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.
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.
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.
Guilty as Charged: Becoming your Kid’s Best Bet
Guilt – that feeling that often hangs over you as a parent where you wonder if you are inadequate, lost, and really the answer to your child’s needs. It comes with an unspoken desire to find the right parenting book to at last show you the way through and provide answers. There is a belief that something must be terribly wrong if you feel so guilty? Right? Actually, no … not necessarily, sometimes guilt is the best evidence that you are the very answer your child needs.
The reality is that parents are a work in progress when it comes to maturity and there is nothing like having a child that calls to the fore our shortcomings and areas of immaturities. Having a child is a growth experience whether you wanted one or not. For example, trying to hold onto the frustration and tantrums of a preschooler will mean we
holding onto our own frustration and keeping reactions in check. It is our love for our children that calls forth within us this motivation and desire to be the parent they need. And so to this desire we give ourselves fully, and in it’s wake our guilt appears, showing us where we have fallen short of these goals and how we have served to sometimes harm the ones we strive to take care of. It is this guilt and conflict about who we are and who we want to be to our children that actually helps us form intentions to do differently.
The other side of guilt is the existential reality that in seeing yourself as your child’s answer you can experience guilt for everything … from the bruised knees to the sadness they experience when you leave for work. It is only because you see yourself as responsible for them that you experience this guilt at all, and it is the very best manifestation of it. If truth were told, I worry most for the children whose parents don’t ever feel guilty. If you consider it from a child’s point of view, they can graciously and willingly forgive when their parents make mistakes. What children can have a harder time understanding is a lack of guilt when harm is done.
We live in a culture that doesn’t support tears and guilt, but they are both part of what serves to keep us human. When you are able to find your tears about the ways you fall short as a parent – then, and only then – can you begin to find your way through. All of the time we run from our demons we are at their mercy and are threatened to be swallowed whole by them. Guilt is a message, an unwelcome one sometimes, but one worth listening to if one has the courage.
Guilt keeps us honest and points us in the direction of being the parent our children need. The only guilt that is worth getting rid of is feeling guilty about feeling guilty. Its very existence is the expression of our deepest yearning to be our child’s best bet, and to that I say, guilty as charged.
Dr. Deborah MacNamara is in private practice, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like on). For more information see www.macnamara or www.neufeldinstitute.com.