now another question around authenticity:

Does anything come up for you around being authentic with your child? Does it feel uncomfortable? Scary? Wrong?

One caveat of authenticity is that you need to make sure what you’re sharing with your child is appropriate and presented in a responsible way. You don’t want to make them feel responsible for your feelings. You don’t want to pour out your heart full of pain in a way they’re not able to handle or relate to. You don’t want to overshare. 
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Children can handle our range of feelings, as long as we express them responsibly and take responsibility for them instead of blaming others. It's actually important that they do see us experience negative feelings and see how we handle them. Otherwise how will they learn how to behave when they have strong feelings?

Also, us naming what’s actually going on and which they’re likely picking up on and feeling, helps them relax. It makes their world make sense, instead of living in the discord of being told everything’s okay or seeing mom pretending to be happy when they clearly feel it’s not the case, which is a form of gaslighting and pretty damaging to one’s sense of self and ability to function well in the world.

Here’s a story that helps illustrate all this:
 
In one of my Clean Parenting groups, I shared that when my girls were little, for one day in my cycle, I’d feel like I turned into a ‘possessed evil bitch’ (excuse the language.) I would be incredibly irritable and at times told my girls things I deeply regretted the next day. So I told them to just ignore anything that I said on my PMS days because I couldn’t be trusted on those days.

Inspired by this story, Kim decided to do the following:

"The cloud" descended on me yesterday (as in "hello darkness my old friend") and I made it beautifully through without the girls even guessing that I was feeling "blue". This morning, however, the heaviness was much greater and whereas in the past I would be irritable and impatient with them because I just wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear, instead I shared how I was feeling with them. I decided I needed to be more honest with them. I told them I was feeling sad and it was not because of anything they have done. I explained that sometimes I feel sad and need a good cry (which gave a wonderful opportunity to talk about how good it feels to have a good cry). I then told them that my sadness made me feel irritated and impatient and that I wondered if they would mind working a little harder today on finding win-win situations with one another and I would try really hard, too, to not be impatient or snap at them. We all did marvelously with one another! There was only one incident in a store but we worked through it in minutes.
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They "get" it! And have even used it back to me! "Mom, I'm feeling sad today. Can you hold me?" “Mom, I'm really mad at you for not letting us have candy".

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​But like I teach in this Clean Parenting module on How To Express Yourself When Guiding Your Children, integrating this (as well as the other 3 points covered in it) is likely to take a while. 

It’s likely to require you to develop a lot of self-awareness and new ways of being that are very different from what you have learned and have practiced for most of your life. 

I'm not saying this to discourage you but to acknowledge that what I’m suggesting is substantial. Give yourself time and space to gradually integrate them, without judging yourself for how long it takes.

(Remember my famous potty training analogy from this article!)

Consciously working on and eventually embodying this approach will have almost never-ending benefits—not only for your children and your family, but for yourself and your whole life, including all of your relationships.
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Here are the rewards that are likely to come to you as you integrate what I teach in this module:
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• You’ll have incredible ease in many situations with your children.​
• They will develop inner honesty, one of the greatest qualities we can have if we want to grow, have meaningful relationships and succeed in life. ​
• ​​They will learn to be honest with others because true honesty is being modeled to them. ​​

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• ​Your children will deeply trust you and therefore be open to what you have to say, even as teenagers. 
• They will model what you do and therefore learn to know themselves.

• YOU will learn to know yourself. This is the basis for healing and creating a life and relationships that will truly fulfill YOU. In working on this for your children, you'll be giving to yourself and open yourself up to a life where YOU are more whole. 

• You will learn to live more authentically.

I'd love to hear your reactions to this article if you'd like to share them in the comments below.

And if you'd like my support in parenting honestly and authentically, and integrating clean parenting into your family (this article gives you a taste of what that will look like, with it being half of one of 21 program modules,) email me at [email protected].

I would LOVE to work with you if my Clean Parenting™ program is the right fit for you!

​Warmly,

For information on this intensive and transformational program, which many participants have said was 'one of the best investments in their lives!', and to read about their journeys, click on the image.

I run my Clean Parenting™ Program a few times per year, and my next group starting January 8th is already filling up!

Email me to set up a time to chat if you're interested!