The Unconscious Pressure You Place On Your Children

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it, and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the and Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this work, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it.

Most people wouldn't know that. When I first started out in business, the business I wanted to start was to help young athletes have a pathway to elite sport. Now that was born out of my own missed opportunities, my own lack of opportunities to have that pathway. A lot of that was to do with with my own lack of self belief and shying away from the attention. So there's a whole there's a whole lot of levels to that. But at the time, when I started business, it was more around well, my parents probably didn't have the money for one. A lot of like on one or five siblings. So getting around to a whole lot of different try outs. And often these things were on a Sunday, too. So we went to church. So there was just a really limited opportunities. And it wasn't until later in life when I had people telling me how good they thought I was when I was thinking man, I what what could have been impossible, if one that I'd known that I was any good. And to if I had some sort of system that would have helped me even if my parents couldn't, because no, they absolutely did the best that they can they, they were very involved in a whole lot of different areas of the community as well. So even just playing regular Saturday sport was a challenge, as you can imagine trying to get children to all over the place and very much have to rely on the community to help them to transport us all over the place. Now, one of the things that I've come to realize is how what plays out in our younger years, then can then have an impact on how we parent. Now my coach, as you can imagine, has has children who are quite switched on and and pretty closely. And she was relayed to me how that her daughter and asked her some really key questions around her business, which had really made her think. And I said to my coach, I said, they sounds awesome. Can you get her to do some questions for me? And so she did. And one of the questions was, well, why did you? Why did you start a business. And it was just a great reminder for me that the reason I started was yeah, it was like to create this pathway for young people. Now, the funny thing is that that realization a few weeks ago, was at the same time where currently I am working with young athletes again. And it just made me realize that how things have come full circle. Now one of the big wake up calls. When I was coaching youth sport was how much children on the field looking back at their parents for approval, or validation, or any other form of acceptance you can imagine. And you see some of them every time I made a mistake, their head would whip around and see what their parents reaction would be more often than not their fathers.

Now, I've done a heap of research in this area and actually one of the listeners of this podcast I was having a conversation with him not so long ago about exactly this. And there's a great book out there changing the game project John O'Sullivan, I've had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times, had him on the podcast Just before he's, he's a great guy. And he saw how the impact of parents on youth sport was having such a, such a detrimental impact. And he was, you know, our light lining in this book, and a lot of work that he does some of the basic strategies you can use to make sure that that kids that your children know that like no matter what, that it's not about the performance, it's not about whether they're making mistakes, it's a simple line at the end of a game of I love watching your play. I just love watching your play, and just taking all that pressure off. Because if you can, if you're a parent of a childhoods, who play sport or is a performer. And there are times where you know, that they haven't done as well as they're capable of. And if you're anything like me, that's probably more often than not, because you'd know how you know the level they're capable of. So you're always thinking of how they could have done it better. That's a pattern that I've worked on long and hard, but it still shows up at different times. Even if I'm not saying it, I'm thinking it. And when when that's how it like comes across. In your language, even from as basic as the team wins, you're all excited the team doesn't win, you don't really say a lot. They equate from a young age that win equals love and affection from parents. loss equals no love and affection. So the literally playing for our love, right? Which is quite scary when you think about it. But it's why sometimes your child may have different moments where they don't perform well, or they have a negative reaction reaction if they don't perform well, or any number of different things going on because of this unconscious programming that that the impact that we're having on them because of just the language that we use. Now one of the best things that you can do is to have that conversation with your child around helping them to see that look. No matter what the result is, I'm super proud of you. And you should be super proud of yourself. And that as long as you're focusing on the areas you can control. And first for most physical sports, it's it's the effort they put in, is it? Are they listening to the coach? And are they acting on that advice from the coach of a controlling their role and not worrying about teammates and all these other external things that they can't control. So that you can just take all the pressure off them and allow them to perform with freedom. Now I say all of this, knowing that I don't get it 100% right all the time. And interesting. Watching my children go through these different moments. But what I do know is that while I'm still it's still a work in progress that that my children perform now, with a far greater freedom than they would have a few years ago when they just felt that extreme pressure before I'd learn all of these different things, feeling that pressure to need to be enough to need to. Yeah, literally playing for for their parents love. Crazy, right. And I guess the question you might be asking is, what do I do about this? What else can I What else can I do to help them just to to realize that they are more than enough just how they are and that if we can take that pressure off performance, whether it's school, sport, drama, arts, whatever it is that I love to do. The first place to start and I'm sure you've heard me say many times before is with ourselves. Where are we still pushing ourselves to achieve to win, being super competitive? Because part of our unconscious is searching for that approval from a parent. How often do you find yourself

pushing yourself to unrealistic expectations and then coming down on yourself when you don't? Because that's how it plays out. And you feel like you're not winning, that you're not good enough and that you should be doing better. And when you can start changing that pattern. Realizing that you're not responsible for how anyone else feels you're not responsible to in life to win To get love from anyone, you don't have to win, to feel like you're enough of a person to feel like yeah, that you have value. Don't have to keep pushing yourself.

And one of the best ways that I like to shift patterns lead is kinesiology. And I'm a massive fan of it because it allows you to just release those old patterns that way. But I'm also a massive fan of coaching. Clearly it's my profession. But But I love having a coach and I've had an any number of different coaches over the years. And I even seek out advice from other colleagues who are coaches around different things. Because just having someone there who is highly skilled and his ability as the ability to listen and has the ability to help you to reframe something that you've always looked at a certain way. And just having that external voice to look at things differently. It's going to allow you to take that unconscious pressure off yourself, it's going to allow you to develop the skills to be able to do the same for your children. Because if there's anything showing up for your children in terms of their belief system, that you see how if only they believed in themselves? Well, I did tell you that there's probably a fair chunk of areas of your life where you're still not believing in yourself. Yeah, that thing that you just thought of then

one of the simple ways to start reframing is starting to think about what were the lessons or experiences you had. And if it's sports, specifically, like what, what was the reaction from your parents to different moments.

And then rewriting your future. Tape into paper. This is how it played out in the past, burn the bit of paper, if it helps, and then rewrite it. This is how I want it to be this is how I want it to be for my children. Now, when I when I created my future dream for my life, my vision. One of the things was due to how I interact that as a parent, there was a big part for me, because I wanted to be much better at someone that's I felt responsible for their upbringing and how they how they go forward in life, I wanted to give that the best possible chance. Well, when you make that a commitment to yourself, you have a whole lot of stuff shows up that one shows you where you can be better. And two, how do you actually go about changing. And something that I was only thinking of this morning is that how often things show up when you've asked for it and you don't act on it. And that's really is the key part, if you've started journaling, or if you even just having the conscious awareness to think about how you want things to be different. And then things show up to give you that solution and you don't act. And it just takes you backwards to take that action. Forgive me if I've told this one before, but as this particular jumper was saw on the television, and actually, I'm pretty sure I told this last week, but I'll tell it anyway for those who weren't listening. So that one. And then I think you've got to have a jumper like that. And then I turn up in the shops, and there's one nearly identical and I look at the price and go oh, it's pretty steep for a for a jumper I don't think I'll bother. And then walking away and realizing that hang on. I've just asked for something. Here it is it showed up. I'm not accepting it. I'm not unconditionally receiving. So I went back and bought it. And that's life gives you these little clues constantly. You can literally be happening like all day, every day. And any given moment, like daily on the hour or whatever it is like we just realized that something's showing up. That's giving you exactly what you asked for either a solution or just something to give you awareness on something that might need to be changed. So now you know how these things are formed. I've given you some strategies on what to do. It's up to you to take action now.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief. Let's chat email yet info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.