The Tense Household
A parent coach’s guide on how to identify and release tension in your home
“Growing up my home was just very… tense.”
No parent wants to imagine their child describing their childhood home this way. Yet I’ve heard my clients describe their home to me in this way more often than not.
So how do we end up with these tense households? I am pulling together what I’ve learned in my years as a parent and teen coach to try and explain just that. Maybe if we knew how to identify the main sources of tension and how to address them, families would have a better shot at being described as supportive, resilient, and free (rather than so dang tense).
What are the main sources of tension in families?
1.Unspoken things. Unspoken things have a way of driving wedges between people. As the amazing Mr. Rogers said, “if it’s mentionable it’s manageable”. Then surely the opposite must be true of unspoken things, “if it’s not being mentioned, it’s going to become unmanageable”. Somehow people have been given the impression that talking about things will only make them worse or more real. However, that is counterintuitive to everything we know about humans. Talking about things and putting words to feelings actually lowers a human’s stress level and raises their sense of hope. It’s actually the fear of talking about them that makes things worse. Also keep in mind, children can sense topics that are avoided at a shockingly young age. That means they know something isn’t being discussed, but they don’t know why. This creates tension and leaves children to fill in their own blanks, often incorrectly and often blaming themselves (because they’re tiny egomaniacs!).
So how do you start speaking about unspoken things?
Identify what you don’t like talking about (common examples are family drama, former abuse/neglect, unpleasant feelings, past mistakes, etc.). Now take a moment and ask how these things make you feel. A great way to make the unspeakable things speakable is to begin by sticking with “facts + feelings”. What I mean by that is first separate the facts of the unspoken situation into a list (these are only objective facts, not clouded by opinions or feelings). Example: Grandma is an alcoholic. She is drunk at most family functions. She frequently gets angry and says hurtful things to everyone at these functions. She has had this problem since I was a child. No one has ever talked about it out loud and she has not received treatment. Now list the feelings that come up in relation to these facts. Example: I feel sad that we cannot have a calm family gathering. I feel angry that she didn’t see this was a problem when I was a child and stop. I feel guilty that my children have an alcoholic grandmother. I feel afraid I will be like her one day. I feel hopeless because I don’t know what to do about the situation. The final step is saying exactly those things out loud to your family. You may worry that it will make your children upset (you will worry about a million things, really), but what it really does is give them context. They will now understand you and the situation better. They will learn it’s not their fault, or that they aren’t crazy for feeling like something is up. It will also diffuse your feelings around the situation. It is always easier to be happy in a home where there are no secrets or unspoken things. Plus — even if the kids do get upset — it’s ok to feel upset. Grandma being an alcoholic is an upsetting thing. Feeling your feelings won’t hurt you. But feeling tension with no context, no end in sight, and not being able to talk about it will.
2. Unhealed traumas. I often say to parents: Whatever we aren’t willing to heal ourselves, we place the burden onto our children to have to heal for us. A huge source of tension in households are parents who are still carrying around unhealed past traumas. Children will trigger any unresolved stuff (It’s like they’re little trigger hunters!), and you want to be careful not to blame them for triggering you, when you should really blame the trauma for making you so easily triggered. We owe it to our children and ourselves to not give up on healing our past. Example: A teenager with ADHD — as designed — forgets to turn in their homework for the 1,000th time. Rather than see this as normal behavior for an ADHD teen and that their kid needs ample time and patience in order to figure this out on their own, the parent is triggered due to their childhood trauma where beating/shaming occurred as a result of them making this same mistake. They will quickly find themselves making decisions out of fear, which could include: becoming their full-time homework manager, beating/shaming them into submission, or speaking to their child as if they are a failure and disappointment. This creates a tense culture because the reactions don’t match the actions. In these families parents are overreacting and losing patience constantly — since they are not reacting to their children but to their own triggers/traumas. The tension comes from your reactions not being predictable, and therefore everyone must tip-toe around because they cannot predict how you will react.
How do you stop allowing your past trauma to create a tense present-day household?
It’s simple, but hard. Heal your past. How do you know if you have past stuff to heal? If you ever feel out of control of your emotions. Which is a lot more of us than we want to admit. And let me say this clearly: healing is possible for everyone. Begin by acknowledging it. Acknowledge that your past was harmful and it still lives with you today, acknowledge that you are reacting to your triggers not your kids/partner, acknowledge that you can’t fix this on your own. Seek therapy, check out a support group, go on a silent retreat, read some books, try a meditation class — whatever works for you. Just don’t give up on healing unless you’re willing to acknowledge that you are passing that burden on to the next generation to heal.
3. Inauthenticity. Similar to unspoken things, tense households are often born out of people not being able to be authentic in their own homes. If you have a culture at home that includes a very narrow path for approval, things are going to feel pretty tense pretty easily. Make a list of paths your child would take that would disappoint you. The longer the list, the more tense the household. Humans needs a wide path for self-discovery. We need room for error to discover who we are/are not, we need the people in our lives to believe we are capable even when we fail, and we need those who love us to have an open mind as to what is the “right” kind of person to be. But when we have a tight, suffocating, narrow path that everyone in the family must follow there is too much room for disappointment and shame. Example: You have made it very clear your child’s entire life that college is mandatory and those who don’t go are less-than. Your child would be happier as a cosmetologist or mechanic but they are now faced with the decision between happiness and disappointing you. You are now an obstacle to their happiness. Tension and division in the household will only grow as time passes. Before we can widen the path of acceptance for our kids, we have to acknowledge where the narrow path came from in the first place. Our society judges parents based on the immediate performance of their child. Parents are under constant scrutiny and are therefore desperate to constantly prove they are doing a good job. The best way to reassure themselves — and the world — is by having a child who perfectly walks the narrow path of “doing well”. However, that’s ridiculous! Parents being judged on how their child is doing is like judging a cake when it’s half baked or a painting when it’s half finished. Kids are supposed to be a total mess for a lot of their childhood. In fact — if they aren’t — you likely have a child who is struggling internally with anxiety. So if you want to lower the tension in your household by creating a more authentic family, you’ll have to let go the societal pressure to constantly “prove” you’re doing a good job. That approval is supposed to originate from within and be based on your internal sense of contentment in knowing you are doing the best you can to hold a safe space for your family.
How do you become a more authentic family?
It starts with you. How many decisions did you make in your life because you had to walk that same narrow path of acceptance? Just like in #2, it is time to heal those wounds and begin allowing your more authentic self to come forward. Then make a decision that you will question all of the “requirements” you have for your child. Like I said before, literally make a list of the paths your child could take that would disappoint you. Now really force yourself to go line by line and see how you could become more accepting of those paths. Is it really the end of the world — if my child is fulfilled/exploring paths toward fulfillment— if they are an emo kid or a jock? A Republican or a Democrat? A sanitation worker or a hedge fund operator? A loner or a socialite? Example: Here is my personal list for our 15 year-old son: 1. Rapist 2. Pedophile 3. Murderer 4. Abuser 5. The kind of person who orders the most expensive food/drinks and then says “let’s split the check down the middle”. (That last one is a joke, kind of.)
Most people don’t want to think of the home they’ve created as tense. But the best way to ensure you haven’t created a tense household is to spend some time thinking and talking about things you don’t want to think and talk about. Once you begin to liberate the tension in your home it will feel ridiculous as to why you allowed that tension to build in the first place.
I hope you take away from this article that you can be free. And you can set your families free. You are not destined to live with this tension. Humans are incredible things and they are capable of reshaping their history and their present experience in profound ways. In other words, you can create the life you want to live — and you can allow room for the people you love to do the same. Now get to work!
