According to Human Development professor Sara Waters, parents should express their emotions, not hide them
Parents can feel immense pressures when it comes to raising children. Finding the perfect balance between being too emotionally vulnerable or too reserved around kids can be a challenge. However, this balance may be easier to find than one may think.
According to a recent study conducted by WSU Vancouver Human Development professor Sara Waters and University of California professors Helena Karnilowicz and Wendy Mendes, parents or guardians suppressing their emotions can cause damage to their child’s emotional growth.
Despite the opinion of many, the study, “Not in front of the kids: Effects of parental suppression on socialization behaviors during cooperative parent–child interactions” suggests parents and guardians should not hide their emotional vulnerability from their children.
“I thought, that’s interesting, because parents often feel that they shouldn’t show how upset they are in front of their children. That idea of ‘not in front of the kids,’” Waters said.
The study’s method put parents through a stressful task: public speaking. The researchers then asked some parents to hide their emotion and others to interact naturally while in front of their children. Waters said the researchers were looking for both a noticeable change in the children’s behavior and how they differed in reaction to either parent.
“Dads are super important. And sometimes they’re important in different ways than moms are important.”
Sara Waters
In the future, Waters hopes there is more research on how fathers affect their child’s development.
“There’s just not a lot of work in the child development world that really looks at dads closely. We tend to just look at moms,” Waters said. “Dads are super important. And sometimes they’re important in different ways than moms are important.”
Waters said the gender differences found in the study have sparked minor pushback. She said people assume men and women’s emotions are fundamentally different. The research shows that men and women learn to act as they do from societal expectations and that the differences are more an aspect of culture, rather than nature.
Waters said these learned behaviors can have negative consequences, such as men being more likely to suppress their emotions and suffer from poor mental and physical health, which also affects their children.
Holly Slocum, a senior digital technology and culture major at WSU Vancouver is also a mother to her three-year-old son, Elias.
As a mother, Slocum said she is relatively transparent with her son. “I actually let out a little sigh of relief when I read the study, because I’m outright terrible at concealing my emotions,” she said.
To avoid suppressing her emotions Slocum said, “I tell him what emotion I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it. ‘I’m feeling frustrated because we’re late and I can’t find my keys, but that’s not your fault and I’m not mad at you.’” She added, “I guess my hope is that I’m teaching him some level of emotional literacy by narrating how I process the ebb and flow of my day.”
“I actually let out a little sigh of relief when I read the study, because I’m outright terrible at concealing my emotions.”
Holly Slocum
According to Waters, it is important to display conflict resolution in front your children. “When kids actually see parents do [conflict resolution], it’s more powerful than when parents just tell kids to do that,” she explained.
Waters said that being transparent with your children, such as telling them you had a bad day or that you are angry is a better way for them to learn to cope with their own feelings, rather than suppressing them.
Read more about Waters and the study here.
Anna Nelson is the Editor in Chief for the VanCougar. She is a senior and is studying strategic communications.