The Rashomon Effect: Understand it to improve your relationship with your kid.
3 Pillars Parent Newsletter #32
By: Catherine Lynch and Glenn Collins
Dear Awesome Parent,
Do you and your kid not always see eye to eye? Do you sometimes wonder if they’re from another planet? If so, this one’s for you!
The Rashomon Effect: Understand it to improve your relationship with your kid.
In 1950, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa released Rashomon. It was a revolutionary film that recounted the murder of a samurai from four different and contradictory viewpoints: the samurai, his wife, a bandit, and a woodcutter. It delved into the fact that “objective reality” is difficult to pin down. Everyone experiences and interprets “reality” through their own personal lens, which is colored by their experiences, identity, world view, and self-interest. At the end of the film, the audience is left to wonder what actually happened: Were any of the accounts truthful? Or were they all truthful, just filtered through the lenses of the different observers?
This movie depicted something so universal to human experience that it gave birth to a new phrase: “the Rashomon effect.” It’s used to describe the phenomena of how different people who witness the same events can come up with different, but equally reasonable, accounts of what happened.
You might be wondering: “How does the Rashomon effect apply to parenting?”
Have you ever had an interaction with your kid (making a plan, explaining something, or conflict, for example) where your perception of the interaction turned out to be completely different from your kid’s? You thought you were being clear and your actions completely justified on the one hand. And on the other, your kid perceived things far differently. From their perspective you were unclear and your actions were totally unjustified! This is the Rashomon effect in action.
How someone perceives things is their reality. When your kid’s perception of events is different from yours, that’s what’s true to them. That’s their reality. Just as your perception is your reality.
It’s easy to forget in the heat of the moment, but their thoughts, beliefs and feelings are just as real and valid to them as yours are to you. This happens all the time, to all of us, and how we handle it plays a huge role in the quality of our relationship with our kids.
Most of us believe there’s an “objective reality” which is independent of what anyone believes about it - the pen is on the table, for example, or the sky is blue. While this may be true, the fact is: we all inhabit our own personal realities. We all bring our prior experiences, beliefs, values, and even how we’re feeling at that moment to our perception of events. They all significantly influence how we perceive things. What’s real to us.
When your kid comes home from school and you say “How was your day?” Your intent might be simply to start a conversation and connect. But if they’ve had a rough day, they may be thinking “Why are they so nosy? Why can’t I have any privacy? I wish they’d just leave me alone!”
What’s the reality of the situation? Who’s perception is correct? Often there is no “right” answer, there are just different perspectives. To each of you, your experience of a situation is the reality you inhabit.
To insist that your version is “right” and theirs is “wrong” denies their experience. You might disagree with their perception, but to deny that it has validity is to deny their reality. It’s valid to them. This is especially true when emotions or beliefs are involved and we feel the other person is being unreasonable. “You can’t be upset over that. How can you believe that? That didn’t hurt. It’s not that bad….”
Any time we insist our version of reality is the only right one and deny the validity of their experience, we’re setting the stage for disconnection. We’re chipping away at their sense of belonging. We’re weakening their sense of “we” and making them less likely to accept our influence in the future.
What to do instead?
Maintain a sense of curiosity. Literally and figuratively we see things differently than our kids - from higher in the air, through the lens of experience, our own world view, biases, etc. When there’s misunderstanding and miscommunication, we should check our preconceptions and ask our kids how they’re perceiving the situation. Finding a way to point out and laugh at our differing perspectives can go a long way to defusing tension.
Clarity is Kindness. Be even more clear than you think you need to be. One person’s clear is another person’s muddy. Ask questions to make sure they’re hearing what you’re trying to communicate. And vice versa.
Maintain perspective. This thing that there’s disagreement over - how important is it really, in the grand scheme of things? Can you give in gracefully, thus role modeling that we’re all a work in progress, and that perfection isn’t the goal in your family?
Keep the End in Mind. How does the resolution of this issue fit into your overall goal of having a good relationship with your child when they’re grown?
Home Practice:
Think back on a time when you and one of your kids had a difference in perspective. How did you resolve it? Would you resolve it differently now, with the benefit of hindsight?
What do you and your kids regularly have differences of perception over? Choose one to talk about through the lens of differences in perception when everyone involved is in a good mood.
Cardinal
Catherine put the surplus sunflower and melon seeds on the patio table for the backyard critters to eat. It didn’t take long for this handsome fellow to spot the bounty!