Is Your Happiness and Mental Well-Being Hostage to Your Kids’ Emotions?

Today’s question comes from none other than one of our P.T.S.D. docs, Dr. Ellen Reed. A mom of two adolescent boys, she ponders the idea that so many parents recognize — our happiness and really every emotion being tied to our children’s emotions. It’s easy to feel like their emotions act like our emotional puppet master. When they’re happy, we’re happy. When they’re unhappy, we’re unhappy. Is this healthy?

P.T.S.D. Point of View

I (Ellen) was driving home from school with William, my seven year old son, one evening talking about the riveting events of the 1st grade school day: who was the ‘kid of the week,’ who was sent to the office, who fell and scraped a knee… you know, the usual. Ellen said to William, “I am so happy you had a great day!” William then said something that stopped Ellen in her tracks.

He said, “So, Mom, when I’m happy, you’re happy, right? And when I’m sad, you’re sad. Right?” My first reaction, was to quickly respond, “Yep! It makes me happy when you’re happy, and I get sad when you are sad!”

The next two minutes, though, I sat in silence and thought,

"Crap!"

“Yes, he is right,” I thought, “but that can’t be good!” Luckily, life so far in the Reed house had been pretty carefree and happy with a seven-year-old and four-year-old. Yes, there had been the occasional scraped knee or scuffle with a friend, but my future life with teenagers and broken hearts and bad choices and all the other uncontrollables flashed before my eyes.

Right now, it was easy to allow my children’s emotions and wins to dictate my own joy, but what about when they start losing more? I could fix a hungry tummy or put a bandaid on a scraped elbow, but what about when life starts to get more complicated? And worse, what about when those kids aren’t sleeping in the next room or cuddled up in the same bed with me after a bad dream?

I knew I needed to get a handle on how to navigate this, so I called Jason (Dr. Jason Selk, another P.T.S.D. Doc) that night and told him the story and my somewhat sobering realization. I needed to get clear on this for my own parenting, but also to help my clients navigate this.

I thought I would really stump him with this one, but he didn’t hesitate to know how to respond. Over the next five minutes, Jason walked me through the most important principle of happiness. And here it is: The first thing Jason did was to remind me that “most people want to complicate success, however the most successful people have learned how to simplify it”.

Einstein famously identified the five levels of intelligence as “smart, intelligent, brilliant, genius and simple…everything should be made as simple as possible”. At Level Up we work tirelessly to find the most fundamental principles of success and happiness, and to stay relentlessly committed to their simplicity. As parents, we often times feel the need to complicate, which is why so many problems remain unimproved. Getting lost in complication is, in fact, much easier than searching for simplicity. Okay, so now here it is — the number one principle of happiness:

"Everyone is responsible for his or her own."

Let this soak in for a minute. Think back to your last 24 hours. Think about the moments that brought you joy and happiness, and the moments that brought you sadness or stress. Now, what percentage of those feelings were a result of someone else’s feelings? Your kids, your spouse, your parents, your coworkers? No matter your answer, this is not the time to beat yourself up. This is simply time for self-evaluation. We simply cannot make improvements in our lives without proper self-evaluation. This is why evaluation is such a important part of your daily training in the app. Jason said it this way in his best -selling book Organize Tomorrow Today, “self-evaluation is the genesis all improvement.”

Now, lets get back to this “own your own happiness” thing. This certainly can be a tough sell for parents. Especially for moms. You are telling me that my child’s happiness doesn’t impact my own? Well, yes and no. Of course your kids are going to bring you great joy, happiness, sadness, and every emotion in the books, but you have to find things in your own life that bring you joy. However, when you give yourself permission to let someone or something else to significantly dictate your happiness then we have what is called “enmeshment.” Enmeshment is problematic because it blurs the lines of what is known as “locus of control.” Think of it this way, a person has an “internal locus of control” or an “external locus of control.” It’s pretty much as it sounds—you experience the “internal” when you feel you are able to control whatever result you desire and conversely if you feel like you don’t know how to get what you want in life you experience the “external.” When we are able to identify and take action on creating the internal locus of control our brains release positive neurotransmitters that cause us to feel safe and secure, pride and yes happiness.

Still not sold?

You are the model for your children. They are going to base their behaviors and thought patterns largely on what they observe from you. Do you want your children to learn that their happiness depends on someone else? By definition, that would be teaching our children to have an external locus of control.

Ouch.

So step one of taking back your own happiness: Give yourself permission to experience joy and happiness outside of your kids.

Step two. Get to work on seeking — let’s explain.

As humans, we experience great satisfaction from the act of seeking — or the process of working toward goals. In fact, neuroscience shows that the act of seeking goals, rather than the actual accomplishment of them, is the key to satisfaction. This is a major reason why winning the lottery doesn’t cause long-term changes in happiness — you miss out on the joy from the journey.

Here is how to do it. Next time you have something bad or hard happen in your child’s life, show your children that you bothcan still be happy in spite of life’s difficulties. For example, your child comes home from school complaining that a classmate was picking on him/her throughout the day. Obviously, your child will be hurting and you too will be upset. The key is to identify, “What is one thing that can be done by the child to make tomorrow a little better.” It could be as simple as avoid the classmate, or it may be necessary to teach your child how to in a healthy manner confront the classmate. The main point is to teach your child that even though something bad is happening to you (external locus of control) there are always things you can do to make the situation better (internal locus of control). You helping your child identify potential solutions is also how you get yourself back to the internal locus of control.

So get excited about finding “how” to create more joy in your journey though Level Up. We will be working toward your own goals, your own mental strength, your own motivation, your own wins. Yes, this experience will make you a better parent and you will be showing your child how to be a better and happier version of themselves as well.

Stay Relentless,
Jason and Ellen