'I worked with prisoners for 12 years. Here's how it influenced my parenting.'

Before I became a parenting coach, I used to run groups with male prisoners. I sat in rooms with armed robbers, murderers, and addicts and talked about changing their behaviour so they could break their offending cycle. This led to some in-depth discussions about their early childhood experiences and how they fell into the path of crime, and as you can imagine, I heard stories that I’ve never been able to forget. 

As harrowing as some tales were, my gaol work prepared me well for parenting. It prompted me to retrain as a parenting coach and educator, and now I spend my time sharing what I’ve learned with parents who want to zero in on what their children need most from them. 

Image: Supplied

The common theme in most of the inmates' backgrounds was the lack of emotional support they experienced growing up. I learned that when a child’s needs are repeatedly neglected, they never recover from this, they spend a lifetime looking to get their needs met in order to feel safe, secure, and loved – even as an adult. 

It’s these realisations that govern my parenting today, and to be honest, they’ve made my life easier. 

Here’s how my work with prisoners influences my parenting:

There’s no such thing as bad behaviour, only unmet needs.

Working with inmates taught me that behaviour runs deep and that there’s always some primal need driving it. Here, we’re talking about the deep down needs that all kids have: to be loved, nurtured, supported, and encouraged. For most of the prisoners I worked with, these needs were woefully neglected and came out in increasingly unproductive behaviour as they grew older. 

But unmet needs can be present in all children and persist as a driving force behind big behaviour if we continue to miss them. Unfortunately, society is obsessed with children and their behaviour, so most discipline techniques focus on the unwanted behaviour, not the need behind it.

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Children are hard wired to get their needs met.

The prisoners showed me how powerful primal needs can be and what can happen if they’re continually missed. As children, most inmates missed out on security, a sense of belonging, and feeling safe. They lacked role models and guidance, as well as structure and routine; they even lacked the support necessary to explore their world safely. These are examples of primal needs that all children have, regardless of the environment they’re born into. 

For many of these prisoners, once they reached their tweens, they looked to other ways to get their needs met. They relied less on their family; instead joining gangs, experimenting with crime, drugs and violence, and looking to new, older role models who were able to meet the needs their families could not. The rebellion provided fun and excitement; the older peers offered guidance and a sense of belonging. The drugs, crime, and violence provided a way of dealing with a range of different emotions that had previously been unresolved. 

When attention is needed, we have to pay attention.

The big takeaway: one way or another, children will get their needs met, even if it’s through unproductive means. This doesn’t just apply to abused or neglected children. If it’s a need for attention from you that is going unmet, your child will learn that they need to use misbehaviour to get your focus. If that doesn’t work, they’ll use some other strategy to do the job. Once they’re in their double digits, their world opens up and so do opportunities for resolving persistent unmet needs. 

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EQ beats IQ.

So how do we ensure we meet these needs? The easiest way is to be emotionally available. Being okay with emotions means tuning into their needs and helping kids experience their feelings. It also means teaching them to solve their problems so they don’t rely on behaviour to express themselves. 

Many of us are missing the mark when it comes to supporting feelings. The thing is, if we’re not taught about emotions by our parents (who may not have had access to these resources themselves), we can’t possibly pass the lessons on to our kids. This means we have a big job to do. We have to fill the gaps in our emotional intelligence if we want to give this to our kids. Research says that EQ beats IQ when it comes to happiness and success in life – and my time with prisoners supports that idea.

While all this might sound a bit heavy, it’s helped me parent with more ease and confidence, because I know where to focus my energy. I’ve let go of perfection and instead focus on meeting needs and being emotionally available as much as possible. In day-to-day life this translates to less guilt and stress for me, and fewer meltdowns and misbehaviour in my kids. Plus, I get to feel more at ease about the sort of life I’m setting them up for. 

Karina is a Sydney-based parenting coach and author, who loves helping mums embrace no-stress, guilt-free parenting, and raise amazing kids – the easier way. Her new book, Chilled Out Mum is available here.  

Feature Image: Supplied.