Can Parents Talk to Their Children Too Much?

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“You can’t bear the silence.”

That’s what a psychologist said to me during a weekend seminar on leadership.

It was the first evening of the seminar, and we were all sitting on chairs in a circle waiting for the psychologist leading the seminar to tell us what would happen next.

Or at least I was.

After a while, I finally broke the silence by making a joke. I don’t remember the joke, but I am fairly certain the other participants of the seminar laughed, and I was pleased with myself.

Until the psychologist exclaimed that I struggle with sitting in silence.

I was taken aback. I thought I was helping the group along by breaking the silence—that I was, in a very real way, showing leadership skills. And then I learned that I was doing the opposite.

This memory has stuck with me for over a decade now and I often find myself thinking back to it when I or another person around me feels compelled to break a silent moment.

We Constantly Narrate Children's Experience

As a parent, the value of silence has taken on a whole new importance for me. Being able to be in silence with our children is one of the greatest gifts we can give them—yet it's something that many parents (including myself at times) really struggle with.

We often communicate with children using phrases like:

• “Are you enjoying this?”
• “Does this taste good?”
• “Would you like to try the slide?”
• “Well done!”
• “You’ve drawn a pony!”
• “You seem upset because you can’t have ice cream at the moment.”

These types of questions and remarks shift a child’s focus from experiencing the moment fully with their senses and emotions to analyzing the experience mentally. Rather than simply enjoying the moment, they begin to contemplate their enjoyment, learning to assess their feelings during joyful times.

Instead of fully tasting and relishing their food with all their senses, they start to judge their preference for the food. Rather than absorbing the playground atmosphere and naturally responding to it, they start to consider their actions and societal expectations.

Instead of being wholly absorbed in an activity for its own sake, possibly without any specific goal, they now evaluate their performance, understanding that there is an expectation to do well. Rather than being engrossed in the act of drawing and experiencing it as a holistic activity, they become aware of the act itself.

Instead of allowing an emotion to flow through them and experiencing it fully, they begin to intellectualize their frustration.

In all these situations, we guide our children to stop experiencing the moment in their body, and instead evaluate it, think about it. We get them out of their body and into their head. We teach them to disconnect from their body, from their authentic self, and to be in their mind—the opposite of what we, as adults, try to learn through meditation, mindfulness, and other practices aimed at reconnecting us to our body.

At the same time, we also create distance with our children. By compelling our child to assess the moment (or by doing it ourselves), we miss the opportunity to experience the moment alongside them. Consequently, we too are not embodying our authentic selves.

There may be several reasons we tend to do this.

Some have to do with our own insecurities or discomfort. We may simply feel uncomfortable in silence; perhaps because we never learned to simply be in silence ourselves. We may struggle just being in the present moment, and narrating our child’s experience or asking questions is one way to distract ourselves.

But we often do so consciously, even though we realize that it is mentally and emotionally taxing. Our culture believes that we need to describe to children everything they experience or do so that they can make sense of the world and their emotions.

Of course, there is a time and place for this. But most people in our culture could probably narrate or comment on what their child does or feels much less often than they do.

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Children first need to experience their emotions and be in the moment before we can help them make sense of them through labels.

What We Can Learn From Other Cultures

In indigenous and hunter-gatherer cultures (which is how we have lived for most of human history) there is much less verbal instruction. Children are embedded in the community and participate (playfully) in daily chores; they observe and play for much of the day in mixed-age playgroups. When helping with chores, they simply copy what people around them do and receive minimal verbal input.

Meanwhile, adults around them are deeply attuned and present. When a child gets upset, someone is there to hold and be with them, who provides a loving space where it is OK to feel any negative emotions.

Children from these cultures tend to be much happier, kinder, more confident, and more competent than children in our culture today. They learn to feel at ease and comfortable with any emotions that arise and they are able to be more in the present moment instead of constantly evaluating what is happening.

If you are curious, I would encourage you to try it out for yourself. Be silent with your child for half an hour or so. Put your phone aside, and simply be present in the moment. Avoid commenting, instructing, asking questions, praising, or any other way of narrating or directing your child’s behavior. Instead, mirror their expressions by, for example, laughing with them when they laugh. If they get frustrated, simply be there with them and allow them to feel what they feel.

Notice how this way of being with your child makes you feel, as well as how it affects your child.

Perhaps it offers a way to connect differently with your child—and to feel less exhausted at the same time.

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