Reality Magazine
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May 2006
 

Mother doesn’t always know best  

Some people prefer to live with family conflict rather than tgake positive steps to sort problems out writes Carmel Wynne

My friend and her daughter are two lovely people.  I like and respect them both as individuals but I hate to be in their company when it is just the three of us.  They fight and I find it hard not to comment on the disrespectful way they communicate.

It’s almost inevitable that one of them will go away feeling upset with the other because they always disagree about something.  I have to bite my tongue to stop myself interfering in their petty rows.

The daughter is a yo-yo dieter.  She is incredibly sensitive about her weight and appearance.  I’ve said privately to her mother that the wisest course of action is never to comment on either.  Her mother disagrees.  She can’t resist commenting.

She says that her comments are encouraging despite evidence to the contrary.  Even when the words she uses give a genuine compliment, her daughter is unable to hear them in a positive way.

I groaned inwardly the other day when I heard her mother say ‘You look great, you’ve lost weight’.  Though it was partly true I could tell it was the wrong thing to say that day.  In the two weeks since they last met the daughter had lost weight and she looked slimmer.  What the mother didn’t realise was that her daughter had been out for a Chinese meal the night before and regained two pounds.

Before she opened her mouth I could tell my friend was going to upset her daughter.  My instinct was to intervene and suggest that she didn’t comment but I held my tongue.  It wasn’t appropriate to assume that I knew what would and did happen.

Whether to intervene
Isn’t it debatable whether it is ever wise to interfere in a family quarrel?  Knowing the full circumstances you can understand why the daughter snapped, ‘No I haven’t lost weight’ at her mother.  You can also appreciate why the mother felt hurt.  She muttered to me ‘There’s no pleasing her’.

I couldn’t find anything helpful to say so I remained silent.  I felt angry that two intelligent women behaved so immaturely.  I wanted to challenge what was going on.  I was tempted to ask them if they didn’t recognise that they were trapped in a cycle of unnecessary mother/daughter conflict but there really was no point.

If people express themselves in ways that I find unacceptable and I point out their flaws I’m being judgemental.  A more helpful approach is to assume they have a positive intention.  When I look at their actions from that point of view they make sense.

The problem is that people hate change, even change that would make for a more loving relationship.  No mother or daughter maliciously sets out to upset the other.  Some make the same bad choices over and over again, without recognising the problems created by their patterned behaviour.

The mother who thought that her daughter looked slimmer
people can show  such predictable patterns of behaviour that their friends can tell what’s going to happen between them, yet they remain blissfully unaware of how predicable their behaviour is.

correctly assumed that she had lost weight but was unwise to say so to a yo-yo dieter.  The daughter who hated hearing her mother comment on her appearance was really angry with her comment because she had requested her time and time again not to make personal remarks.

My friend’s daughter has a way of looking at her mother when she makes a comment she doesn’t like.  She looks her in the eye, holds her gaze for long enough to make her mother feel uncomfortable, and when she gets the reaction she wants she hits out in words.

I find it fascinating that people can show such predictable patterns of behaviour that their friends can tell what’s going to happen between them and they remain blissfully unaware of how predictable their behaviour is.

Irksome friend
When I was a child my family had a ‘friend’ who had a habit of running her fingers along the skirting boards when she sat in an armchair.  If she found dust she would say, ‘There’re none so blind as those who do not want to see’.  In those days people weren’t invited to visit.  They simply dropped in if they were passing by.

As children we dreaded to see that women coming.  Her visits always put my mother in bad humour for a week.  I could never understand why my mother and my aunts never suggested she sit in a kitchen chair away from the wall.  Young as I was I could see that it was the obvious solution but the strong belief that children don’t interfere kept me silent.

Is it any wonder that I have the same sense of déjà vu with my friend and her daughter?  I’m frustrated that they don’t see what is so obvious to me.  If they continue to behave as they always behave they will always get the same results.

Understanding what happens
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) offers an in-depth understanding of what really happens when we communicate.  People respond to what they believe you mean, which may be an accurate or inaccurate interpretation of your intended meaning.

When a woman has the belief that if her mother loved her she would refrain from making personal remarks you can understand why a simple compliment that would have most women feeling good upsets her.

The mother has the positive intention of encouraging her daughter.  She is so entrenched in the role of ‘mother knows best’ that she ignores her daughter’s request not to pass personal comments.  She expects her daughter to understand that what she says is said out of love.

The negativity between them seems to upset me more than it upsets them.  We don’t have to have incredible intuitive powers to be tuned in to the non-verbal communication that alerts us to the underlying hostility when people are on the verge of upsetting each other.

The behaviour of adult children is modelled on how they saw their parents behave.  A parent gives a child that look that speaks volumes.  The non-verbal communication makes the child feel the parent is a mind reader.  Often later in life the roles are reversed and the adult child has become so skilled at giving that look that she can make a parent squirm in discomfort.

Implications for family relationships
Parents of young children are incredibly accurate in recognising when siblings are setting the scene for conflict.  How the parent deals with those kinds of situation has long-term implications for family relationships in adult life.

I have no doubt that most of us know highly intelligent adults who act like immature children with a parent.  When old patterns of conflict are carried into adulthood one thing is obvious.  The people involved are seeking some emotional release that goes very deep.

From NLP we have questions that help to get to the root of the problem and uncover the positive motivation that will bring understanding.  These are helpful questions.

‘For what purpose did you say that?’

‘To encourage my daughter.’

 ‘Why is that important?’

‘I want her to know she look beautiful.’

‘Why is that important.’

‘Because I want her to feel good about herself.’

‘Why is that important?’

‘Because I love her and want her to feel loved by me.’

Comfortable familiarity
There is a comfortable familiarity to engaging in mother/daughter conflict that many people are unwilling to give up.  This may explain why intelligent people who have the communication skills to relate more positively are not motivated to do so.

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