Taming Bedtime Monsters: When Sleepy Time is Scary

Mommy! I had a bad dream!” my daughter yelled one night after being “asleep” for five minutes. As I returned to her room and sat with her, she told me she had a dream that the roof of the house had been ripped off by wind and she was sucked up to Jupiter, and I couldn’t get her back.

“Jupiter?” I said. “That would be scary and that is a really long way from home.” She nodded with her wide eyes darting around the room. I added, “Do you really think I couldn’t get you back from there?” She looked unsure. I said, “Nothing is strong enough to keep me from taking care of you: not wind or space travel to Jupiter.” Shelooked pleased but the irony of my statement hit me: neither Jupiter nor the wind would be strong enough to keep me away but my own need for both sleep and having to work at night certainly was.

For many parents who still have work left to do in the evening, or even those who just need a little quiet time to themselves, this nighttime neediness can be exhausting. How do we show up as generous and caring parents at night with so many competing needs? Some families are able to solve the issue by co-sleeping with their kids and while this practice happens all over the world, each family differs in their bedtime choices and capacities.

THE SEPARATION MONSTER

Part of understanding sleep challenges in kids is making sense of why monsters and bad thoughts can appear at night. For many kids, monsters don’t appear because they have learned about monsters; rather, it is facing separation that makes the monsters appear in the first place. Monsters or other scary things are not uncommon in a two- to three-year-old as their brain develops with increasing consciousness and imagination, allowing for sophisticated stories and images. Monsters, like separation, pose the threat of taking you away from the people you want to be with. Nighttime is the biggest separation kids face because their unconscious, and indeed their separate bedroom, takes them away from their caretakers. In short, nighttime = separation = monsters.

When separation is present, a child can have a huge emotional response including clingy pursuit, frustration, and alarm. These emotions can fuel behaviour like excess bedtime energy, tears, tantrums, and refusing to listen to directions. As a child gets stirred up with emotion at night, their parents are often not far behind. But the dance of frustration set to the music of inflamed emotion does not have to be the result of bedtime battles. There is a better way and it starts by reducing separation.

FROM MATURITY TO INDEPENDENCE

Separation is provocative for young kids because, as nature intends, they are not ready to take care of themselves and are highly dependent on adults. A child needs five to six years of strong, reliable, generous care given by an adult in order to grow into a separate self. At three years of age a child is often overhead as saying, “I do it myself” or “Me do”—a clear sign they are moving towards independence. By the time they are six years of age (with stable, healthy development), their brains are more suited for separation from caretakers and they are ready to head to school.

A common myth held about young children is that they must practice at separating from us in order to grow up. This is false, and in fact quite the opposite is true. Once they are more mature and independent, they will then naturally detach from us. It is nature that grows a child up and makes them want to do things for themselves. It is our job to figure out how to hold onto them until their maturity takes the lead and pushes them towards more separate functioning.

FROM SCARED TO SECURE

If separation is the problem, then attachment is the cure. It seems counterintuitive, but to help a child with separation at night we need to help them feel closer to us, not convince them to stay away. When a child can take a parent’s presence for granted, they won’t feel motivated to cling or chase the parent in desperation, nor be emotionally stirred up. What doesn’t work is underscoring separation with statements such as: “I am leaving in 5 minutes, you need to stay in your room,” or “I don’t want to see you until the morning.” There are many ways we can increase connection with young kids, and it starts by taking the lead in matters of attachment and relationship.

Take the lead in holding on

Understand that a child isn’t trying to give us a hard time at night but is having a hard time because of their immaturity and fear of being separate. Just as when they struggle with other challenges, it should help us find more generosity. It also helps to understand that while we can’t make a child sleep, we can pave a warm relational path to help them get there.

Accept that we are the ones responsible for steering a child through the challenges at night rather than blaming them for their “failure”; or unleashing frustration onto them instead of helping them with

their emotions. When a child can rest in a parent’s care emotionally, then the monsters are less formidable, and nighttime can be a time they associate with contact and closeness.

Examine what we can change and what we cannot. Perhaps we need to ask for help, reduce responsibilities, or plan differently. The list of things that interfere with bedtime tranquility may be endless but what is important is that the adult seize the steering wheel in reducing separation at night and holding on to the child emotionally.

Bridge the nighttime divide

Prepare your child for the goodbyes and plan for the next hello. Holding on to a child doesn’t mean you can’t separate from them; it means that you offer them a bridge to the next point of contact. When a child focusses on your return rather than the goodbye, then the separation they feel is diminished. When you take the lead and plan for the next hello, then, despite the monsters, the child can rest easy that there will be a next hello and that you are planning for it. This might mean talking about what you are going to do the next day or in the week ahead. It might involve laying out clothes for the morning or picking out a book to read together before breakfast.

Reassure and bridge the nighttime with check-ins or reminders for them to listen for your sounds as you clean the dishes or work on the computer. You might come and visit them and give them a paper heart that you put kisses in, or you might fluff up their pillow and fill it with “never-ending hugs.” Whatever you choose to do, the message should be that there is always some connection to be anticipated and the parent has the job of remembering it.

Listen generously to their stories

Engage with your child as evening settles in. There is something special about nighttime chats with a young child. As everything comes to a still point at the end of the day, their little minds start asking questions and their imagination comes to life. Some of the best conversations you can have with a young child are when they have your undivided attention and are moved to share their ideas and feelings with your undistracted self. You become their counsellor, their confidante, and their consultant in those priceless nighttime chats. Most importantly, you will become irreplaceable as you spend your time enthusiastically inviting their ideas in.

Regale your little ones with bedtime stories about when they were younger. They often like to hear funny stories of things they did, or what you did when you were a child. In sharing stories, we transmit more than just facts. We reveal our values and our thoughts about who we are and who they are to us.

Soon enough our children will grow and become more independent and need us less. We don’t need to hold it against a child that separation is so hard, that monsters appear, or that dreams are scary. Instead, take delight that we can bring such comfort. It is a testament to our relationship that our kids want to turn to us for contact and closeness. The secret to bedtimes is helping a child see that it’s not their job to strive to hold on to us but to take for granted that we won’t let go of them. When they take this to heart,they can better rest and separate into sleep. •

This article first appeared in EcoParent, Fall 2019

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Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the Director of Kid’s Best Bet, a family counselling centre, she is on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and is the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), which has been translated into 9 languages.

The Emotional Roots of Anxiety

Originally printed in the Summer 2018 Edition of EcoParent Magazine – www.ecoparent.ca

The Emotional Roots of Anxiety: Healing Through Connection

From waves of panic to uneasy feelings that rise up from the gut, anxiety is a universal human experience. It comes as no surprise then, that anxiety continues to be one of the most commonly diagnosed mental health issues in children and adults today, with the World Health Organization naming it as one of the leading concerns among children ages 4 to 17 worldwide.

What is anxiety? It is usually accompanied by symptoms such as agitation, incessant worrying, trouble focusing, panic, feeling full of fear, nightmares, and clinging behaviour. My 5-year old daughter once asked, “Mommy, why does it feel like my tummy is making butter?” That churning feeling that comes with anxiety, along with many other physical and emotional symptoms, alerts us to the fact that we are stirred up. Despite reassurance from others that there is nothing to worry about, anxiety can sink its teeth in deep and hold on.

When the mind and body are in turmoil, anxiety will follow wherever you go – from your bed to the dinner table, and to school. The problem is that its symptoms tell us very little about what is at the root of the feelings. Parents often turn to their kids for answers asking, “What is the matter?” When they are met with blank stares, puzzling explanations, or protestations of, “I don’t know!” it can elevate a parent’s anxiety as well.

The problem with anxiety is we cannot make headway unless we can make sense of it at its root level, as asserted by Gordon Neufeld, an internationally respected developmental and attachment-based psychologist. There is an epicentre to anxiety, but we often dance around its symptoms instead of reaching into its core, where the real problem lies.

Perceiving past the symptoms

The key to understanding anxiety is to name the emotion that drives it: alarm. When a threat is detected by the brain’s surveillance system, it responds by releasing a cascade of chemicals that literally changes our physiology and enables us to quickly respond. When separation has opened up, the brain will respond with increased alarm, frustration, and pursuit in order to close the distance.

To do this, we need to first identify the most fundamental need of all humans. The one non-negotiable thing that all children and adults require for healthy emotional growth and well-being is attachment. As an interdependent species, we were designed to hunger for contact and closeness from each other, and it is through attachment that we are able to raise children, to care for each other, and create a civil society.

The purpose of attachment is to ensure that children depend on their adults to guide and protect them and that we, in turn, provide these things. When children lean into you for caretaking, they are willing to follow, listen, attend, orient to, and obey. The deeper a child’s attachment roots, the greater their capacity to reach their potential as a social, separate, and adaptive being.

If relational attachment is the greatest of all human needs, then what is the most impactful and alarming of all experiences? The answer is separation—to find yourself apart from your attachments, which pushes the brain’s alarm system into full tilt as it tries to close the void that has opened up. You can witness a young child’s desperate pursuit to get back into attachment when you tell them it’s time for bed and they begin clamouring for one more drink of water, a snack, a trip to the bathroom, another story, or plead, as one clever boy told his father, “Please come back—the spiders keep throwing me out of bed.” Separation is provocative because attachment is key to our survival.

What sets off alarm bells?

There are many sources of separation that children can experience, from the obvious ones like moving houses, starting school, parents divorcing, or the loss of a loved one. But there are other surprising sources such as healthy growth, which pushes the preschooler to explore and use their imagination, the middle-schooler to try new things, and the teenager to figure out who they are and what they want to do with their life. At every age there are different developmental issues to face, each bringing an element of existential alarm with it. As Gordon Neufeld states, we don’t teach 3-year-olds about monsters which they then become afraid of, it is their fear that creates the monsters in the first place.

Other sources of separation for kids include discipline that uses what a child cares about against them, euphemized as “consequences”, “tough love”, or “time-outs”. These techniques use separation to alarm a child so that they will behave better but they backfire as they render an adult an adversary and, with this, reduce a child’s desire to please or work towards meeting their adult’s expectations. Relationship is the vehicle for getting a child to drive in a different direction, but separation discipline throws this off course and leaves relational insecurity in its wake.

Separation alarm is also created when our children fuse with friends to the exclusion of their adults. Referred to as “peer orientation”, this gives rise to children with alarm problems because their peers are largely immature and impulsive, sometimes hurtful, substitutes. One day your child belongs in the group, the next day they don’t, and the fickle friendships and wounding ways of kids especially hurt those who are more dependent on their same-age friends than their adults. Friends are important, but children weren’t meant to be the answer to each other’s fundamental attachment needs.

Separation alarm can also be attributed to physical separation like the loss of a parent to a new job, travel, injury, sickness, or the introduction of a new partner. Even success can create alarming feelings as the child lives in fear that they could lose the advances they have gained. Sensitive children who feel they are too much for their parents to handle are often full of anxiety because exasperated adults convey they don’t know how to take care of them, leading to insecurity.

Separation alarm has the power to drive temporary anxiety symptoms to more chronic levels that can pervade all areas of life. The fall-out from chronic anxiety may lead to additional behavioural problems such as anger, agitation, feeling overwhelmed, disconnection, and depression, which can be misinterpreted, or overreacted to, by adults. While the symptoms of anxiety and sources of separation for kids become better understood, concurrent research suggests that if separation is the problem, then surely connection will be the cure.

Bridging the void

What if we stopped for a moment and considered whether anxiety was, in fact, exactly what the brain wanted and intended? What if we looked at the emotion of alarm as having a very important job to do by noisily alerting parents that something isn’t right in a child’s world? And what if the brain is actually working well when it is alarmed and the problem is not the alarm, per se, but rather how long and how hard the brain has to work to gain our attention by way of anxiety symptoms, which serve to draw people close to increase connection and close painful separation voids?

There are many things adults can do to increase connection and reduce alarm, but the guiding objective should be to bring a child to emotional rest. This can be facilitated by coming alongside and conveying a desire to be with them, to show care and read their needs, and take the lead in fulfilling them wherever possible. For example, if they are anxious at night-time, being generous with contact and closeness will help them rest better. When a child closes their eyes at night, they are separated from you. Bridging this divide can involve telling them about the plans for the following day, staying with them until they fall asleep, or tying invisible strings around your beds to hold you together; if only in your child’s imagination. Making room for their alarm and letting them know it’s your job to worry about their sleep—not theirs—can go a long way in helping your child see you as in-charge, and able and willing to care for them.

If a child is anxious, it is also important to shield them from further causes of frustration wherever possible—from relationships that don’t work well to avoiding introduction of new sources of separation. When a child is alarmed, it is a time to prune out unnecessary separations and focus on tethering them to the adults in their life. This can be achieved by orienting them to the invisible matrix of adults that will care for them. For example, telling a child, “When I take you to school, your teacher will take over for me. They are in charge, I trust them to care for you, and they know how to reach me if you need me. I will look forward to picking you up, too,” helps to assure them that they are safe and loved, can feel connected to the adult who will take your place in your absence, and that you are never far away for long.

If separation discipline is being used in the home, it is also necessary to move away from time-outs and punitive consequences to more attachment and developmentally-friendly discipline, such as collecting a child before directing. This involves getting into their space in a friendly way, interacting with them in a positive manner, engaging in conversation, or paying attention to what they are focusing on, until you can feel the child warm up, start to listen, and want to follow. Using structure and routine to help them navigate their day also helps them feel safe. Kids who are anxious love ritual because it’s predictable, thus, providing security.

Letting out

Tears are the antithesis to alarm because they serve to drain the system and allow rest by neutralizing the chemicals associated with it. One of the most important ways we can bring our children to emotional rest is to facilitate tears when they are up against things that frustrate them. From the small things to the big upsets in their life, if an adult is willing to come alongside a child and make room for some tears, this can temporarily reduce restlessness, fear, and agitation.

To help a child to their tears, we need to meet them with empathy and warmth. Focus sincerely on what is upsetting them, despite how small or insignificant it may seem to us. Sometimes a parent may become upset by what they hear from a child, but it is best not to show these emotions and to find another adult to debrief with. Every child needs to feel confident that they are not too much for their adult to handle, that their feelings aren’t too big or scary to express, and that there is no situation that they won’t receive support with.

When a child is anxious, what we cannot lose sight of is how separation instigates the alarm behind it and that relationship is the vehicle through which healing occurs. When a child can safely feel their fear in a vulnerable way, they will be on the road to making sense of the emotions associated with alarm. When they can see and name what it is that stirs them up, and can freely express their emotions, they will be brought to emotional rest and find the courage to face the hard things. This process of holding onto and guiding them through alarming feelings and times will help them reaffirm the faith they have in their caregivers to love and take care of them exactly as they are.

Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and Director of Kid’s Best Bet, a counselling and resource centre for families.

Healing Broken Attachments with our Kids

They are few stressors greater in life than having a challenging relationship with one’s child. It can be heart breaking to look at the chasm in one’s relationship with them, often unleashing a desire to close the distance or even withdrawing altogether. The challenge is we cannot make a child love or want to be near us. We cannot make a child trust, depend on, or give us their heart for safe keeping. Attachment is something that is built between two people, it does not follow orders or commands.

This can lead a parent to ask – is it ever too late to close the distance and get a child’s heart back? The good news is no – it is never too late. Attachment is not a fixed entity and can be cultivated with our kids at any age. Relationships are fluid, permeable, changeable, repairable, and can deepen in vulnerability with time, patience, and good caretaking. Parents are relieved to hear this but often have many questions how this can be done. Sometimes we need to stop and consider how the distance between us got there? This involves more than just recounting incidents but understanding their impact on our relationship with each other.

How Do Relationships Get Weakened in the First Place?

The most impactful of all human experiences is being separated from the people and/or things we are attached to. Attachment is our greatest need, therefore, it is the experience of being separated or rejected that has the capacity to wound a child (and us) most of all. Whether we intend to or not, our actions and words can create too much separation physically and/or emotionally.

When getting close to a parent sets a child up to get hurt on a consistent basis, that child is likely to distance themselves or detach from their parent to preserve and protect their emotional well-being. This is not done intentionally but through the activation of instincts and emotions in the brain that are inherent to human functioning and serve self-preservation. For example, if a child is continuously yelled at, shamed, or receives separation based discipline from an adult (time-outs, 123 magic etc.), they are likely to back out of attachment with that adult. Being close sets them up to get hurt. The most wounding experience of all for a child is experiencing a lack of invitation where they want one, of not being cared for, lacking a sense of belonging and loyalty, and of significance.

A child may also experience too much separation from a parent by not being in enough physical promixity with them. Without consistent regular contact and closeness, a young child may find it hard to stay connected when the feelings of missing are so great. While feelings of missing are a natural by-product of being attached, too much of it can provoke emotional defences in the brain to numb out a child’s feelings, tune out the person, or to detach from the relationship to protect the heart. When trying to engage with a child who is defending against the relationship, a parent may get the cold shoulder or be ignored. This can be short lived or ongoing depending on the level of separation experienced and duration.

A further reason for wounding in the parent/child relationship is the parent’s release of unfiltered emotions onto their kids. Relational problems can be created when we are not consistently tempered in our responses to our children and don’t put the brakes on before speaking our mind when upset. Sometimes yells, threats, or other things come out of our mouths before our head can catch up with us to stop us. While we may not intend to hurt our children, sometimes we do harm to our relationship. When emotions flair, it is important to repair the relationship in the aftermath.

There are many reasons why our children may experience separation from us. Sometimes we don’t collect them nor engage them enough so they turn to substitutes like technology or their peers. When there is distance between us the relational void will be filled by something else or someone. This makes it challenging to reclaim a child and rebuild one’s relationship because the child has now found ‘safer’ substitutes to hold onto. The good news is that it is never too late for a relationship to be mended but it may take time, persistence, faith, tenacity, tears, caring, compassion, consideration, and patience.

Three Ways to Cultivate Stronger Connections

While the circumstances behind the challenges in our relationship will be different for every parent and child, there are a few attachment strategies that can be useful in repairing what has been broken.

Consider a child’s receptivity to a relationship and bridge the distance – Before proceeding to cultivate a closer connection, it is important to consider how receptive a child is to having one with you. If the cold shoulder is a consistent response, then bridging the distance between you may be the most important thing to do. Bridging means sending a message to the child that you seek a connection with them but will not pressure them to be closer to you than they are comfortable with. This can be achieved in subtle ways like staying near them, doing small things to take care of them, and orchestrating your time together through structure, routines, and rituals – all of which are less provocative than being in close relationship. The goal is to look for signs of receptivity and whether a child is warming up to being around you. It will also be important to be working on changing whatever is driving the separation between you in the first place as well.
Take the lead in the relationship dance – The responsibility for the relationship lies with a parent. As children become teens and adults, they do have a greater role to play in the relationship but it still doesn’t negate the need for a parent to hold on and send an invitation for connection. It is our job to take the lead, to bridge the divide, to hold on through the storms, to give more connection than is desired, and to be their answer. It is for us to repair or to mend the challenges in our relationship. We must hold on, lead and find a way through the impasses, and to figure out what is coming between us. While we may be frustrated with the response we get in return, it may signal we need to do more soul searching, be patient, or give it time. Sometimes we can get stuck in our persistence and our children in their resistance. Anger and frustrated responses will get more of the same, we need to change our dance steps and chart a different course if we are going to mend the distance between us. If we have apologies to make then we can do this in simple ways and then get on with the business of caring for them.
Collect and engage their attachment instincts – Collecting a child means trying to get in their face in a friendly way or if this is too provocative we can try to get in the same space as them and collect their ears through our voice. We can start with a greeting, sharing something we have in common, or trying to engage the child in conversation or in play. You can talk about the plans for the day or help them with something – there is no shortage of the ways to connect with a child. What collecting conveys is a desire to be close. It is the repeated and unexpected attempts to connect that can slowly make a difference and signal to a child we want a deeper connection. We need to proceed slowly in collecting a child until we see there is receptivity to our invitation. Our expression of warmth, enjoyment, and delight in being around them are the consistent signals to their emotional systems that we are safe to depend on.

What if they don’t take us up on our offer for relationship?

At the root of our deepest upsets in life is feeling the separation or void from someone we desire contact and closeness with. As parents we can take responsibility for our end of the relationship deal, take the lead in trying to repair what has been broken, and change our responses to reduce separation. Our children may take their time in coming back to us and to this I say – hold on. We don’t know what the path holds ahead for us, relationships have a way of turning around over time with warmth, patience, and a consistent message that we are here. If you had your child’s heart at one time, they will surely be looking on some level to come home to you. Be that safe place to return to and hold on to them as you can.

Gordon Neufeld states, “while loving someone may not change that person, it will surely change you.” If we let our hearts grow cold, if we turn away in anger or hurt from the one’s we love, then this will transform us into different people. If we wall off our hearts, we will surely be lost. It is better to find our tears, lean on other relationships that can help us stay the course, and bide our time. All is not lost when we have the courage to hold on and to love our kids through, over, and around the distance that exists between us. We need to hold on and keep making them an offer for relationship that they can’t refuse.

Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), is on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and Director of Kid’s Best Bet, a counselling and family resource center. For more information please see www.macnamara.ca and www.neufeldinstitute.org.

How to Repair a Relationship with a Child When You Blow It

Sometimes all the good intentions in the world are not enough to stop a parent from losing their temper with a child. One can wake up in the morning and make promises to oneself not to yell or get frustrated but before the day is over the yells have been unleashed. Guilt, shame, alarm or defensiveness can flood a parent as they realize the impact of their actions. How can a parent recover and restore their relationship with a child after blowing it?

Parental overreactions to their child’s behaviour can harm their relationship. Human beings are not designed to be perfect and are prone to suffering lapses in emotional control and having immature reactions despite knowing better. In other words, mistakes in parenting are going to be made – this is not the issue as much as how we recover when we have made them.

There are many reasons why parents can overreact. Sometimes it is out of exhaustion, emotional overwhelm, being frustrated or alarmed about a child or something else in their life. One’s child may not even be the source of what is frustrating a parent but has become the person upon which a parent unleashes. Parents have emotions too and they get stirred up. What is key is not to unleash one’s unfiltered thoughts and feelings onto a child.

Steps to Repairing the Relationship

When a parent has overreacted or has been too harsh with a child, there are a number of things to consider in rebuilding or repairing one’s relationship with them.

Take the lead in mending the relationship

The role of the parent is to lead and to assume responsibility for caring for a child. If there is distance between us or hurt feelings, it will be the parent who needs to get in there first to try and find a way to mend the divide. Looking for signs of receptivity can help us determine if a child is ready to be closer to us.

Take responsibility for one’s actions

When we regret what we have done it is important to convey to a child what we are sorry when appropriate. It can be conveyed clearly and succinctly with, “I am sorry I yelled, I was frustrated and took it out on you.” It is important not to grovel for forgiveness from the child as this would displace the parent from their alpha role. At the same time, the parent can take the lead in conveying that they disagree with their own behaviour and will intend to do differently next time.

Let the child be upset

It is important to acknowledge and make room for a child to be upset with you, even if apologies have been made. To expect a child to ‘just get over it’ doesn’t honour their internal experience. Letting the child know that you are okay with them still feeling hurt gives them permission to feel vulnerably and honours their emotional world. Too often our kids hear they have to calm down and just get over it when they are still upset. If we are really sorry then we will give some room for a child to express their feelings about what has transpired too.

Bridge the divide between you

When our overreactions have divided us from our kids, it is important to let them know we still desire to be close to them or look forward to spending time with them. We might want to draw attention to the next point of connection with them such as, “I will look forward to driving you to soccer or reading a book at bedtime.” Even if our kids don’t want us near us we can communicate that there is still a desire in us to be close to them.

Focus little on their behaviour

When we blow it the reality is that our opportunity to teach a child something or influence them to do something different has been hijacked by our overreaction. The focus is now on the relational divide and alarm and frustration in the child that has been created in the wake of our overreaction. The focus needs to go on repairing the relationship and not rehashing the incident.

Children adopt the values of the people they are close to. When we take the lead in repairing our relationship we convey to them the importance of taking responsibility for our actions and their impact on other people.

What if Your Child Won’t Let You Come Near Them?

The hardest thing for a child to deal with is separation from someone they are attached to. They can feel highly alarmed and frustrated which leads to a reversal of their attachment instincts. Instead of wanting to be close to someone they can detach in defense. When kids detach and don’t let their parents near the goal is not to let yourself be alienated from the child nor provoke further detachment by pushing contact and closeness upon them.

When a child runs to their room and says ‘go away’ or turtles and tells everyone to “just leave me alone,” they are needing some distance given their overwhelming feelings. The goal is to keep them safe, convey you are still there and won’t leave them, but won’t pressure them. If you leave or back away it can create further alarm and frustration in a child that you are leaving them. Conversely, if you move too fast to be close to them you will increase their frustration and alarm and lead to a strong adverse reaction.

The best course of action is to bide your time, reduce pressure and coercion, and looks for signs that your child is ready for contact and closeness. When you see they are more receptive then you can proceed slowly and focus attention away from the event so as to reduce strong feelings. A parent can tell a child they will talk about it later and can come back to what isn’t working at another time.

What to do About Losing It?

I have met few, if any parents that were happy about seeing their child hurt or upset as a result of their overreactions. At the same time, a parent can feel frustrated with how they seem to be powerless to change their reactions. There are a number of helpful things to bear in mind when considering how to make headway on not overreacting.

Make room for your feelings

Many time parents believe they have to cut out their frustration or feelings of alarm in order to take care of a child well. This is impossible, we are creatures who feel a lot. The goal is not to reduce our feelings but to neutralize them with other feelings. When our caring is bigger than our frustration we will be more tempered in our reactions to our kids. When our caring can answer the alarm we feel, then the result will be courage to face into things that are difficult. The answer is not to feel less but to feel more caring. Trying to cut out one’s feelings is the surest way to make sure they explode out of you. In the heat of the moment, it is helpful to try and find your caring about the type of reaction you give a child and its potential impact on them.

Do no harm

If all you can remember in the most heated moments ‘to do no harm to the relationship’ then you will be in good standing with your child. Trying to actively parent when you are overwhelmed or frustrated often leads to things going sideways. Kids remember what they have done so there is always time to talk about things later when emotions are in check. The goal is to hold onto your relationship, quickly convey what isn’t working, and proceed to change the circumstances if warranted.

Replay, review, and reflect on incidents

Sometimes the best view we have of ourselves is in hindsight. It is when we reflect on what didn’t work or what we regret that allows us to think about ways to handle it differently. There is no manual when it comes to parenting and there doesn’t need to be one. When we feel, we reflect, we make sense of our kids – all of these things can help us find our way through tricky situations.

Parenting has never been about perfection but about leading our children towards maturity. On this journey we will do things we regret but we can make intentions to handle it differently the next time. What our kids need to know is that our relationship is intact, they can trust us with their heart, and that we assume responsibility for our feelings and thoughts, making amends wherever needed. Despite the mistakes we will make, we need to ensure our kids that we really are their best bet.

Morning Mayhem: Getting Out the Door with Kids

If there was one common experience in parenting it would be the morning dance of the frazzled parent and the child moving at a snail’s pace. It seems the more urgent a parent is with their request to hurry, the slower a child’s feet and hands are inclined to get dressed, eat, and even walk. Some kids even pull out the full stop and fall down, going ‘boneless.’

One day I looked at my daughter shuffling her feet to the car and I couldn’t help but think that if there was a chocolate waiting in her seat, she would be running at light speed. Even getting her out of the car could elicit the same resistant response. With eyes closed she told me one day, “I can’t get out of my seat, I’m sleeping.”

If there was one thing that makes the morning a mess it would be the resistance of a child and a parent’s fervent persistence to get them to hurry. The nagging, yelling, bribe wielding, consequence driven madness of a parent desperate to get out of the house can leave everyone on the edge. I am sure if cortisol swabs were taken, stress hormones would be significantly higher in everyone, including the pets.

Is there an easier way to surviving the morning routine? The good news is yes, but it won’t be without an adult seizing the lead and figuring out where the impasse comes from and how to steer through it.

Some things to consider …

Parents have agendas and kids often have completely different ones. While a parent needs to get to work or a child to school – that child may not want to go to school. Sometimes they are avoiding getting ready because they are they having a hard time separating from a parent, they might just want to play and not work, or they are fighting with a friend and want to avoid the turmoil altogether. When you can make sense of what is underneath their resistance and help them through it, things may naturally start to go a little smoother in the morning.
Parents can’t lead kids who do not follow them – and not just in the morning. If is generally difficult to get a child to attend to the rules, to do as requested, or to take their cues from adults then the issue may not a ‘morning’ one but a relationship one. A child who is not attached to a parent or has moved into a position of dominance over them (coined as an ‘alpha child,’ by Gordon Neufeld), is often to difficult to lead and mornings can be a struggle. Alpha kids are often bossy, commanding, or can feign helplessness in order to orchestrate their parent’s actions. They are allergic to being told what to do leading to morning battles and the escalation of yelling and threats by their parents. For more information on the alpha problem see Chapter 5 in Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers or the Alpha Children Course through the Neufeld Institute. Until the relationship problem has been addressed, a child will not readily follow their adult’s wishes in the morning.

Humans are hardwired with a natural instinct to resist when feeling coerced. The harder someone pushes their agenda on us, the more likely the counterwill instinct will be activated leading to a push back on their agenda. Young children, starting around 2 ½ years, can grow increasingly resistant to being hurried or moved along. The more their ‘own mind’ starts to develop, the more ideas they have about what they would like to do and when. A child’s agenda at this age often conflicts with the wishes of their adults but is indicative that healthy development is underway. The only thing that makes a child want to do as told, follow the rules, or make things work for their parent, is by being actively attached to the adult who is giving them the orders.

Three Strategies to Quell Morning Mayhem

Orient them– Talking to kids the night before and filling them in on what will happen the following day can help ease into the morning routine. Kids typically love to be told “the plan for the day” and it can help orient them as much as draw off their resistance. A child’s reaction to the plan can alert a parent to the parts they find hard or are not in favour of.
Solicit good intentions – When you tell a child the plan for the next day you can follow this up by soliciting their good intentions. This means specifically asking them, “can I count on you get dressed, to come for breakfast, and to do your part to make tomorrow morning work?” If there is resistance to the plan, it will likely appear at this time giving a parent an opportunity to address it. By soliciting a child’s good intentions you are trying to enlist cooperation and to get them onside in making things work, while leaving some room to figure out where there might be challenges to this. When or if they start to resist the plan the following morning, the parent can remind them of their discussion and their commitment, while also acknowledging that we all have good intentions that are sometimes hard to realize.

Collect and engage the attachment instincts- When a child is attached to a parent it should provoke instincts to follow, obey, want to please, measure up, and take their cues from them. Kids, especially young ones, will struggle to listen to people who have not collected their attachment instincts first. Collecting a child means finding your way to their side, trying to engage their eyes, and feel a sense of warmth or connection between you. After a child has been asleep or playing, their attachment instincts may not be directed at the parent and engaged. If a parent tries to give the child orders, they will be met with resistance because the counterwill instinct will be stronger than their attachment instinct. Collecting a child means warming up the relationship in the morning by reading to them, cuddling, or taking time to chat. One father used to wake up and collect his kids by giving them a math question!

The good news is that when a morning has slid sideways, there is still plenty of opportunity to do it better – tomorrow is indeed a new day. In fact, some off our best parenting moments come from realizing when something isn’t working and needs to change. Sometimes it is us who needs to change and sometimes we need to work on others to change. What is for sure is that if anyone can change the trajectory and tone of a morning – it is the parent. This is not usually done in the heat of the moment but upon reflection in the guilt ridden remainder of the day following the frazzled morning.

Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the Founder of Kid’s Best Bet, Counselling and Family Resource Centre, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). For more information please see www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.org.

Softening the Hardened Heart

Hearts can grow cold and become hardened, something poets, artists, and musicians have always claimed. From children to adults, emotional numbing is part of the human condition and reveals the inherent vulnerability in a system that was built to feel deeply. As Hank Williams lamented, “Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?” The loss to human functioning is tragic as it is our caring that makes us fully human and most humane.

Today we have neuroscience mapping out how emotional inhibition occurs within the limbic system. At last Freud’s theory of how we can be driven by unconscious emotions has gained its neuroscientific footing. Every brain comes equipped with the capacity to tune out what distresses, repress bad memories, dull the pain, suppress alarming feelings, and be divested of caring and responsibility (1). The anthem of the emotional defended is, “I don’t care,” “doesn’t matter,” “that doesn’t bother me,” or “whatever” and resounds loudly among our kids (and many adults) today.

Being defended against vulnerable feelings is an equal opportunity problem not confined by geography, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or education level. It is a quintessential human issue given our unique capacity to reflect on our emotions and assign feeling names, unlike other mammal species. The three or four year old who suddenly bursts out with their words instead of their hits, “I frustrated! I need HELP!” reveals the developmental sophistication in this system. We were meant to develop a language of the heart, one that takes us towards civilized relating around emotional content.

When Caring Goes Missing

Caring feelings are a luxury in a world that feels like it is coming undone. There are sometimes too many acts of uncaring for a human heart to bear in today’s ‘connected world’ when self centered actions dominate, combined with an absence of shame or fear, and no tears in the face of all that should make us weep. As T.S. Eliot pens in his poem, “The Hollow Men,” vulnerable feelings often go missing not with a bang but with a whimper. We were meant to care deeply – and not just about ourselves but about others too. The hunger for connection is what should hold us together but there are times we seem so intent on tearing these relationships apart. The vulnerable feelings that make us most vital and human go missing for the sake of survival.

When the emotional system flatlines, not only does fear disappear but joy, delight, and enjoyment too. Some of my counselling clients would tell me, “I don’t need anybody, I don’t really care I am on my own” with little emotion. It created problems attaching to others and preventing the love that was there for them in getting through the wall of defenses their brain had erected. They could not feel, despite being aware on some level that they really should be. As one teen said to me, I know I should be happy but I just don’t feel anything right now. When the emotional system operates in a defensive mode, the caring feelings go missing along with their tempering effect on frustration, upset, alarm, and impatience.

How to Revive Hardened Hearts

What is critical to remember is when a heart becomes hardened, the brain has its own reasons for pressing down upon vulnerable feelings. To feel sets the person up to get hurt and the brain is geared towards survival at all costs. To bring emotional defenses down, the heart must be softened. The question is how can this be done? The heart won’t be resuscitated through logic, cognitive manipulation, or behavioural interventions. When our kids lose their caring (or adults), it is the warmth and caring of others that offers the best chance of melting emotional defenses.

According to Gordon Neufeld, a heart can only be softened with the cultivation of safe and caring attachments with others. It is relationship that offers someone the promise of safety, warmth and dependence. It is attachment that is the ancidote to facing too much separation and leads to wounding. The human heart will spontaneously recover and experience vulnerable feelings again when emotional defenses are no longer needed. It cannot get there with a pill, prodding, pushing, cajoling, rewarding, or punishing but only through the warmth of another human being.

What every person needs most of all is a guardian for their heart. As one ten year old said to her mother, “I don’t what it is about you Mama, but when I talk to you I feel such comfort.” One of my clients said her sixteen-year old son said, “Mom, you always seem to know what to say to help me when I am really scared.” This is the job of parenting – to hold on to our kid’s hearts and shield them. As adults, the hope would be that we can rest in the care of another.

Three Keys to Melting Emotional Defenses

Lead into Vulnerable Territory – If we are going to soften emotional defenses and increase vulnerability we will need to lead someone there but this can’t be done without cultivating a strong relationship first. When I trained new counselors they would often ask me for the ‘techniques’ to elicit emotional responses in clients. I would lecture them on how they were asking me the wrong question. The most important part of their role was not a diagnosis or a technique but about showing up as a human being. Psychology does not own suffering, humans do. We cannot expect someone to share their heart with us if we have not earned a place in their life first.

When we have built a strong relationship with someone we can lead then lead them towards vulnerable territory, ever so gently. With a young child it might be reading picture books about characters with big feelings, taking an older child to see a movie such as “Inside Out,” or having chats with teens about the songs they are listening to or the ‘heros’ they admire. It is our job to use our relationship to come to their side and invite them to share their world with us. When appropriate we can reflect back what we have heard in increasingly vulnerable ways such as, “sadness saves the day – who ever thought that would happen!” It is the slow, but consistent message that all of a child’s feelings are welcome and that the relationship can handle what needs to be said, that will slowly bring the defenses down.

To lead someone to their vulnerable feelings we will need to be caring ourselves and model an openness to vulnerability. This doesn’t mean we tell our children our feelings about them but rather reflect on vulnerability as a strength and as being valued. We can then increasingly touch emotional bruises in their life in a gentle way as needed.

Shield with a safe attachment – When a child has a caring attachment that they can take for granted, their heart will be shielded by that relationship. What we forget with our kids is just because we are their guardian, it doesn’t mean they have given us their heart for safe keeping. If a child is truly at home with someone, the hurts in their life can be experienced and made sense of with this person. We cannot protect our children from being hurt all the time, but we can make sure they are not sent out into the world to deal with it on their own. It is our love and caretaking that buffers them against rejection, betrayal, and heartache.

The beautiful design in attachment is that our hearts can shield another’s from injury – it is the ultimate cure and protection. As my children lament about their school day and harsh words from friends, I collect their tears and remind them that they are never too far from home. As I listen to their emotional injuries, my balm is to tell them not to take it into their heart, and to look at me, the one who knows them best. When we feel overwhelmed and lost it is about who we look to that will help ground us, to center us, and to bring us back to ourselves. It is caring that is meant to tie us together and make us caretakers for each other’s hearts.

Protect from emotional wounding and facing separation –If the brain has erected emotional defenses then we can try to reduce the need for them by creating shame-free zones. Typically these would be protected spaces against peer and sibling interactions that are wounding. It would mean minimizing involvement in places where there was a lack of invitation for connection, e.g. a family member that is unkind to a child, or a classroom full of kids who bully.

If the child’s world is too much for them emotionally then we will need to consider how we change their world to reduce the need for defenses. While this may lead to some hard choices, until the heart is back online, there will be problems with behaviour and development can be at a standstill. When the heart is flatlining, resuscitating it become the first order of business.

In reducing wounding we would want to scan the child’s world to see where they face too much separation. This can include forms of discipline that are separation based including time-outs and the overuse of consequences. Moving to more attachment based and developmentally friendly forms of discipline can help to reduce wounding. When problems occur, finding a way to hold on to the relationship in the middle of the storm is the best way through, for example, “this isn’t working, we will talk about this later,” or “I can’t let you do this, I see you are frustrated, I will help you figure it out.” When there are emotional defenses that are stuck, it will be common to have behaviour problems to have to work around until more vulnerable feelings come back on line. It will involve protecting others, including the dignity of the parent and child involved.

What is clear is we cannot ‘will’ emotional defenses to rise or fall, this is not for us to say. However, it is within our capacity to move into relationship with someone, to take up a relationship with their feelings, and to convey that despite everything, it is our relationship that is most secure in their life. If hurting too much is the problem, then surely love is the answer. It is a solution as old as time but one that needs to keep being retold in a world that continues to come undone.

Reference

(1) Gordon Neufeld, Level I Intensive: Making Sense of Kids, 2013, Neufeld Institute, Vancouver, BC. www.neufeldinstitute.org

Deborah MacNamara, PhD is on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute and in private practice working with parents and professionals based on the relational and developmental approach of Gordon Neufeld, PhD. She is the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). Please see www.macnamara.ca for more information or www.neufeldinstitute.org.

Helping the Anxious Child or Teen Find Rest

As a parent it is challenging when you feel helpless to effect change for a child who is suffering or anxious. Parents often ask their kids “Just tell me what’s wrong,” or “what can I do to help you,” only to stare into blank faces or be given reasons that defy understanding. As a child’s anxiety grows, so does a parent’s. The more a child is full of worry, the more a parent can question their ability to help them feel safe.

Parents sometimes look to professionals to alleviate their child’s anxiety or to calm them down; however, one of the most important sources of rest for a child is usually overlooked – a strong caring attachment with an adult who is responsible for them. The challenge with anxiety is it can displace a parent from seeing they can still the answer to their child’s needs.

Anxiety is considered one of the biggest health issues in children and teens worldwide. Despite its prevalence, the root cause of anxiety is rarely discussed beyond genetics, neurotransmitters, behavioral symptoms, disorder, or dysfunctional cognitive patterns. Part of challenge is it is difficult to put one’s finger on the source of anxiety as it feels nebulous, ephemeral, and vague. What is anxiety and where does it come from? Why does it strike out of the blue, can last for short or long time periods, is more prevalent in some kids and not in others? In order to make sense of these questions we need to consider what anxiety is in the first place.

What is Anxiety?

The word anxiety is associated with the symptoms that go with it including restlessness, agitation, stomach aches, clinging and clutching behaviour, apprehensive feelings, problems focusing, racing thoughts, or hyperactivity. A young child once told me, “it feels like my tummy is making butter right now.” That churning feeling is due to an activated alarm system in the body. The human brain is a sophisticated alarm system that is highly tuned to perceiving threat in one’s environment. It filters through stimuli and detects potential danger, providing an expedient warning system through a heightened sense of alarm when a threat is near. Sometimes there are false alarms and sometimes the danger is imminent or ongoing leaving the autonomic nervous system heightened.

It begs the question what type of threat does the brain remain vigilant for? We commonly think about danger to physical well-being but routinely miss distress when it comes to matters of emotional well being. Developmental science has firmly established how human beings are creatures of attachment – it is one of our greatest hungers and needs. The experience of being separated from who and what we are attached to is the most provocative and impactful of all human experiences (1). According to Gordon Neufeld, it is separation alarm that is most often at the root of anxiety and has the capacity to stir a child up and hijack their attention systems.

One can only understand separation alarm to the degree they understand attachment. There are many ways we attach to people and things – through the senses (touch, taste, smell, see, hear), being the same as someone, feeling a sense of belonging or loyalty, wanting to be significant, being in love, or sharing one’s secrets. Separation is what comes when there is a threat to being with, like, belonging, significant, loved, or known by another. The separation can be real or imaginary, and is impacted by development. It is difficult to talk a three year old out of being afraid of the monsters that live under their bed or the teen who feels everyone is looking at them all the time. At these ages children can experience separation alarm in becoming their own person and maturing.

There are many sources of separation and it is based upon a child’s perception. Some are sad when their teeth fall out or they get upset at bedtime – the biggest separation of the day as they lose consciousness. Typical experiences of separation can include the birth of a sibling, a move, going away to camp or school, parents going to work, transitioning between two homes, or realizing bad things can happen to the people one is attached to. There are many hidden sources of separation including feeling responsible for your parent’s feelings or actions. When a child feels they are too much too handle or they don’t measure up to expectations, they may feel distant from their adults. If a child becomes peer oriented they will experience a sense of separation from their parents. When a child doesn’t feel their parent’s can keep them safe or prevent bad things from happening to them, their feelings of alarm can emerge in a strong way.

Parents need to make sense of a child’s alarm by considering where a child is at developmentally, what separation they are experiencing, and through their relationship with them. Efforts to talk a child into wellness will be short lived at best as alarm stems from activation in the emotional regions of the brain. It is not logic that holds the keys for unraveling an alarm problem but in understanding how the emotional system works.

Why is Fear Important?

Fear is the oldest human emotion and is meant to ebb and flow as things in our environment activate it. It is meant to move humans to caution when necessary and gives rise to conscientious, concerned, and careful behavior. Parents routinely use discipline techniques aimed at alarming a child such as yelling, threats, or punishment; which rely on scaring them into compliance. The overuse of fear based discipline techniques can contribute to or be a source of anxiety in a child. The alarm system works best when not overly provoked or used.

Sometimes there are things that scare a child or teen that cannot be changed – a pet dies, friends move away, or parents get divorced. Sometimes it is tears that are the answer to alarm and bring with it resiliency to handle the adversities that are part of life. Alternatively, sometimes what is required in the face of alarm is courage. It is the mixing of feelings of fear and desire that give rise to courage and push one towards action. While a child may be afraid to write a test, it is their desire for a good mark that gives them courage to try. While a teen may be afraid to be part of the school play, it is their desire to have this experience that propels them forward. Fear is not a problem to get rid of; rather, it is a way of moving us forward to caution, to tears, or to courage. It is a lack of fear that poses a bigger problem in children or teens as this emotion can no longer do the work it is supposed to by keeping them safe.

Why Does Fear Take Over and Create Anxiety?

While fear is a key emotion that needs to be felt in a vulnerable way, sometimes it can’t be. Sometimes the thing that alarms a child is too big to name, too overwhelming to think about or to discuss, and their brain starts to numb out these feelings so as to provide a defense against them. In other words, when life is too scary, the brain is designed to release chemicals to numb out the sensation of fear. When a child is anxious it doesn’t mean the emotional system isn’t working properly but that it may be working exactly as it should be. For example, in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, the children refuse to refer to the evil ‘Voldemort’ by name. They refer to him as “the one that cannot be named” as his real name creates too much vulnerability as it brings him to consciousness along with thoughts of death and destruction. As the children refer to him in a vague way, they are shielded from the worst of the emotional distress and continue with everyday functioning despite their heightened alarm level.

Anxiety is created when a child’s emotional system defends against seeing the things that would make them feel too afraid. If they don’t see it or feel it – they are safer. In short, anxiety could best be seen as being alarmed without eyes because seeing would make it hurt too much. The defenses provide a veil to shield against the alarm child but as a result, a child can no longer find their courage or cry in response to the threat because it has disappeared from plain view. This is why our children tell us they feel afraid but don’t know why.

What Are Some Strategies to Reduce Anxiety?

The strategies to reduce anxiety have little to do with reason, talking a child out of their fears, or telling them to calm down. They are focused at the root of the issue -– separation alarm — and put a parent back in the driver’s seat in bringing a child to rest.

Reduce Separation

Anxiety can be heightened when a child has to separate from a parent – going to school, daycare, or to sleep. A parent can reduce physical separation with a child by keeping them closer at these times. They can check in on a child at lunchtime or drop off a lunch, reduce the amount of time spent in daycare, or send notes with them as they head off for their day. At night, a sense of contact and closeness can be provided by staying with the child until they fall asleep, checking in on them repeatedly, or sleeping near them. A further way to reduce physical separation is to temporarily stop all non-essential attachment activities such as playdates or structured activities, although sports and movement are a great way to reduce alarm.

Adults can also reduce emotional separation by refraining from all discipline techniques that isolate or exclude a child from the people or things they are attached to. A parent will need to lead through disciplinary issues by ensuring the relationship stays intact while they also take responsibility for the problems that arise. Furthermore, if a child has people in their life that present separation by either rejection or not being liked, a parent is wise to reduce contact where necessary and shield from further wounding interactions. When a child is anxious, a parent needs to communicate at every turn when the next point of connection will be, who will take care of the child, and lead the child with confidence. If separation is the problem, then relationships with caring adults will be the cure.

Provide for a Sense of Rest and Safety

Adults can provide a sense of safety and rest to a child who is full of anxiety by strengthening their relationship. The expression of delight, enjoyment, and warmth by an adult will help a child feel nourished. An adult can present oneself as the answer for comfort, helping when they feel lost, and inspiring trust and dependence on them. They can take charge of situations concerning the child such as deciding where they go and what they do as well as take the lead in solving problems for them as appropriate. A child needs to see their parent knows how to take care of them so one should refrain from asking too many questions that could convey otherwise. When a parent repeatedly asks a child what is wrong or what they can do to help, it will do little to inspire confidence in their care taking.

Accept the Alarm

When a child is anxious they may exhibit a number of symptoms that can be alarming and confusing. Adults need to convey they are not alarmed by the appearance of these symptoms and to avoid battling their appearance. Rather than trying to talk a child out of their fears or claiming they are irrational, a parent can take a strong lead and convey they know how to take care of the child and the circumstances around them. If a child can’t sleep a parent can tell them it isn’t their job to worry about it. If a child is worried about what will happen the following day, the parent can tell them they will lead them through it. A parent can normalize a child’s distress with comforting words such as, “what child isn’t afraid of monsters at night?”

If a parent makes room for the anxiety and anticipates it, then the alarm will be better managed and diminished. For example, if a child is afraid to go out of the house, the parent can convey they want to hold their hand and stay close to them. When a parent is not alarmed in the face of their child’s anxiety, it will serve to reduce or at least manage the alarm symptoms better. Too many anxious children are made to feel responsible for their symptoms instead of being reassured by adults that it is natural to feel uneasy or scared.

Find Acceptable Substitutes for the Alarm

Parents need to try and reduce things in a child’s life that create too much separation alarm as well as introduce substitutes to help deal with it. Exercise helps to release the alarm chemicals stirred up in the body as well as activate the parasympathetic nervous system associated with rest. Rocking, watching flames flicker or fish swim in tanks can also be soothing because of the repetitive motion involved. Human touch and massaging a child can also activate chemical pain relievers in the body through oxytocin and opiate receptors. Chewing gum can also relieve anxiety or walking outside and spending time with pets. One of the best ways to release a child’s emotions is through play so they should be afforded lots of opportunity to do so on their own or with parents.

Help them Find their Tears

Tears provide a wonderful release to alarm and parents shouldn’t be afraid to let their child cry when needed. Small things may turn into big upsets and but it is likely the alarm feelings have found a doorway through which they can be released. It is less vulnerable and easier to cry about the small disappointments in life than having to name the big things that hurt too much.

Sometimes children are too overwhelmed by their alarm and frustration is likely to be expressed instead of tears. If a parent can provide some room for frustration to be released safely, they are likely to get to the more tender ones underneath. It takes patience and time to melt a child’s frustration into tears but when you do, a child will find some rest from the alarm, temporarily or more permanently. Sometimes a parent will need to help a child find their words for the things that frustrate them in order to help them get to their tears.

Cultivate Courage

When a child is capable of mixed feelings and thoughts, typically at the age of 5 to 7 or later for more sensitive children, they will be able to use courage to deal with their alarm. A parent can help by leading the child to consider the desires they have to face situations that are alarming such as reading in front of their class or going to school each day. When a parent helps a child find their anticipation and apprehension at the same time, they will have fostered courage as a powerful antidote to their fears. A child needs to be given room to be apprehensive and not told to think positively or talked out of being afraid.

An anxious child is an alarmed one. They should never be made to feel responsible for keeping themselves safe nor to battle alarm on their own. Parents are the best pain relievers around and it starts with giving them a generous invitation for contact and closeness.

References

(1) The information in this article is from Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s, Making Sense of Anxiety Course, offered online through the Neufeld Institute, Vancouver, BC, www.neufeldinstitute.org. For more information, you can also view Gordon Neufeld’s talk on anxiety at Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education, Making Sense of Anxiety Talk

This article first appeared in Nurture: Australia’s Natural Parenting Magazine, Autumn, 2016.

Dr. Deborah MacNamara is on faculty at the Neufeld Institute and a counsellor in private practice. She specializes in child and adolescent development, working with parents, educators, child-care and mental health professionals to make sense of kids through developmental science. She is the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). See www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.com for more information.

Bedtime Battles: When Saying Goodnight is Hard

At the age of 4 my daughter looked at me and said, “Mama, we have a problem – I don’t like to sleep.” Shocked, I managed to stifle my horror and mutter, “well that’s unfortunate because I do.” In fact, I never appreciated sleep until I had children and got so little of it.

As my daughter and I faced off across the bedtime divide we couldn’t have been at more opposite ends of the spectrum. She wanted to hold onto me and I wanted her to let me go. It was only when I realized we could both get what we wanted that I was able to find my way through. First, I had to surrender to the idea that she was going to be the one to change. I realized it was me that needed to lead us through the sleep impasse but couldn’t do so without first understanding what was going on for her.

What alarms a child most of all is separation from their caretakers. The reason separation is so hard is because attachment is their greatest need. Children weren’t meant to take care of themselves and seek to be strongly tethered to adults who assume responsibility for them. As immature beings, children are highly dependent upon their caretakers to meet their hunger for contact and closeness, safety, and nourishment. When they are apart from us, their alarm system can be highly activated leading to clinging, protest, and crying in distress. The alarm can appear more subtly like needing to go to the bathroom, get a glass of water, more food, or have help in fluffing their pillow up!

The biggest separation a child faces in the day is bedtime – not school or even when we are at work. We think because we are all in the same house they feel connected but sleep represents a long separation – up to ten hours of unconsciousness where they can feel very far away from us. When you drop them off at preschool or daycare there is at least an adult to greet and take care of them. When they go to bed there is no one waiting saying, “Hello, welcome to your sleepy dream time! I will make sure the monsters don’t bother you tonight.” What children face when we put them to bed is the biggest disconnect of their entire day. It seems like such a cruel irony that when children need us the most, we typically have little energy left. The idea of being generous and giving, things that come so easy on a full parenting gas tank, can reduce us to tears.

When I started to listen to what my daughter’s behaviour was telling me I realized she was scared and lonely. It was actually a compliment to our relationship that she depended on me to keep her safe and wanted to be close. When I asked her why she didn’t like to sleep she told me, “Because the monsters come out of my eyes.” She then pointed to the ceiling and said, “That dream catcher is broken.” She was telling me she needed more from me and to take the lead in helping her rest. I told her that monsters weren’t her problem nor broken dream catchers, I was there to care for her throughout the night. Before you start to panic, I didn’t give up sleep, but I did certainly made it appear to her that I did.

I started by finding the generosity in me that she needed and accepted some things would need to wait – like housework or emails. I found my tears about the ‘me-time’ I craved and surrendered to the sacrifices that come with being a parent. I worked hard at not rushing her, having warmth and delight as I put her to bed, sending her a genuine message that I loved being with her. When the desperation would sneak in on me again I would remind myself that I could sleep all I wanted when she eventually left home or when I was dead.

Instead of expecting her to say goodnight and ‘see you in the morning’, I moved to make our separations shorter. I told her I would check on her in 5 minutes and that she could listen for my footsteps in the kitchen or for the sound of my voice. I always returned as I had promised full of more kisses while reminding her of the plans for the following day. I would tie invisible strings between our beds and tell her she just had to tug on them if she needed me. I told her I visited her in the night and watched her sleep. I once kissed her cheek with lipstick when she was sleeping but she told me in the morning, “I don’t like it when you make my face all messy!”

I even experimented with putting things under her pillow to find in the morning like treasure. She enjoyed the picture books most of all, running to read them together in our cuddle time. However, she was not happy with me when I left a pair of her favourite princess underwear under her pillow to wear. I tried many things – some worked and some did not but the message slowly got through. I worked hard to build a bridge from bedtime to the morning, conveying I was holding onto her so that she could let go of me. Instead of saying goodnight I tried to point her face into the next hello. I aimed to sooth her alarm system that had become activated by separation. I created pit stops for her to anticipate, breaking the ten hours of separate space into bite size pieces she could manage. We both started to sleep better as a result.

As I took the lead in navigating us through the bedtime separation my daughter grew more confident that this was my job and not hers. While singing her to sleep one night she looked at me and said, “Mama, no offense, but I can’t sleep when you are singing to me. Can you go now?” I stifled my laughter and said, “I’m sorry honey, have I been keeping you awake all this time?”

Copyright Dr. Deborah MacNamara

Deborah MacNamara is a clinical counsellor and educator, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute and author of Rest, Play, Grow – Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). She has more than 20 years experience working with children young and adults, and speaks regularly about child and adolescent development to parents, childcare providers, educators, and mental health professionals. Please see www.macnamara.ca for more information.

Starting School: Four Strategies for Helping with Separation Anxiety and Settling In

First day at school pictures seem to fill family photo albums. These images capture the significance of the ‘going-back-to-school’ ritual, a celebration of a key milestone in a child’s life. Despite excitement, there is usually apprehension in both kids and parents but if we are to help them we need to consider this transition through their emotions. The biggest factor driving much of their reaction and experience is separation anxiety. Children are creatures of attachment and when separated from those they are connected to, the alarm system in their brain starts to make a lot of noise. They can become anxious and scared because the people they lean against, feel secure, and are at home with, are disappearing and leaving them behind. It is a compliment to your relationship when a child misses you – in fact – it was actually nature’s intention. Fortunately, there are many ways to help reduce a child’s separation anxiety and help them adjust to their new school surroundings.

Become a Match-Maker

As parents we entrust our children to people who are educated, have good facilities, and interesting curriculum but what matters most is whether the teacher has our child’s heart. The whole idea behind gradual entry into school for young children has less to do with touring the facilities and more about fostering relationships with the adults in charge. Our kids care little about credentials and more about whether they can trust someone to take care of them. The research consistently demonstrates that if a child does not rest in a teacher’s care and feel at home they will struggle to learn from them.

When we lived in villages of attachment, children were cared for by people they already knew. Today we do not have the luxury of these prior relationships. We must cultivate these relationships and busy ourselves with introductions and matchmaking between teacher and child. We can do this in a number of ways, from pointing out similarities to helping them smile and connect with one another. Research from educational psychology demonstrates that a strong attachment to one’s teacher actually enhances school success, is related to higher grades, better emotional regulation and a willingness to take on challenges. Matchmaking to other children in an effort to have them settle into their new surroundings will only court peer attachment rather than the strong adult attachments they need to rely on.

2. Bridge the Gap

The second strategy is to help the child hold onto you when you are separated. This could include giving them a locket, a picture of you, a note in the lunchbox – anything that conveys to them you are still there even though apart. When saying goodbye to the child focus on the return and what you will do when you see them again. You may remind them that you will make cookies after school or read a story together or simply just give them a big hug. In saying good-bye to your child you want to make it easy for them to leave you and this means helping them realize all the ways you are still connected.

3. Deepen Your Attachment

Deepening the relationship with our children provides them with a secure base from which to spring forth into their new surroundings and adjust. The deeper the attachment with parents, the more they are able to withstand separation because they have more ways to keep a parent close, from being the same, feeling significant to them, to a sense of love and being known. The goal is not to practice at separation but rather to deepen the attachment so that the distance between you is bridged by your deeper relationship. Attachment research demonstrates how the expression of delight, enjoyment and warmth builds strong relationships. Building and protecting our attachments with children whether that be collecting them in the morning or sharing secrets before bedtime can go far in helping them feel connected and cared for despite the separations they face.

4. Watch and Wait

As parents we remain watchful from our sideline position, waiting for things to unfold and for our children to settle into school. Signs to pay attention to include elevated levels of anxiety, frustration, an overreliance on peers, a dislike for their teacher, and a numbing of emotions where they no longer talk about what distresses them. These signs warrant a closer examination of how a child is weathering the transition to school and the challenges they are facing.

Change and new beginnings are part of life. September school transitions quickly turn in to waving goodbye to a university bound young teen. Helping our children by matchmaking, bridging the separation, and deepening our relationship may seem small in the grand scheme of things but is a big deal in their world. The goal is to guide them through their transition while they feel attached to us and to their teachers. When they can take for granted the adults in their life will take care of them, they will be free to focus on what it is that they need to do most – to play, to learn, and to grow.

Dr. Deborah MacNamara is a counsellor and founder Kid’s Best Bet, Counselling and Family Resource Centre, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). She works with parents, educators, child-care and mental health professionals in making sense of kids from the inside out. See www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.com for more information.

Parents in the Workplace and the Village that Supports Them

Returning to work after having a child is a necessity for some women, a choice for others, a heartache for many. Economists argue it helps alleviate child poverty and raise GDP while feminists assert it is about equality in accessing employment and financial opportunities. Sociologists claim women’s mass entry into the paid labour market is one of the most significant sociological shifts in the last 100 years. Jean Liedloff’s book “The Contiuum Concept,” provides an anthropological lens describing the seamless blending of child-care with other work. From competing perspectives and disparate corners it is hard to find our way through on this issue. It continues to be a topic filled with landmines activating parental guilt, defenses, and debate. What gets eclipsed in these conversations and ought to be at the heart of it are the irreducible needs of young children. They are some of the most vulnerable, most dependent beings on the face of the planet and within them exists the greatest unmet capacity for the realization of human potential. This view has been reflected for centuries, from Aristotle to Pearl Buck’s line – “the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members”(My Several Worlds, 1954). The question we need to ask is how do we ensure the irreducible needs of young children are being when women straddle both home and work spheres.

Based on developmental science the evidence is clear in terms of the needs of young children. For their best bet in life they need at least one strong caring emotionally attuned adult with whom they are deeply attached. It is in the context of this relationship that developmental biases will unfold naturally and propel them towards maturation, e.g., to explore, to play, to create, to question, to adapt, to come to know oneself. The more immature one is the more one is rendered a creature of attachment actively pursuing contact and closeness in order to feel safe and get one’s bearings.

Children can attach to many people and even things but what is missed for the kids 6 and under is how they are not built for separation. They typically need 6 years to develop deep attachments with key people (e.g., parents) that will allow them to transcend physical separation through a sense of psychological connection and intimacy (1). We cannot hurry or force this development along – this is mother nature’s plan for helping them grow into separate beings capable of standing apart while being able to function with others. Does this mean we must never separate from our young children? No. One of the biggest futilities a young child faces is that they cannot hold onto a parent 24/7 and we really should stop holding it against them for trying. Our aim with young children is to ensure they have primary relationships in place and to help them to feel at home with other people in their attachment village that participate in raising them.

While we readily agree it takes a village to raise a child we also need to consider how we will deliver the child to this village and/or how to build it. We put our young children under great stress when they are not attached to the adults who are in charge of them. Research with young children in child-care centers has found cortisol levels via mouth swabs high enough to impair brain development (2). The cortisol levels are only decreased when the children have working attachments in the centers that help mitigate the stress of separation from their primary attachments.

Separation anxiety is one of the biggest issues young children face and reflects their irreducible need for attachment. They need enough consistency, contact and closeness to satiate attachment needs through the senses (e.g., touch, taste, smell, hearing, seeing) from ages 0 to 1. They continue to deepen their attachment with a strong invitation to exist in their parent’s presence from ages 1 to 6. By age 2 you hope to see signs of attaching by being the same as their parent (talking, preferences etc). By age 3 they enter belonging and loyalty as evident by their fierce possessiveness for people and things they are attached to. By age 4, a child will hopefully start to attach through significance, wanting to be special or matter to their parental figures and by age 5 to fall deeply in love with them. By age 6 it should hopefully occur to them that being close to someone means they share their secrets with them. When these forms of attachment unfold over the first 6 years of life they indicate a deepening of the relationship and increasing capacity to hang on when apart. We can continue to deepen our relationships over a lifetime, with some of us coming to the more vulnerable levels of attaching later on in life. Our job is to release our young children from clinging to us by taking care of their relational needs and giving them someone to cling to in our absence.

It begs the question as to what a parent can do to ensure the irreducible needs of children are met when they are working outside the home? What will help satiate a young child’s profound need for attachment and soothe subsequent alarm over separation? There are three attachment rituals that are helpful: collecting, matchmaking, and bridging.

1. Collecting

The collecting dance is an attachment ritual that has existed for centuries where relationships are built through the genuine expression of warmth, delight and enjoyment. If you think of the courting ritual between lovers this collecting dance becomes self-evident. There is a need for a strong invitation to be with the other person and perhaps a twinkle in one’s eye. Our role as parents is to deepen our relationship and satiate their attachment needs through collecting them often. In other words, we need to woo our children but this does preclude our need to also say no sometimes or set limits. Getting in their space in a friendly way, feeling that warmth between us seems so simple yet activates powerful chemicals in our body such as oxytocin. In fact, there is scientific evidence that having your boos boos kissed by someone you are attached to actually does make it feel better because of the release of oxytocin (3). When we continue to cultivate our relationship it promotes the development of a deeper attachment that will help them hang onto us when apart. They don’t need to practice at separation, they just need to get more deeply attached.

The collecting dance also pertains to other figures in the child’s village of care. Does the child care provider, teacher, grandparent, auntie, uncle, see themselves as also having to woo the child in order to cultivate a caretaking relationship? Do they get in their face in a friendly way and collect their eyes, work to get a smile, and some warmth back from the child? One of the challenges we face is in viewing child-care as a service. From a child’s perspective they care very little about services and more about whether their attachments will nurture and comfort them. The people who are part of a child’s attachment network need to win their heart as this will empower them to take care in our absence. When I went back to paid work and left my young child in the care of another person I squarely judged her on her capacity to fill my shoes and build a strong relationship with my child.

2. Matchmaking

Matchmaking requires parents to become agents of attachment and actively build the village that will help them raise their child. We often do this intuitively when introducing our newborn to their family members. We point out their similarities, the way they are connected, and their roles to one another (e.g., great grandpa to big brother). As matchmakers, parents are the ones to introduce the child to other adults responsible for them, letting them see the warmth of their own connection. A young child should take their lead from their primary attachments, e.g., if Mommy thinks someone is okay then I ought to follow suit. Before I ever left my child with her child-care provider she came to my house, we ate together, played together, and talked. My daughter could see there was delight and warmth between us conveying to her a sense of trust, connection, and security. When the relationship takes between a child and another adult then we are ready to deliver the child to their care. It has little to do with providing a service and more about providing a home away from home. Many times adults are quick to match children to other children but this only courts competing attachments with adults and sets the scene for peer orientation (4).

It some child-care agencies one provider will take the lead in building a relationship with a child when they are new to the center. Once the child has settled into a relationship with them they act as a matchmaker to other providers and help them feel at home in these relationships as well. When children are transitioning from child-care into school there can also be matching making done to the new teacher. In some communities I have worked with the kindergarten teacher has even visited the children in their child-care center and oriented them to what their new school will be like. There are no rules to matchmaking other than adults take the lead in helping introduce the village members to the child. When we take responsibility for the relationship building then children can better rest in our care.

3. Bridging

When apart from their primary attachments a gulf or void opens up for children. We can help them hold onto a surrogate in our place but we can also help them hang onto us by bridging the distance. With young child a picture of their parents, a stuffy from home with the associated smells or the sound of your voice reading a story or singing to them all serve to bridge the gap. Other ways to bridge the distance include lockets with pictures of you or carrying an item on them that they associate with a parent. One of my friends gave her son a picture of her in a little bag to carry in his pocket. He said that whenever he missed her he would pull her picture out and give her kisses. From notes in lunch boxes to kisses on hands there are no shortage of ways to help children hang onto us when apart. Reminding them of all the ways we will be together (e.g., I will pick you up and we will go to the park together), instead of the gap between us can go far in reducing the separation experienced.

Sometimes people argue it may make the child upset to be reminded of their parent but why would we ever hold it against a child for missing their parent or not want them to express this? The best sign that a child actually feels at home with someone is their capacity to express vulnerable feelings in their presence. Many children stop crying when left at daycare only to continue their tears as soon as the parent returns to pick them up. Children often stop crying because they don’t feel secure enough with someone to continue their tears with and end up holding onto this upset for the duration of the absence. One of the best recommendations my child-care provider ever received was the trust of a little 3-year old who wept in her arms as she missed her mother. I knew then and there that she had the capacity to build the type of vulnerable relationships with children that I longed for.

The bottom line is young children don’t do separation and we should really stop expecting them to. We need to focus our energies on attachment by building our village and delivering the child to its care in our absence. We need to deepen our attachment with our children so they can better hold onto us while apart. We need to matchmake to those responsible for them and take the lead in bridging the distance they face when separated. Above all we need to respect their developmental needs and not push them beyond separation that is too much to bear. There are times when it is simply too much separation and no attachment rituals are going to fill a distance that is too wide to traverse developmentally. What is undeniable is each family faces their own challenges, has different support, resources, and corresponding choices when it comes to child-care and paid employment. It is also true that young children are some of the most vulnerable, most dependent human beings whose irreducible needs are only met in the context of nurturing relationships. This is not an issue of political correctness but one of developmental correctness. My wish for every parent is an attachment village to deliver their child to. When they can count on their village, the child can count on them – whether in the home, out of the home, and in all the spaces in-between.

Dr. Deborah MacNamara is a counsellor in private practice, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). She works with parents, educators, child-care and mental health professionals in making sense of kids from the inside out. See www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.com for more information.

References

For more information on the development of attachment in the first 6 years of life see Chapter 2, “A Matter of Attachment” in Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Mate, Hold on to your kids: Why parents need to matter more than peers. (Canada, Knopf, 2004).

You can also view the Making Sense of Preschoolers DVD by Dr. Gordon Neufeld, www.neufeldinstitute.com, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

For consistent research findings on this topic see the following –

Sarah E. Watamura, Bonny Donzella, Jan Alwin, Megan R. Gunnar, “Morning-to-afternoon increases in cortisol Concentrations for infants and toddlers at child care: Age differences and behavioral correlates,” Child Development 74, (2003), pp. 1006-1021.

Susan Gilbert, “Turning a mass of data on child care into advice for parents,” New York Times, July 22, 2003.

Marie-Claude Geoffroy, Sylvana M. Cote, Sophie Parent, Jean Richard Seguin, “Daycare attendance, stress, and mental health,” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, August 2006.

Sims, A. Guilfoyle, T.S. Parry, “Children’s cortisol levels and quality of child care provision”, Child: Care, Health and Development, 32 (4), July 2006, pp. 453-466.

Harriet J. Vermeer, Marinus H. van IJzendoom, “Children’s elevated cortisol levels at daycare: A review and meta-analysis,” Child & Family Studies and Data Theory, Leiden University, The Netherlands, 2006.

Ellen Galinsky, “The study of children in family child care and relative care. Highlights of findings.” Families and Work Institute, New York, 1994.

Robert H. Bradley, Deborah Lowe Vandell, “ Child care and the well-being of children” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161 (7), July 2007, pp. 669-676.

For a discussion of the findings related to oxytocin and human touch, Kerstin Uvnas Mober, The Oxytocin factor: Tapping the hormone of calm, love, and healing. (Cambridge, MA, Da Capo Press).

See Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Mate, Hold on to your kids: Why parents need to matter more than peers. (Canada, Knopf, 2004).