I hate you

Sadly, these were the only words one lady heard from her teenage son. Desperate for some help with her ‘problem child’ she came to a session I was running on the truth about trust in parenting.

The relationship with her son, she shared, had gradually declined, and now he spent no time with her and her husband, but was constantly shutting himself in his bedroom, and occasionally yelled out those words that no mother wants to hear, no parent, actually: ‘I hate you’.

As I unpacked the model for trust during the session, I could see she had a few ‘a-ha’ moments, but it was in the exercises that it all came to light.

As we explored what she thought her son’s Expectations are of her and her husband, she began to write them down, ‘Be home for dinner’, ‘Spend time helping him with his homework’, ‘Be around at home’, ‘Take an interest in him, his day, his friends’, were just a few of them.

Then we looked at what his underlying Needs might be, and the key ones were ‘Love and Belonging’, and ‘Esteem’.

Then crunch time came when I asked her to write down all the things she had promised him – the explicit promises (the ones she actually verbally expressed, or had even written down), and the implicit ones (the ones she didn’t actually say or write down, but were implied in her body language, her behaviour). Things like ‘I’ll be home for dinner’, ‘Of course I’ll help you with your homework’, and ‘I love you’, as she wrote them, became obvious to her that she was not keeping those promises.

As I explained the model (and you can see it for yourself if you download my free e-book - The Simple Truth about Trust), we are able to trust when we meet each others expectations and needs, and when promises made are kept. When those things don’t happen, trust breaks down, and is painful – we feel betrayed, disappointed, sometimes even angry. But when they are met and kept, a solid, trusting relationship exists, and so does peace.

What she realised was that her job had gotten so busy, and so had her husband’s, that she would promise to be home for dinner, and then get caught up at work, only to find, when she did eventually get home, that her son had gotten himself something and had shut himself in his room.

He was in his final years at school and was struggling with some of his subjects. She used to sit down with him and help him with his homework when he was younger, but she just assumed he didn’t need that anymore. She had made some attempts to get home in time to help him, but it was often late in the evening and he had given up and chose to watch TV instead.

What came to light for her was that her ‘problem child’ was not that at all. If anything, she was a ‘problem mother’.

I encouraged her to sit down with her son, if he would let her, and show him the model, talk to him about what was really going on, and make some new promises to him that she was going to definitely keep. I warned her that he probably wouldn’t believe her promises, as he would have negative expectations now, and, because of his experience, would be thinking ‘Sure Mum, I’ve heard that before’. It was going to take time to repair the damaged trust, but, as long as he was willing (it take two!), it could be done.

A few months later I spoke to her and asked how things were going. Amazingly, she had given up her very senior position in one organisation and went to work somewhere where her time was more flexible. They were having dinner together as a family now, because she was promising to be home, and was actually doing it. When it wasn’t possible for her to get home in time, which happened occasionally, she would let him know, and would promise to do something special with him the following day to make up for it.

A few weeks later I nearly cried when she told me they were going on a mother son camp.

I love stories like this, but I truly wish there were hundreds and thousands more like it – even millions. 

Will you nurture the trust your children have placed in you?