Bringing Our Whole Self To Parenting

We bring our whole selves into parenting: our culture, family of origin roles, identities, and even our trauma. If you lacked safety as a child, you may feel a bit lost on how to facilitate a connected attachment with your child. One of the challenges with parenting is that you need to spend some time getting to know yourself: investigating your reactions, your values, your communication style, and your regrets. As a parent, you will inevitably get it wrong sometimes. We all occasionally lose it and say or react in ways that we regret. Last week my partner and I watched our four-year-old niece for a few days. She was gently testing boundaries and making demands. I reacted strongly to her and called her bossy. I know bossy is a gendered word and a name call. Calling my niece bossy goes against my value of cultivating kind relationships. In that moment of frustration, there was a familiar, conditioned stress reaction. As an assertive woman, I myself grew up being called bossy throughout my life. Perhaps I saw my niece a bit in me. Once I took a breath and regulated myself, I went back to my niece and took accountability and apologized. I said to her, I am so glad you feel safe telling me your preferences. Here are two options to choose from. Thankfully, the repair seemed to work and we continued playing with dinosaurs.

According to attachment specialist Daniel Siegel, ruptures are a break in the connection with a child. If ruptures are not processed, this can lead to problems in the parent-child relationship, and with the child’s developing sense of self. Thankfully, repairing a misstep with your child helps to create a stronger, and safer bond with your child. A repair is mending the relationship after a missed attachment need. Remember, we are all human. We are bound to make relational mistakes. Ruptures happen in all relationships, and thankfully repairs strengthen relational bonds.

How to Repair a Rupture with your child:

1.     Self regulate! If you are still flooded, it will be hard to connect with your child and with yourself.

2.     Identify the trigger and how it connects to your own triggers or familiar experiences

3.     Connect with your child: get on their level, make eye contact, make a physical connection

4.     Acknowledge your mistake and share how you should have handled the situation.

5.     Apologize and take accountability

6.     Provide comfort and reconnection time.