Psychotherapist shares tips to heal childhood trauma and move towards better communication

Parenting plays a significant part in shaping kids and their behavior as adults. While most of it stems from parents interacting with their children, kids also pick up a lot of things from seeing parents interact with each other. TikTok influencer @loveandtherapy recently made a video about how couples who lacked communication impacted their children. The video has become popular, amassing over 1.8 million views on the platform with 629 comments.

The video contains a text overlay that states how uncommunicative parents can result in their kids exhibiting a few tell-tale signs when they are upset. She identifies four of these behaviors and shares them with the viewers throughout the video. The first sign is "Withholding or withdrawing affection." In this scenario, we witness individuals refuse to engage with others and become silent.

Another clear indication that she points out is "rage cleaning." Certain individuals do not know how to properly approach situations of conflict and resort to obsessively cleaning to somehow process difficult emotions. If they put the same efforts into engaging in conversation and understanding where things went wrong, that would yield better results for them.

The influencer then highlights a very noticeable trait wherein people showcased body language that was passive-aggressive. Similar to the other two coping mechanisms, this also arises out of an inability to express one's emotion and cope with it through body language. While this may seem more straightforward, it doesn't help the situation and only makes it worse.

The final sign is when individuals refuse to accept support and do everything themselves as a way of seeming independent. Since they are not able to talk about what they are feeling, they avoid routine conversations and force themselves to do everything on their own. Even though this may work for a short period, individuals will need help from their loved ones at one point or the other.

Her observations resonated with a lot of viewers on the social media site and they shared their thoughts in the comments section. @melani_draws commented, "I didn't know rage cleaning was something other people did. I thought only I did it." Another user, @cplily, shared, "My mom got mad at me once and ignored me for two weeks in the same house. It has taken a lot of work to not stonewall as an adult when I'm upset."

Sharing their views on how couples can communicate better to avoid stemming issues, experienced relationship coach Erin Bentley (@totalrelationshipcoach) shares some great advice. He suggests that the primary reason why relationships fail is because people misunderstand the purpose of the communication. He says, "The purpose of communication isn't communication. It's connection."

So, when talking to each other, individuals should focus on what their partner is really trying to say, or as he puts it, look for "the deeper need underneath." Erin also talks about how individuals can check in with their partners about what they think they need. Doing so bridges a lot of communication issues that often arise in most relationships. Therefore, while communicating with your partner is essential, it also becomes necessary to listen and connect with each other properly.