I have another question here.
Is it my place to intervene if my kids express that they don't feel like they can be themselves with their dad?
It's almost like they're scared of how he'd react to certain things that they might say.
Yeah. And I would want to understand what that fear is—what it is that they’re experiencing that makes them feel like they can’t share.
In that situation, I’m not trying to put their father down or throw him under the bus, but maybe it’s asking, “What makes you say that?” or “Help me understand what is driving this.”
And, “Can you give me an example of what makes you feel that way?”
So then that information could be taken to the father in this situation and say, “Hey, I just want to provide some feedback. This is what was said,” or help the child talk with him about it.
Depending on the nature of the relationship—if it’s highly conflictual or combative—then that might not be recommended.
So, as an adult, you might say, “I just want to share this with you. This is what our child said.”
Those are the kinds of things where we can avoid hard conversations, but hard conversations are things we need to have.
We need to experience hard conversations, and we don’t want to avoid them.
So my suggestion is: let’s lean into some hard conversations.
If your child’s saying that, maybe ask, “Hey, give me an example,” or “What makes you say that?”
There’s curiosity, and we’re trying to let them know from a place of love that we care about them and want to understand what they’re experiencing.