Every once in a while I feel compelled to clear up some “misinformation” ubiquitously shared. Today, the focus is understanding gaslighting.
Gaslighting is when someone questions another’s perception of their reality. In the broadest terms, they try to tell you that you don’t feel what you feel or think what you think. And this is key: the goal is to manipulate your reality so they gain power and control over you.
Gaslighting is NOT people having a different opinion, debating with you, or trying to help you feel better; as long as the person acknowledges your perspective (note: I didn’t say agree with your perspective).
The origins of this term
It’s been reported the term gaslighting comes from the 1938 play and subsequent movie “Gas Light,” where a husband attempts to convince his wife that she is going insane by manipulating the gas lights in their home.
As a therapist I hear couple’s bandy this term at each other regularly and incorrectly. It’s up there with the number of times a day I hear someone label another as a Narcissist. Typically, the person does not qualify for an actual diagnosis of Narcissistic (personality disorder).
Interestingly, the place I NEVER hear this term used is from parents or teachers regarding their interactions with children. And, it is the area I see the MOST gaslighting.
How do adults’ gaslight children?
Adults gaslight children when they dismiss or deny a child’s perspective: the child’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions, beliefs, and/or body sensations. In the rush to fix/control/manage/organize/persuade/and even teach children, adults might be gaslighting.
Consider this example I witnessed when I was doing a classroom observation between a four-year-old boy and his teacher:
Child: “Teacher, I want a turn with the bikes. I’ve been waiting, but Becca won’t give me a chance to ride.”
Teacher (in a chipper tone of voice): “We have so many other things to play with out here. You love playing in the mud pit and playing soccer. Why don’t you go try one of those? You will love it.”
How might this example promote your understanding gaslighting? The teacher did not acknowledge the boy’s perspective. At all. In that moment his focus was on getting a turn on the bike. She focused on finding him a different play option. Not the same.
This might read to you like she was trying to be helpful, but when I was videotaping this exchange, it seemed more like the teacher’s attempt to control the child’s behavior. I thought she might believe it would be easier for HER if he just found something else to play with. I wasn’t sure what was going on from the teacher’s perspective, but I do know that she did not actively engage his authentic state of mind, his perspective about waiting so long for a bike. I was curious to hear what she was perceiving in that moment.
Exploring gaslighting: a non-judgmental gaze
When the teacher and I watched the video clip of this exchange, she spoke up right away:
“Laura, sometimes I just can’t handle yet another conflict between two kids. I didn’t have it in me to facilitate a conversation between the two kids about the bike. I just needed him to find something else to do. I admit that I sometimes pick classroom management over child development.”
She was referring to a training I offer teachers called “Moving from Classroom Management toward Child Development”. The training demonstrates that when we focus on developing the child, the classroom gets managed; but when we focus on classroom management, we often hinder child development by missing an opportunity to promote a much-needed skill or offer co-regulation to help the child’s nervous system come back into balance.
What are the risks of gaslighting?
When adults’ gaslight children, even unintentionally, the risk is they don’t feel seen, soothed, safe, or secure. The 4 S’s of attachment. And, as you likely know, secure attachment is foundational for mental and relational health. Symptoms that can arise from not being seen over time? They are manifold, but include anxiety, depression, indecisiveness/self-doubt, trichotillomania, eating disorders, insecurity, relational challenges, and substance issues (to help regulate/numb out). When humans don’t obtain a secure attachment with at least one other adult, it can lead to symptoms such as these or others. In short, a trauma response.
Part of understanding gaslighting includes being accountable to our actions regardless of our intentions. It’s hard to do, but being honest with ourselves promotes mental, and relational, health. For ourselves and for children as well.
The pressures on teachers to MANAGE the class can leave them feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. And parents feel this pressure as well. To make sure their kids “behave.” But when adults focus on developing children’s skills versus managing their behaviors, the classroom/home runs much more smoothly. The children have less challenging behavior. When they “feel felt,” they tend to “do better.”
In this case, the teacher missed an opportunity to facilitate the two children working toward resolution on this issue; instead, she resolved it. Both children lost out on strengthening their conflict resolution skills. But potentially worse, the boy might have walked away not feeling “seen.” The teacher didn’t intend any of that, of course. She was just trying to cope with her stress!
How to avoid gaslighting
The teacher showed vulnerability by sharing with me the overwhelm she felt that informed her response to the boy in that moment.
I validated the teacher’s perspective (you won’t catch me gaslighting in this article!) with this:
“You make sense. It can be exhausting to work with little kids, right? It seems like there is a teachable moment every second! You work so hard.”
I honored her perspective, even though I did not agree with her behavior. Please read that again.
Together we laughed, and I offered her a middle path:
“When you feel like you don’t have it ‘in you’ in the future, I wonder if you might be able to acknowledge the child’s perspective and ask him to come up with solutions instead?”
It might sound like this:
‘Oh, wow. You have been so patient waiting for your turn. It’s hard to wait, huh? So hard and yet you have really been trying and she still hasn’t finished. Gosh, what do you think your choices are until Becca is done with the bike?’
The teacher liked this idea because I honored the fact that she isn’t super human and gave her an option to attune to the child’s perspective with something less challenging than facilitating a discussion between the two kids. Sometimes parents and teachers need to give themselves a break. I did not try to control or manipulate her. I attuned to her overwhelm and offered an option to consider.
The steps to conflict resolution take much more time and effort than the alternative of acknowledging and engaging the child in considering his options. And this “teaching move” I offered to her of acknowledging the child, still teaches him something: he learns his thoughts and feelings matter and he begins to develop a sense of agency over resolving his problems as they arise.
In this way, he might feel seen, soothed, safe, and secure.
Another example I have to share (because I hear it so frequently) is adults’ dismissing a child’s feelings. I cannot count how often I witness some form of children’s feelings being dismissed or denied.
For example, yesterday I heard a neighbor’s child say, “Mommy, I am sad right now.” To which the mother replied (in a cheery tone), “You’re not sad. You’re fine. Smile, there isn’t anything to be sad about.”
Gaslighting.
Move from understanding to extinguishing gaslighting
My theory?
The less we gaslight kids, the more they will develop the skills they need to become adults who will not resort to gaslighting. Please read that again.
When we attune to a child’s perspective, we set the foundation for the learning of appropriate social, emotional, and relational skills to navigate differences in perspective that arise. Understanding gaslighting starts by acknowledging that you might be inadvertently doing it to others, including children. But please gaze upon yourself with compassion: you might not have the skill, or the bandwidth to perform the skill of tolerating the other person’s perspective in the moment. You are human.
I am not sure of my neighbor’s state of mind because I just overheard the brief exchange. But when I work directly with adults dismissing a child’s emotions, they typically tell me they don’t know what “to do” with feelings. They were never shown how to identify, understand, express, and manage emotions; instead, they were told to stop feeling the feeling, rushed to happy, or worse, punished. I hear this cross-culturally and trans-gender. The lack of direct teaching to promote the skills of emotional intelligence seems widespread.
Inadvertently or on purpose, adults manipulate children away from their emotions because the adults don’t know what to do/feel out of control. Remember our definition of gaslighting above. The goal of gaslighting is to gain power or control. I have compassion for adults who feel this way. And yet this is still…
Gaslighting.
Of course, you may be thinking sometimes I just want to limit children’s suffering from the strong emotions. I get that. Even so, dismissing a child’s perspective can, over time, lead to GREATER suffering. No matter what your intention, dismissing or denying a child’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and body sensations is risky.
The good news is you can still validate a child’s perspective even if you don’t agree. I modeled this for you with my validation of the teacher above. That’s just one way to do this. Contact me if you need more guidance with this!
Another reason I do this work with early childhood: if we look at the problems we have today, with adults, we can commit to preventing some of those problems in the future by changing how we teach children. Let’s add honoring children’s perspectives to the list of our commitments!
Feel free to visit my You Tube Channel for ways to attune to a child’s perspective.
#gaslightingdefined
#doingbetterforchildren
#workingsmarternotharder
#21stcenturyteaching