The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired

by Daniel J. Siegel

The neurobiological effect of the Four S’s is an integrated brain: a nervous system that’s resilient and that doesn’t stay in prolonged stress.

When children experience this type of reliable behavior and connection, they are then freed to learn and develop without having to use attention or energy to survive, or to remain hypervigilant, watching for slight changes in their environment or in their caregivers.

Over time she may experience that there’s no one to really get her on a deep level, that her parent will not see her mind, and that she cannot count on others to be interested in her needs and emotions. Eventually, in order to adapt in her environment, and to get the best response from her caregiver, she will also become wired to avoid and dismiss emotions and the importance of relationships. In other words, relationships were not helpful in the past, so why would she rely on them in any significant way in the future?

If you could shut down your awareness of the downstairs brain and the body’s input to the cortex where consciousness in part arises, then you would not be so distressed by your parent’s missing your signals for connection. This could be achieved by simply developing the left cortex activity and disconnecting it from the right—so that as you developed, you’d be unaware of your internal bodily states as well as the internal sensations of longing and disappointment that are processed by your heart and your gut. You’d literally be shutting yourself off from your own internal world.

This survival strategy may minimize attachment in part by being a neurological retreat to the logical, linguistic left hemisphere of the brain.

When she cries, her father might actually want to show up for her and meet her needs. In fact, he does so at times. But sometimes his emotions overwhelm him and he becomes literally incapable of responding effectively to his daughter. Whereas the dismissing father above approached his daughter in an emotionally disconnected way, this father becomes easily flooded with emotions, leaving him muddled and confused, unable to tune in to his child and take appropriate action.

They experience an urgency for connection that pushes others away, thus creating a feedback loop that reinforces their impression that others are not dependable.

Likewise, the child of a preoccupied parent figures out how important it is to remain hypervigilant, ready to adapt to an unpredictable caregiver.

Children who experience a transformation in how their caregiver connects with them can undergo a change in their own attachment pattern.

if your twelve-year-old is in tears because she can’t find the shorts she wants to wear to her friend’s party, that may not be the best time to reprimand her for not planning ahead or offer a sermon about organization or not putting her things away. You can address family expectations about laundry and room maintenance later, when she can really listen.

the child with an avoidant attachment to the primary caregiver will likely grow into an adult who focuses primarily on external matters as well. It’s an organized, completely adaptive response to his situation.

you would begin to live more from a left-hemisphere-dominant approach to the world, dismissing your own emotions (and everyone else’s) as less than important.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are overwhelmed and out of control, I will help you, and together we’ll get you back to calm. You might not get what you want right now, but it will be okay. I’m here for you.

When we can tell a coherent story about where we’ve come from and how it affects us in the present, we can then take clear and powerful steps toward becoming the kind of parents we want to be.