When Independence Hurts: A Parenting Update and What Adult Therapy Teaches Me

After my first post about our morning routine and encouraging independence, many friends asked me: “What happened in the days after?”

So I decided to write an update and also share something I’ve been noticing in my work with adult clients that connects closely to this experience.

What Happened After I Changed My Approach

For the next few days, I used the same approach.

As you can imagine, it didn’t work perfectly.

She stayed in bed for a long time, reading books, playing with her blanket, daydreaming. Some mornings there were tears, bargaining, and confusion. She didn’t understand why the routine had changed.

And that makes sense.

This is a learning process. She is getting used to it.

When I started seeing it this way, I noticed something important in myself: I reacted less strongly to her tears. I no longer felt the same urge to immediately fix or rescue.

Her tears were not a sign that I was harming her. They were the pain of growing up.

“I Am a Big Kid Now”

I told her that I wanted her to be a “big kid,” not a baby and that big kids try to do things on their own.

She looked at me carefully, taking in this new expectation.

Then she said:

“Yes, I am a big kid.”

Let me be clear: this does not mean I plan to stop helping her.

I am not saying that from now on she must do everything alone, no matter how hard it is.

Parenting is not about pushing children into independence before they are ready.

It is a fine balance:

Encouraging independence

While also letting children know that vulnerability is allowed

And that accepting help is still safe and welcome

This balance cannot be explained clearly to a three-year-old.

What I felt instead, perhaps for the first time, was that her tears were communicating something deeper:

Confusion

Accusation (“Why aren’t you helping me?”)

A child’s need to be loved and helped

And alongside that was my own parental wish: to help her grow and develop.

These two intentions don’t always match neatly.

When Misunderstandings Last Into Adulthood

This kind of mismatch, between a parent’s intention and a child’s experience, can sometimes last far beyond childhood.

I see this often in adult therapy.

One client I work with struggles deeply in their relationship with their mother. At the core is a fear that:

“If I say no, disagree, or show who I really am, my mother will stop loving me.”

In their mind, disagreement equals abandonment.

When I asked where this belief came from, they shared childhood examples. One stood out.

Their mother enrolled them in many high-end extracurricular classes, such as tennis, piano, and others. As a child, they hated these classes. But their parents insisted.

As an adult, the client recognises that these experiences contributed to their professional success.

Yet emotionally, they grew up with an unspoken rule:

I must be strong, capable, and perfect to be loved.

I don’t know whether their parents would truly stop loving them if they showed imperfection. In fact, I suspect most parents wouldn’t.

But what matters clinically is this: the child’s interpretation stayed with them.

Parenting Is Not About Pleasing

Being a parent is not the same as being a lover or a friend.

We don’t always do what our children want. We carry a responsibility to help them grow according to:

• Their strengths

• Their vulnerabilities

• And the realities of the world they are growing into

We grow alongside our children. We experience the pain of growing up with them. We try to protect them from harm, but this care is often hard to express, especially when children are very young.

And when children get older, we may struggle to find the right timing or words to explain our intentions.

If this communication is delayed or missed, children may carry misunderstandings about their parents, and about love well into adulthood.

Love Languages and Missed Signals

This is especially true when parents and children express and receive love in different ways.

In The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman, he describes common ways people experience love, such as:

• Quality time

• Physical touch

• Words of affirmation

• Acts of service

• Practical provision

Many children naturally seek quality time and physical closeness.

But some parents express love primarily through:

• Practical help

• High expectations

• Discipline

Or even harsh words meant to “prepare” a child for the future

When love languages don’t match, love can be present but not felt.

This doesn’t mean parents didn’t care. It means the signal didn’t land.

When possible, it helps to slow down and try to understand each other’s perspectives, while there is still time.

Naming feelings, sharing intentions, and gently checking misunderstandings can allow both parents and children to see the care behind each other’s actions.

A Therapist-Mother Reflection

As a therapist and a mother, I am constantly learning.

Parenting is not about avoiding tears, it is about helping children grow without losing emotional safety.

If you are a parent, what are you finding hardest right now?

You’re not alone.

Our mission is to offer Hong Kong parents and families a low-cost, evidence-based alternative to:

• Long public mental health waiting lists

• Expensive private services

  
  

We are UK NHS-trained, Hong Kong-born mental health practitioners, offering psychoeducation and 1-1 support based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to support:

• Parents struggling with parenting stress

• Parent-child relationship difficulties

• Parents witnessing their children’s emotional or behavioural challenges

  
  

We work online with parents in Hong Kong, helping families make meaningful, sustainable change together.