More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 7 - January 20, 2020
We’ve written this book for all the imperfect parents who care deeply about their kids (as well as for imperfect grandparents and teachers and professionals and anyone else who cares for a child).
It means being physically present, as well as providing a quality of presence.
Showing up means bringing your whole being—your attention and awareness—when you’re with your child.
In many ways, there is no other time but now—this present moment of time—and you are in charge of learning how to show up in ways that will both greatly empower you as a parent and promote resilience and strength in your child. It’s this power of presence that enables us to create an empowered mind for our children—even if we mess up on a regular basis.
As we’ll soon explain, the longitudinal research on child development clearly demonstrates that one of the very best predictors for how any child turns out—in terms of happiness, social and emotional development, leadership skills, meaningful relationships, and even academic and career success—is whether they developed security from having at least one person who showed up for them.
When a caregiver predictably (not perfectly) cares for a child, that child will enjoy the very best outcomes, even in the face of significant adversity.
“Four S’s”—helping kids feel (1) safe—they feel protected and sheltered from harm; (2) seen—they know you care about them and pay attention to them; (3) soothed—they know you’ll be there for them when they’re hurting; and (4) secure—based on the other S’s, they trust you to predictably help them feel “at home” in the world, then learn to help themselves feel safe, seen, and soothed.
attachment science, where for the last half century researchers have been conducting careful studies.
interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), an approach in which we combine various fields of science into one perspective on what the mind and mental thriving are all about.
our brain and the whole body are deeply interwoven within our relationships with one another and the world around us to shape who we are.
new neural pathways based on what a person sees, hears, touches, thinks about, practices, and so on.
Where attention goes, neurons fire. And where neurons fire, they wire, or join together.
A mental model is a summary the brain makes that creates a generalization of many repeated experiences.
Her whole brain is more integrated—which means she can employ the more sophisticated functions of her brain even when confronted by difficult situations, and respond to her world from a position of security, demonstrating more emotional balance, more resilience, more insight, and more empathy.
“whole-brain child.”
This is how they learn that even when mistakes are made and harsh words spoken, we still love each other and want to make things right again. That message, when consistently delivered, leads to a feeling of safety. Remember, the key is repair, repair, repair. There’s no such thing as perfect parenting.
Good to share
There should never be any doubt in their minds about whether we will show up during hard times.
!
Research is really clear: What seem like personal, inner skills—like self-awareness and emotional resilience—are actually developed from kids’ interpersonal interactions, from their relationships with their caregivers and others as they grow.
The science regarding this concept sends a strong message, one of hope and not despair—that even if we didn’t have secure attachment from our own caregivers, we can still provide it to our own children, if we’ve reflected on and made sense of our own attachment history. That is exhilarating, research-established news!
Use discipline moments as opportunities to teach and build skills.
Use discipline moments as opportunities to teach and build skills.
new or expectant parents who feel completely lost and overwhelmed at the thought of guiding a young person through childhood and adolescence. If you fall into this category, the clear, practical theories and strategies we discuss will not only give you an overarching philosophy on how to approach first-time parenting, but also provide you with specific, precise steps that will help you interact with your children in loving, intentional ways.
!
resources they can recommend to the troubled parents they see in their offices.
decades of rigorous research provide a specific answer to this question, and it’s profoundly hopeful.
Even if that history was challenging, making sense of one’s life empowers parents to have the open, receptive awareness of presence that enables them to show up reliably for their children.
The field’s science is rich and reliable, and it has powerful implications for how we can apply its findings across a wide array of cultures and family situations to optimize children’s development. Thankfully, the information doesn’t feel nearly as unfamiliar today as it has in the recent past.
!
The child may even cling to the mother while simultaneously pulling away. Disorganized attachment results when children find their parents severely unattuned, when the parents are frightening, and/or when the parents themselves are frightened.
In other words, relationships were not helpful in the past, so why would she rely on them in any significant way in the future?
the right and left sides of the brain are quite different in many ways—the timing of their development (right first), their structure (right more interconnected within itself), and their functions (right has a broad, wide attentional focus whereas the left has a narrow focus; the right receives input from the lower areas, including the body, whereas the left tends to specialize in linguistic symbols—our spoken and written language).
when these subjects are faced with issues related to attachment, their physiology shows significant signs of distress even though their external behaviors convey a nonchalant attitude.
Reward, bodily regulation, and mindsight are three distinct networks in the brain that are woven together by attachment relationships in both childhood and our adult lives.
subjective,
They may not be measurable, but they are arguably one of the most, if not the most, important aspects of creating well-being in our inner and interpersonal lives.
“reflective dialogues,” or conversations about the inner nature of the mind.
the outcome of this type of attachment relationship is that it seems to create within these children a blockage that prevents them from knowing their own inner world as well. Mindsight is in short supply.
This survival strategy may minimize attachment in part by being a neurological retreat to the logical, linguistic left hemisphere of the brain.
ambivalently attached children become adults who live with a great deal of chaos, anxiety, and insecurity.
This “intermittent reinforcement”—this inconsistency in how their parents showed up for them—actually can be seen to increase their need for attachment.
Their relational lives are thus characterized by high-emotion turmoil and significant anxiety.
they consistently give rein to their big emotions, like anger, resentment, and fear of past relationships.
They experience an urgency for connection that pushes others away, thus creating a feedback loop that reinforces their impression that others are not dependable. Their magnified attachment drive is filled with worry and confusion. Trust issues then predictably arise, and the cycle continues, reinforcing the very internal states that may have contributed to the confusion. Brain scans bear this out.
Parent: Knock knock. Child: Who’s there? Parent: Boo. Child: Boo who? Parent: Are you serious? You’re crying? Why are you sad? Oh, that’s just great. Now you’re making me cry!
When a parent becomes the source of terror in a child, it creates within the child what can be called a biological paradox, as she enters into two simultaneous brain states.
Attachment researcher Peter Fonagy uses a term called “epistemic trust” to study how the way we come to know the nature of reality—epistemology—is violated especially with disorganized attachment experiences. When terrifying events are caused by the attachment figure, the nature of what is real is shaped in such a manner as to be inconsistent with the larger world of how parents are supposed to behave.
!
the child of a preoccupied parent figures out how important it is to remain hypervigilant, ready to adapt to an unpredictable caregiver.
The tenacity of these adaptations can be seen in how deeply the child re-creates these types of relationships in the future based on the patterns he learns to adapt to in his response to the parent’s actions.
Scans have shown that parental abuse and neglect—what are called developmental trauma—compromise areas of the brain that enable neural integration, which may explain problems with regulation of emotion, deficient social communication, poor academic reasoning, a tendency toward interpersonal violence, and other problems seen in kids with disorganized attachment.
!
Parent: Knock knock. Child: Who’s there? Parent: Boo. Child: Boo who? Parent: Boo who yourself! I hate you, you crybaby. Get out of my room!
Secure attachment can be learned and earned.
a story that is fundamentally fragmented.
