I just made myself a cup of Chocolate Donut Coffee.  Yep!  It’s actually not too bad.  Enough sugar and cream can make any cup of coffee tolerable.  Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and join me for a few minutes in the waiting room.  Thanks for coming by!

I thought of something in a slightly different way this week, and I thought I’d share it.  Have you ever thought about how you communicate things you never intended to, that you never tactfully or lovingly would, by insinuation?  It can be totally hidden, and you may not even realize you’ve done it, but it can be devastating to the recipients…particularly our kids. I’ll give you an example.

Heather is a quite normal teenage girl who has a distant father who tends to talk down to her.  Her mother is a codependent thing; and by definition, that’s another way of saying that she is pretty controlling where Heather is concerned.  So as Heather has gone through her formative years with these two role models, she has picked up quite a bit that was insinuated by them.  The distance her father has kept by being cutoff, grouchy, or just plain busy has taught Heather non-verbally that she is unlovable and unworthy of his attention.  Was he really trying to convey that to her?  Probably not.  But what he didn’t do was taken that way by Heather.  Also by talking down to her in a stern way, whether to teach her, make her mind him, or because he’s in a lot of pain himself; it teaches her by insinuation that she’s inherently bad.

Heather’s mom is teaching her things via insinuation with her codependency as well.  In high school Heather got a job, and instead of teaching her how to handle money, pay bills, and that she was capable of doing so, her mom took her paycheck and did it all for her.  So what did Heather learn from that?  She may have thought at the time on the surface, “this is great, I don’t have to do anything, my mom does it all for me.”  But underneath what she really heard was “I’m not even smart enough or worth the time enough for mom to teach me how to do this,” or “I’m not trustworthy.”  Mom may have even been just too tired to make the time, and thought it more expeditious to do it that way; but really it was not only socially damaging since her daughter left home not knowing how to pay bills, but it was also emotionally damaging with her insinuating she was not smart enough to learn how.

These kinds of things are not really a news flash for me personally…I had thought of them before.  What hit me in a fresh way is how shame-inducing these things actually are!  The insinuations we read when we’re kids can give us a pretty good-sized shame filter.  Heather’s mom was being controlling at worst, and expeditious at best, by paying Heather’s bills for her; but Heather was actually hearing something quite shaming.  And it’s pretty easy to see how a distant father can cause feelings of abandonment in his kids, but there is an underlying shame to it.  The kid insinuates that because Daddy doesn’t have time for her that she is not worthy of receiving it!  Stuff like this is why shame is so rampant an issue.  I’ve heard it described as “the common cold of emotional issues.”  Even if parents aren’t shaming their kids outright, kids can still feel it by connecting dots that are unintended.

Think about what you’re insinuating with your kids (or others, too!).  (Oh, and please don’t take all of this as a condemnation…no one is perfect.  Nobody.  Take it as a learning opportunity, or a time to refocus your focus if needed!)  If you’re just straight-up too tired or grouchy, kids can take that more personally than you could ever realize.  Let them make decisions and mistakes for themselves, it builds confidence and experience.  Take the time to teach them and encourage them.  If you think you’ve communicated something you didn’t intend to them, tell them the truth, tell them often, and without delay!  I heard it said once that it takes 1,000 positive things said to counteract one negative thing said.  The number may be a little high, but the concept is right on.  One negative statement, or insinuation, takes a lot to undo.  Try hard to not heap on any more, and work to heal the ones that have already escaped.  It is SO worth the effort!

Hope you enjoyed your coffee break.  See you again soon.

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.

©2010, Nancy Eisenman