Why do kids lose their trust in parents? (English / Polski)

 Wersja polska tutaj.

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               A few days ago I mentioned my plans to do a series of posts which will be different than everything I've done so far. This is going to be something that Nathan showed me (for people who don't know - Nathan is Alicia's - my "host kid" - dad). The way I haven't known before and the way I can't imagine my life without now. I'd like you to know something more about me and I decided to introduce you to this part of me.

                I suppose my readers, you, will divide into two parts... First will think: "hey, she's right, how could I not think about this before?!" Second one: "what is she talking about?! I can't stand it anymore, this is so wrong!"  Well, I want to hear from you. I'll appreciate it and I'll willingly answer your questions and discuss whatever you have doubts about.  

                Also, one of the differences is that the whole series will be posted in two versions - English and Polish. It's because I want to share everything with other au pairs, and not only au pairs, but people from all over the world. We'll see how it works.

My weekly posts will be still available in the same way - every weekend! This series will be posted every two weeks around Tuesdays/Wednesdays. You'll find all of them in the menu bar after I create a new tab for them. 

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                Lately, I've been reading a lot of articles and posts on Facebook groups for au pairs about what's the "best" way to treat kids (for example, one man compared raising kids to training dogs); how to talk to them (or rather - how to train them); how to make them do whatever parents want them to do, even when they don't like it very much (because adults always do what they hate, right?); how to ask (I mean, manipulate) to make them be the way parents want them to be; how to shape their personality and beliefs (so they can't have their own, independent life)...

                There's one thing that pushed me to post something about this more than anything else. I saw there was a new video posted on one of those groups on Facebook. It was posted by a woman who was working with au pairs and their host families for 15 years and who believes that "most problems can be prevented with good in-depth communication". She posted this video, typing a description exactly like this: "I am rolling on the floor lmao. Watch this hilarious video! Love it!" I thought: oh, okay, so I'll have some good time watching this if it's that funny! I watched it then and I ended up with my jaw on the floor. So, I asked myself, where was the funny part, did I miss something?

                The video shows a kid, a boy, who has two sisters. Their mother is pregnant so both parents want to let the kids know if the new baby will be a girl or a boy. They have a cake and the color inside it will tell them the answer. Pink means a girl and blue means a boy. The boy takes a piece of the cake a little bit higher so he can see the color, and he sees pink. He starts saying: "it's a girl!, It's a girl!!!" and then he gets very upset, he's totally crushed, he can't believe what's happening... The parents, especially father, don't seem to care, at all. The same with most of the people who posted some comments out there.

                Here is the video and after you watch it, you'll be able to read what I experience while watching it, what others think and then you'll know what's the difference between our ways of receiving stuff like this.

                So now, how I see what's happening in the video...

               What I see at the beginning is that they're excited, especially the boy. He's smiling and it seems like he's almost sure he'll hear what he wants to hear. Even when the father is asking a question about what they think, he says: "I think it's a boy!". The girls want one more girl and it doesn't surprise me, at all. So what the boy says and how he says it tells me how much he wants to have a brother what is obvious in the situation when he has two sisters already. He wants to have a brother to do "boy-stuff" instead of playing with dolls and so (I don't know what they play with, just guessing). He just wants to have someone like him. They're still laughing and the first who takes the knife, is the boy. He takes it a little bit higher and he sees pink. His face changes completely in one second. He raises his eyebrows a bit and it tells me how unsure he is about this. He asks "it's a girl?!" few times, his voice is a bit shaking which means he's getting more emotional every single second. He points at the cake and then he sits down on the chair with no energy in him. He keeps looking at the cake and his parents and he does the same few times, still hoping that maybe they're joking. The girls seem to be confused by what's happening, they don't smile anymore either. He starts to cry, he doesn't want to believe that he'll have one more sister. The little girl on his left is smiling, looking at someone behind the camera. The second one doesn't really know what to do - she just looks at the table (looks concerned). Then, the girls look at the boy and after a while they go away what, in my opinion, is caused by someone who called them. For me it looks like they wanted to leave the boy all alone in the video because it was so funny for them how he reacted that it "has to be published!". He's the star from now. He keeps crying, he repeats he doesn't want any girls, he has enough, he really doesn't want girls, he doesn't like them, he wants to have a brother. He's very sad, disappointed, he doesn't feel understood because his father asks him "are you happy?" even then, when he sees his son crying so much. So now the boy is sitting on the one side of the table and the girls are on the other one - separated as if there's something wrong with the boy because he's crying and the girls are happy, like they're better than he is because he shows his emotions and he's not afraid of expressing himself then. He says he doesn't like girls but he can't feel understood and supported because his father doesn't care about his feeling, at all. He seems not to notice how bad his son feels and he argues with the boy by saying "oh, you love your sisters!" even after he heard exactly what the boy said. Even if the boy does love them, it's not the way he feels right now, right this second. The boy yells at the man because he said he didn't like them like few seconds ago. Then the father says "alright" which is his way to finish this talk, not listening to his son. Father's voice sounds like he thinks "you're being silly, you'll be fine!". Also, the father says the boy should've been prepared for this disappointment and, I think, it makes the boy think there's something wrong, he's not prepared so this is kind of his fault because if he had prepared before, he wouldn't cry. Anyway, the boy still cries, it's hard for him to talk, and he still repeats the same over and over again because nobody actually hears what he's saying. He wants his feelings to be acknowledged. He wants others to get his point, to understand how difficult it is for him to have two sisters and to live with this thought that he'll have one more. Nobody has to agree with him, everyone can have their own opinions but what's important is that nobody tried to pay attention in a better way than recording a video. The boy has totally no influence in this case and this is even worse feeling - he can't change what he hates, nothing depends on him. He sees his future with three girls (four if you count the mother) and he's just depressed. He even turns his head to a different direction because of this. The boy feels completely ignored by people who, in his eyes, should show him something more than just recording everything and being amused by what he's doing - the boy definitely has a different opinion on it. Moreover, the boy still repeats the same (maybe he still hopes someone will hear?). The father interrupts him in the middle, though. It feels like the boy doesn't have any rights to say anything because his dad says "say goodbye to everybody!" and it shows me how much he ignores what's happening. The boy has a lot of anger in himself and he's not allowed to express it in any way. Even the girls seem to be a little bit confused and this is not surprising because on the one side they see their brother crying and being very, very sad, and on the other one they see their dad not caring about the boy and being in a good mood, what I can conclude from the tone and the sound of his voice. The boy doesn't stop and then the man stops recording. He should've done it much earlier, though. Also, I think publishing video like this is just sad.

                Yesterday, when I was searching for this video on YouTube, I found another one with the same family. I was shocked when I saw they were talking about this in FoxNews! You can find it below.

                So it's a big sensation that the boy doesn't like the idea of having one more sister, most of the people like the video, they think it's funny. And I guess the parents are happy that other people can recognize them, that they have their friends and family's attention, they're "cool". I don't believe that they asked the boy what he thinks about being in the American news, being in the internet, showing him to people from all over the world. It's possible he feels embarrassed and nobody has an idea about this. Do you see this moment when the host asks the boy if he's happy now that he'll have one more sister? Do you hear how he says "yes"? Does it convince you? Do you believe in it? Do you think he says what he really thinks? I don't. I don't believe in it, at all.

                When I read the comments on Facebook under this video, I'm surprised how people taking care of kids can think this way. I don't want to undermine your competences or insult anyone. Maybe kids really like you guys but I just can't believe what I see. I was reading this with my mouth wide open. So, here you have eight examples from these I don't like (I keep the original spelling):

1. "It doesn't affect the kid. Common it is funny! I would be posses too if I was a kid...stuck with 3 sisters haha" (There's a mistake, I guess. Should be "pissed" instead of "posses".)

2. "When he sees this video in 10 years he will laugh his asset off too" ("Asset"? Is it a censorship?)

3. "Throwing a temper tantrum at that age is not unusual. And the reason why he throws a tantrum is pretty funny. He wants a brother and not another sister. Poor little guy is just going to have to suffer through living with another sister. I don't think he has a choice in the matter. Hysterical = very funny." (The comment from this woman who added the video. I don't have words...)

4. "It's hilarious :D"

5. "Hahahahah made my day :D :D :D"

6. "I foung it kinda sad.. especially for the sisters.. I would have stopped the camera and let him get a time out, until he calmed down.. or perhaps a time in.. with a hug."

7. Oh come in Agnieszka, it really is funny and noone is bullying the kid, hell lough about that one day" (This is the comment directly to me. By the way, "lough" means "laugh", I guess.)

8. "The only thing wrong with it is the dads response "You got the same reaction I did." If and when the girls sees it, she's gonna feel awful. Other than that, it's funny. But they shouldn't have let him go on for THAT long about it. A minute is funny, but any longer and it's annoying. The parents should've jumped and consoled him properly, and at the same time talked to him about it properly, but sadly they think that parenting nowadays is videoing their kids tantrums and showing them off to the world instead of parenting properly. It IS funny, but they could've handled it better than just sitting there with a video camera."

                I want to say something more about these comments and also comments like this in general - I didn't copy them all.

                It seems to me that some people really like seeing suffering kids. It's such a pleasure for them to watch crying and sad kids in pain. They like it when they feel bad and it's funny for them to watch kids being powerless. I suspect that they enjoy having this power over them, of knowing that they will be frustrated in the end. Perhaps the reason for this is that they suffered the same treatment in their lives and that it feels good when someone else experiences the same because then they're not alone with this feeling. I would like to hear more from those who find this video amusing what, precisely, it is that they find pleasurable.

                Also, someone said I take it "too seriously". As you can guess, I don't agree. I can imagine myself in a situation like this. I see me in a very bad mood because something terrible happened to me, I'm crying, I can't talk freely because of my tears, I'm very sad. And then, the only people I trust, are recording the video and are amused by my reactions even if I don't see anything funny in what I'm experiencing right now. I don't want them to treat me like this. They don't have to give me any advices or say anything to make me feel better. Listening would be enough. But they prefer to make fun of me and then show other people how I reacted instead of just being with me when I need them.

                What else, I don't like the explanation that it's just the age... "Oh, he's just a kid!". In my opinion, it doesn't work like this. Everyone has their own right to be themselves. If a 80 year-old woman cried out loud on the street, would you say "oh, it's just the age!"? I don't think so. So why do you say this about a kid?

                I think it affects him very much but I talked about what I saw earlier so I don't have to repeat myself, I hope. Also, I think those who felt compassion to the girls instead of the boy are that kind of people which don't accept others when they have a lot of strong feelings and they actually express them. Maybe you're tired of listening to a crying kid, maybe you're not "patient" enough, maybe there's something else, I don't know. What I know is that there are two options for the future. First is that the boy will laugh watching the video and second is that he won't believe how his parents could be like this and they did something like that. If he laughs, that's fine but this won't change anything! What matters is that he was suffering at that concrete moment and found no comfort from those he trusted most.

                Below, you have a dialogue from the video but also you can find just few of a lot of things that nobody said and which would be very helpful for the boy. Those are typed in a different color to make it easier. You can also find some comments in brackets which will tell you where exactly were those parts I was talking about earlier.

Gunter: It's a girl!
Me: You're really disappointed that it's a girl.
Gunter: It's a girl!?
Dad: Yep it's gonna be a girl.
Gunter: (Visibly in distress, looks defeated.)
Me: You didn't want a girl!
Dad: It's OK Gunt. It's alright! (Here Dad contradicts Gunter's feelings.)
Gunter: I knew it was a girl! I hate... don't want another girl!
Dad: Hey, you had the same reaction I did, bud. (Gunter doesn't care what dad feels or felt at this moment; Gunter still hasn't been acknowledged.)
Me: [To all]: Gunter does not want another girl!
Gunter: (Sobbing) I don't want a girl!
Dad: It's alright. (Again, contradicting Gunter's feelings.)
Gunter: I won't eat the cake.
Dad: You don't want the cake because it's a girl?
Gunter: I knew it was a girl!
Me: You were afraid of this from the beginning and now it has happened!
Harper: It has jelly in it! (Clearly not tuned into Gunter.)
Gunter: I don't like girls!
Dad: Oh, you like your sisters. (And now he's arguing with the boy as if to change his mind, telling him how he feels.)
Gunter: No... Not anymore, I don't! (Gunter now switches to defending himself against his dad's lawyering.)
Dad: Casey, are you happy?
Paisley: (Looks angrily at Gunter with arms folded before the answer.) Yah!
Dad: Harper, are you happy?
Harper: Yah! (She's daydreaming about jelly.)
Gunter: It's girls, and I'm not happy! (Here Gunter points out that they are biased, and HE is unhappy, that is HE and not THEM!)
Dad: Gunter are you happy? (Here implying that since Gunter's feelings are different from his sisters, his feelings are probably wrong.)
Gunter: No!! It's stupid!! (Looks like he's getting upset, probably fed up with the games his dad is playing.) I knew it was a girl. I knew it. It's another girl! I hate girls! Every time it's girl girl girl girl! It's all gonna be girls!
Mother?: [laughter]
Gunter: Just girls! It's always girls! I don't want girls!
Mother?: Really enjoying this...
Dad: Hey that's alright. (What exactly is alright, dad?)
Gunter: I want to leave this house and never come back! I want to live by myself! (Understandable when your mother laughs at you while your father argues with you because you feel disappointed. On top of that, one sister resents you and the other just wants you to eat jelly.)
Gunter:  I don't want another girl, it's too much girls! I don't want five girls, it's too much!
Dad: We don't have five, how many girls will we have in our family? (Again with the lawyer act...)
Gunter: Three! I want.. It's OK if we have two boys and two girls!
Dad: I know, that's what I wanted too... (Gunter doesn't need anyone to agree with him. He needs to feel safe while expressing his feelings, free from people trying to change him, ridicule him, or intimidate him.)
Gunter: ... I knew it was a girl, and it was girl!
Dad: (Sounding annoyed) Well then you should have been prepared for this... disappointment. (Translation: Son, you're an idiot for not having come to accept this earlier.)
Gunter: (Realizes he is talking to people who cannot hear his feelings, stops trying.) I don't want a girl... I want to leave!
Dad: Oh you'll love her, you'll love your new little sister. (Here the dad is antagonizing Gunter.)
Gunter: NO!!! I don't want more girls!
Mother: [Still chuckling]
Gunter: I want zero girls! I want a boy!
Dad: Gunter, say goodbye to everybody.
Gunter: No! I don't want to!!

                Most of this boy's emotional energy was spent in repeating himself in an effort to be heard by someone and in the frustration and betrayal that comes from finding that your family can be very unkind when you have unpopular feelings.

                I understand him very well because I know this feeling of being ignored, not being able to be myself and being reprimanded when I had a problem. For example, when I was 11 years old, my uncle died. The uncle who I loved very much, who I spent a lot of time with. I felt very good with him, he cared about me and my sister. He wasn't sick or anything and it was shocked for everyone - a sudden death while sleeping. My grandmother (maternal side, his mother) called and told us about this. I started to cry and I couldn't stop myself. At first I didn't try to stop, though. But then my family, I mean my father and his parents (I lived with them) started to tell me not to cry. They kept saying: "Aga, there's no need to cry! You shouldn't cry that much!" No need to cry? I shouldn't? I couldn't believe what they said because I'd never see someone who I loved! This is the thing that made me feel depressed and they were telling me not to care. Telling me that I shouldn't cry was like telling me I should be happy he was not around anymore. I felt totally alone. And then, a month after his death, I had my 11th birthday. I was in a better mood and I wanted to invite some of my friends to a little party. And then I heard from my family: "how can you think about this after what happened?!" and "you have no respect toward your dead uncle!". Then I started to cry again and you can guess what I heard: "why are you crying again?!" I was extremely confused because when I cried and I was sad, it was wrong, when I tried to live normally, it was even worse. So I was asking myself: how should I act now? What do they want me to do? I didn't have the answer and nobody seemed to listen to that 11 year-old girl who lost her uncle after just three years after she lost her mom. I just closed myself and I kept all the feelings inside, just for myself. There was no sense to show them to anyone if they treated me like this. It was not right for them so I decided to be even more alone. I'm saying "more alone" because I felt like they left me alone. I tried to change it but it didn't work so I went further away from them. One more example: when I was 15 I was a huge fan of one of the very popular bands for teenagers at that time. I was waiting for them to come to Poland and one day I finally found an information about their visit in my country. I was very, very happy and excited. I was preparing for this day and when it came, my father said: "you're sick, you're not going!" I had a sore throat and a little bit of cough and that was all, I felt good. Firstly, I started to say how important it was for me, how much I wanted to go, how much I wanted to see them and how disappointed I'd be. Especially because I didn't know I wouldn't be able to go for the last minute. My father kept saying: "I don't care, you're not going, I don't want to go to doctors with you afterwards, it's not that important, just few guys, you're silly!" Well, it was not important for him, he didn't want to go to doctors (in Poland, at least at that time, you had to be 16 years old to be able to go to a doctor by yourself), he wanted to choose the way that would be the easiest one for him. And he was telling me how I felt. He didn't think about me then, at all. What I said, was totally not important, it seemed to me like he didn't even listen. He ignored me completely. What was not important to him, was a very big dream for me. When I cried, he started to laugh, saying how "childish" I was. It felt horrible not to be understood  and treated like I was crazy because I really wanted to do something that he didn't like. 

                So after things like this, I created my own shelf and I started to hide in it. I didn't see it possible to talk about my feelings because I didn't feel I'd be supported. I was too afraid people would laugh at me, ignore me. So it was much better not to say anything instead of taking such a high risk of being rejected again.

                Therefore, expressing your feelings is very important in your life. Usually people don't have problems with showing their happiness, they smile when they're happy, they say something good happened, they talk about this a lot, etc. But they don't show it when they're sad, when something very bad is happening, when they're crushed, lost, they don't know what to do, they're mad at someone. They don't cry in public, because when they were young, their parents used to tell them "don't cry, shhh, calm down, everything is fine!". Kids can't say how angry they are after someone calls them "little cuties" if they hate it when people call them like this. They need to smile or they're forced to say "thank you" (you remember this: "say thank you!" or "how should you say now?"?) Parents get mad at a kid who's sad, who cries and makes people look at them, wondering what's going on. They feel embarrassed so they prefer to cover the child's mouth (what I've seen a lot of times) and force him to stop instead of stopping for a moment and give the kid few minutes to talk about the problem. Parents don't show any empathy, any love, any support, they completely don't understand, they're not trustworthy because how you can trust someone who doesn't care about how you feel and what you think. So later, when these kids are much older, they don't talk to their parents about their problems, they don't want their parents to interfere with their lives. Why? Because they don't trust them enough, they don't think it's worth it to talk about problems, they don't believe they can be understood. And why is that? Because a long time ago the parents didn't let them express their emotions while being sad (or even very happy - when you run around and you're being calmed down by someone because you're "too loud"), they didn't let them be angry when something bad happened, they didn't let the kids be themselves. It was just not right. Also, I'm sure a lot of you heard something like "other people have worse problems!". But at that moment, your problem is the biggest for you and you don't care about other people who you don't even know, you want to solve yours and this is the most important thing for you now.

                So the kids learned: that's okay to be happy but not too much and you should never cry in public, never be sad when you have guests at home, never be mad because it's wrong, hide these emotions, don't be worse than other people!

                My post is not only about kids. I mean, all the things from the video I talked about effect the kid for later. It's possible he'll have little respect towards other people, parents in this case, but this is not because he was born this way - he was NOT. It's just because the parents (and not only parents) were treating him like this during childhood. And I know I'm going far, far away with this but when I see this attitude toward children in the father, then I can imagine a lot of different situations which will result in adding sadness and anxiety to this boy's life.

                So, I think, when you're in a relationship with someone, whether it be a spouse, friends or family, then it's very important to treat them as human beings. Not as things without any feelings because everyone has feelings, doesn't matter how old you are. Sometimes a "little thing" for you can be a HUGE thing for someone else. It's like a circle - if a parent is aggressive toward a kid (or a friend is not fair toward a friend; or if sister lies to a brother; etc.), then the kid won't have any calmness in his life and, in most cases, will be the same way as his parent. Then his kids will be like this and then next ones and next ones. Everything I said in this post, and a lot of different things I haven't mentioned yet, goes exactly the same way.

                The last thing for today is that my goal is not to change your mind. My goal is to show you a  different way of looking at things - to show you my way that Nathan showed me after I came here. This is something I believe in now and I want to share it with you all. Maybe some of you will find something interesting for themselves, maybe not, but at least I'll feel I did what I wanted to do.

                Feel free to leave comments or send e-mails to me. I'll be glad to read your reactions about what I said and your point of view. Also, I'd be thankful for sharing this post with others.

                Talk to you in two weeks!

                Aga & Nathan