Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know how to say: 'I'm lonely, in pain, frightened' - distress which then unfairly comes out as an attack on the safest, kindest, most reliable thing in the child's world: the parent.

Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton

Attack Become Child Distress Explicit Frightened Good Hearing How Instead Know Listening Lonely Means Most Out Pain Parent Parents Reliable Safest Say Then Thing Unfairly Very Which Words World

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