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August 5 - August 8, 2024
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The point of this story is twofold. First, it’s that each generation does their best with the knowledge and resources they have. Second, it’s that the way our loving, nurturing parents raised us—cutting edge as it may have been at the time—may be absolutely out of step with the latest science and research on child development.
Attachment is rooted in safety—a human child is dependent on a caregiver for survival and that means being lovable so someone will be there to care for you. In each interaction, children are unknowingly asking, “Am I lovable? When? Am I safe? How do I stay/get safe?”
Secure attachment. In a secure attachment, a child feels safe, seen, secure, and soothed. The caregiver is emotionally available for the child’s experiences. Secure attachment relationships include rupture (mistakes, challenges, disconnections) and repair. (Remember, this does not require perfection on the part of the caregiver. More on this later.) In a secure attachment relationship, the adult takes responsibility for their own regulation.
Attachment relationships can change. If you are reading this after years of parenting or early care and education, know that it is never too early or too late to work toward a secure attachment. Wherever you are right now is a great place to start. The brain is flexible and can form new habits and patterns.
Sometimes children do understand that the behavior isn’t socially appropriate, but they don’t yet have the self-regulation skills to interrupt their impulse.
We may forget that some three-year-olds can learn to zip their jacket, so we do it for them, but we expect them to manage big emotions by themselves and efficiently. Kids need our help, our intentional response, to build the self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills that will give them the ability and confidence to do something different next time.
A change in routine or expectation in the morning right after a full night of sleep and breakfast may feel easier to accept than a change in expectation at dinnertime, when everyone is getting snoozy, feeling hungry, and has worked all day to process the world. The things that drain our battery are cumulative throughout the day, and that can affect our behavior. For example, in one study, judges were “significantly more likely to deny parole to a prisoner if the hearing was just before lunchtime. . . . Immediately after lunch, the judges began granting paroles with their customary frequency.”7
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Examples of Proprioceptive Input Going for a walk Running Jumping into a pile of pillows Participating in a relay race Doing frog jumps Having a hug Wearing a baby Rolling up a blanket or yoga mat Pushing something heavy Carrying something weighted Dancing Using resistance bands
He always became wobbly as he got close to nap time, struggling to maintain his balance. We helped support his vestibular sense through activities such as swinging, going upside down in yoga, or dipping in our arms. He liked to spin in an office chair and bounce on a yoga ball to calm before his nap.
Imagine if we had phrases like “butterflies in my stomach” to identify and communicate when we felt angry, sad, embarrassed, disappointed, scared, etc.
There are five ways to proactively recharge the nervous system before the red battery light comes on:
A predictable, consistent schedule for food lets children know that they will have opportunities to eat throughout the day.
When we don’t have access to the sleep our bodies need, accessing regulation is really hard. We can proactively support our regulation by getting as much sleep as possible in a given season.
Brain breaks are when we reduce the stimuli around us—decreasing light, sound, and touch. This gives our nervous system a break from scanning the environment to try and keep us safe.
Or you see it in the child who cannot stop climbing your body or jumping off the things around them. There’s actually a scientific explanation for that: Our bodies need proprioceptive input (aka big body play; see here for a list of examples) every ninety minutes to two hours.
You don’t have to carve out time for proprioceptive input, but instead you can build those moments with a child into your day. “I wonder how many frog jumps it will take to get from here to the door to go outside.” “Oh no! The floor is hot lava. How can we get to the kitchen?” “Let’s put on your favorite song. I wonder if we can clean up the toys before it ends. Ready, set, go!”
Being regulated means your nervous system is at ease; it feels safe and is thus able to control how calm and/or alert you are. Dysregulation can show up in many forms, which we will explore in more depth in Part II. You can proactively give yourself and your children a chance to recharge your batteries all day long.
Once Mara had emotionally regulated and processed, then, and only then, was she able to tell me she was all done, accessing her whole brain for communication and problem solving. Then, and only then, was she ready to learn about her reactive behavior versus what she could do next time. She knows she isn’t supposed to hit me. She doesn’t want to hit me. Just like I don’t want to yell at people, and sometimes I do. Sometimes our bodies override our brains because learning how to find the pause between initial reaction and secondary response is a skill to hone. It doesn’t just develop. We are
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I realized I needed to change my phrasing, and my tactics, to reflect the way I wanted to be spoken to if I wanted the children to change how they were speaking to me.
When you talk to children, or to the adults in your life in the presence of children, it’s way more likely you’ll get the language and behavior you’re looking for if you intentionally model it.
Sometimes our reaction in moments like these has less to do with effectively teaching our child and more to do with our insecurities around what the other children or adults are thinking about us. But saying “It’s not okay to hit” to the flailing child—just so that the other kids or the other parents won’t think we condone hitting—doesn’t actually teach Teddy not to hit. Teddy likely knows you don’t want him to hit. In fact, it’s not the knowledge that “hitting is not okay” that helps a child stop hitting.
In my experience, when adults are consistent with their new behaviors, children’s start to change in about two weeks—sometimes after a period of resistance.
It is physiologically impossible for your sympathetic nervous system to be active at the same time that you are belly breathing (directing your breath into your belly so your belly, rather than your chest, moves in and out with your inhale and exhale).
I started committing to one small act of self-care a day for a week. Just one recharge of the battery at a time that I would focus on.
By sitting on the ground and relaxing my body, rather than towering over him, I sent his nervous system signals that I was not there to attack him. This can help children who are out of control begin the process of feeling safe enough to calm down.
In addition to reciting mantras, I find it also helps to take space, sometimes for just two minutes while my kids are in a safe place (even if they are screaming), so I can just breathe.
You can either be the thermometer and read the temperature of the room and join it, or you can be the thermostat and set the temperature. You have the power to bring the calm.
Be aware of a child’s emotions. Recognize emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching. Listen empathetically and validate a child’s feelings. Label emotions in words a child can understand. Help a child discover appropriate ways to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting situation.2
Children don’t ask, “Hey, do you have spare time for me to have a hard emotion, let it all out, and work through it?” Emotions are spontaneous, they’re unplanned, and often . . . inconvenient.
Mindfulness allows us to recognize that we experience the child’s behavior as a threat, get back into the driver’s seat, and move toward experiencing the child’s behavior as an invitation to connect—even though it feels inconvenient or hard.
We know that when someone is in distress or dysregulated, they will not be able to learn something new or access tools they may have when they’re regulated, so it does not make sense to attempt to teach social skills or challenge them while they are in that state. Children can do emotion processing work while in some forms of dysregulation, but not when they are in distress.
Dysregulation can look like: defiance, silliness, fidgeting, meltdown, bouncing off the walls, zoning out, or disconnecting.
If there are other children or adults around, you may feel the natural urge to say something to the child, such as “It’s not okay to hit,” but that phrase won’t lead to decreased hitting. It’s most likely you have the urge to say something like that because you want the other children or adults to know you don’t condone hitting, but they probably already know that about you. In this moment try to give yourself permission to prioritize calming, aka co-regulation.
“This is a calming moment rather than a teaching moment,” which would lead to our belief, maybe “If I take a breath, I can figure out what to do.” This can lead to an action, such as “I will take a breath so I can bring the calm and co-regulate with my child.”
If we tell a child their feelings are welcome, but we try to make their feelings go away as fast as possible for our own comfort, what we are really saying is “Only some of your feelings are welcome,” or “My comfort is more important than your feelings.”
Resist the urge to stop the child from expressing. Please avoid teaching surface acting. Remember that crying is a normal and healthy way to express.
When our sensory needs are not met, when our battery needs to be charged, emotions can amplify. When you’re in the allowing phase, check in with the battery questions first to see if a low battery is the root of your child’s really big feeling.
Security in our feelings means recognizing that we won’t feel this way forever so it’s safe to feel it for now. I like to tell children that it’s like clouds in the sky. The rain cloud above us right now is slowly moving and a new cloud will be overhead soon. Our goal is to help them see the emotion they’re experiencing right now as one out of many that they might feel over time. Whether we enjoy the feeling or not, we know it won’t always feel like this.
What should I do if she’s refusing coping support?” one of our Seed & Sew village members asked. We know the phases and it’s tempting to rush to work through them to get to problem solving and be done with this feeling. However, emotions can take time to process. Sometimes kiddos need time to practice feeling their emotion and aren’t ready to cope and move on. If you’ve guided them through the phases and see them stopping at one point, pause and give them time and space to feel and express before returning to offer coping support. Tom Petty nailed it: “The waiting is the hardest part.” The
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A small percentage of children require physical space to express. This should remain a last resort because it can be easily mistaken by the child as a rejection of their emotions. When a child needs space to express, it’s important to check in with them and also verbalize that you are there with and for them when they’re ready, just as Sidra said, “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
Allowing the fear without rushing it away. Instead of “You don’t have to be scared at bedtime, I’m just downstairs.” Try, “It can feel scary to be alone. I get that.”
It’s our job to set boundaries, and it’s a child’s job to push them, to see if they’re real, to see if we will really keep them safe. Boundaries are designed to create an entryway, not to put up a wall.
Boundaries are essential for secure attachment relationships.
The reality, however, is that I’ve never set a boundary for a child and had them respond, “Great, I can’t wait to follow it!” Shifting my expectations around their response has helped me feel better prepared for how to respond to them. When I set a boundary, I expect the child to be curious about it—to wonder if they can depend on me to hold it. They’re so good at asking (through behavior), “What should I expect from you when I do/say . . . ?” When my goal moved from obedience to curiosity, my internal response softened. I was no longer mad at the tiny human in front of me for being curious
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One of our favorite phrases to use just before stating a boundary is “I’m not mad at you. You’re not in trouble.” Then proceed with the boundary.
We often tell children what they can’t do, but what if we included what they can do? We can find the yes. “I won’t let you climb on that table. You could climb on the couch if you need to move your body.” If they climb on the table, then it’s your job to hold that boundary, rather than letting them stay on the table. You can help them down and say, “The table is not for climbing. You can climb on the couch.” You might even stay by the table to redirect them to the couch if they try again. They are looking to see where that boundary lives. Will you actually hold the line? Or are they really
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Boundaries can help the nervous system feel safe. It can be very overwhelming for children if they feel like ultimately the decisions are always up to them.
They are not responsible for your feelings about their feelings.
“My child is doing the best they can with the tools they have in this moment. They need my support.” Now we can step back and get curious: What is the child trying to communicate?
