Why look at your ability to reflect as a parent? When do you have the time? If parents are able to reflect on their child or teenager’s “internal world”, then they have the capacity to think about that other person’s desires, needs and beliefs. This mentalisation, is the psychological process of envisaging the mind of the other. The ability of the parent to interpret the child’s behaviour in terms of intentional mental states e.g. their needs; desires; feelings about events/people; their beliefs about the world/themselves; their goals and their purpose. As a parent or as a person within a relationship – at the point of conflict or disconnection, we should ask “What’s the need behind the behaviour?” This is what drives that person’s behaviour.
