“A steady diet of these kinds of positive or negative projections, particularly when they come from important figures in your life like a parent, partner, close friend, teacher or boss, can have a significant impact on how you feel about yourself and even determine the course of your life.”
This quote comes from a book called “Why We Click” by Kate Murphy which delves into the emerging science of relationships and connections. Her fancy term in her book is “interpersonal synchrony.” For us as parents, this science tells us what we have known all along:
Parents are super important “projectors” in the lives of our children!
The question is not if our parent projections impact the course of our children’s lives. The only question we get to answer is how our projections impact the course of our children’s lives.
Outside of her book, study after study continues to show the incredible impact parents have in shaping the lives of our children.
Genetically, physically, relationally and emotionally, who we are as parents and how we relate to our kids has a profound impact on their lives.
So here’s the question: How are you projecting to your kids?
What do they see when they look at your life?
What is important to you and what do you want to be important to them?
Do they feel like you are pleased with them or they can never please you?
Do they feel like you want to be around them or are they in the way?
Do they feel seen, known, heard and valued by you?
If this makes you feel like maybe you are not projecting well, then let me tell you the most amazing part of this story: You have the power to change your projections!
And here’s the best part: You have the power to be the most amazingly positive influence in your child’s life and profoundly impact the trajectory of their life!
How do we change our projections? We start by changing our beliefs about ourselves and our interactions with our children. My pastor says, “What we believe determines what we do.”
Here are three beliefs that you can believe and enact in your life today to change your projections with your children.
My example is more important than my instruction
So often parents are so focused on changing our children into who we want them to be that we miss changing ourselves into the best version of us. When we become our best, the example we set will likely be followed by our children.
When you see an iceberg in Alaska, you see only the tip of it. 90% of the iceberg is unseen underneath the water. That’s the way instruction and example work as well. In the way our children see us, the instruction is what we think is important but underneath – and a large majority of our influence – comes from our example to them.
I should tell my child more about who they are and less about who they are not
Find something good about your child. Tell them how grateful you are for their work ethic or their sense of humor or whatever you find. Talk about their special qualities and how their uniqueness blesses your life.
So often we try to influence our kids by telling them how to improve themselves. We have good intentions but our “help” is perceived by our children as they can never meet our high expectations, leading to discouragement in their hearts.
Improvement is great, but our influence increases when we decrease the improvement lectures and increase our recognition of the good already in them.
I will see my child as valuable
So often as we rush to get the shoes on to be on time for practice, get everyone ready for church and prepare dinner, our kids feel like they are inconveniences that are simply in the way.
Again, all those things are important, and we do them with the best intentions for our family. But what if we slowed down a little and simply interacted with our kids? What if we stopped life occasionally and had a conversation just about them?
In fact, try it. Talk to your kids today and don’t talk about yourself at all. Be curious about their lives. Nothing about you, no improvement lectures, no “help” at all. Simply be curious about their amazingness.
So let’s go back to the question: How are you projecting to your kid?
