Helping Emotion and Attachment to Get Along
So often we try to address our kids’ behavior through their conscious minds by asking them: to “make different choices”, to “explain why they did X” or if they can “imagine how Y made another child feel.” The folly of this approach becomes clear when we understand the deep and primal roots of what drives our children’s behavior (and our own, but that’s a story for another time!): attachment and emotion.
Attachment is our survival instinct; if we are not attached to someone (and they are not attached to us), we literally will not survive the first years of life. Even when we “age out” of the years where our survival is fully dependent on someone else attending to our needs, attachment - the drive for contact and closeness - remains our preeminent need, blueprinted in our DNA, underpinning our behavior throughout our lives.
Emotion refers to the ways in which we are moved in response to our world: built into us, blueprinted in our DNA, emotions are designed to ensure our survival, which we’ve just established is one and the same as our attachment. Our deepest, most elemental and primal emotions are alarm, frustration and pursuit.
Let me give you an example that will likely make quick and easy sense for you of this theoretical talk. Any of us who have had small children know that the quickest way to get a child who doesn’t want to leave the park to come with us is to pretend to leave - Bye! Bye! See you later! and feigning walking away will insure that our child comes running after us [n.b. - I am not recommending this approach, merely using it to illustrate a point]. Why does this work? Because the attachment drive runs deeper than anything else (deeper than the the drive to play and the counterwill instinct, which are likely the forces behind our child not wanting to leave the park) and the emotion that serves attachment in this instance are the emotions of alarm (“help!! Mom’s leaving me!!”) and pursuit (“I must close the gap between me and my attachment figure”). In this simple and common scenario we see how Nature lives in each of us, moving us in the right direction to keep us alive and close to those who are responsible for our care.
The problem is this: our current culture is not designed with either attachment or emotion in mind, leading to many ways in which these two forces, which are meant to work together, become adversaries. When attachment and emotion are in conflict (a child needs to be attached but his or her emotions keep getting in the way of his or her attachments) it can lead to many many problems. In fact, some would argue that the roots of all behavioral and mental health issues have their origins in the distress that can ensue when attachment and emotion are at odds with each other. Given this, it becomes clear that one of our primary responsibilities as parents is to alleviate any conflict between our child’s attachment to us and their emotions, to make is “easy* for our kids’ emotions and attachments to peacefully coexist.
What can we do to support this? There are many ways we can extend to our kids what Gordon Neufeld calls “an unconditional invitation to exist in our presence”. Here are a few ideas to get you started - or to support your journey down this most important path:
Don’t use (or stop using) discipline that divides. If our discipline methods rely on using a temporary loss of attachment (the “silent treatment”, time-outs, sending a child to their room etc.) to send a message of disapproval for certain behavior, we are sending a message that only certain parts of our child are allowed in the relationship. This puts their attachment needs at odds with the (inevitable) emotions that will arise. This doesn’t mean that we can’t transmit our values around behavior or expression, it simply means that no behavior (which, remember, is driven by those primal emotions) will result in a severance of attachment. Luckily, the kind of deep and safe relationship that results from this invitation allows us to have a much more powerful way, in the long run, of letting our kids know what behaviors are appropriate and acceptable, and of having them be much more likely to be receptive to these lessons.
Play it out. For every emotional expression that we as parents have a hard time accepting, there is a play arena where it can be expressed. Swearing? Have “swear time” every day where you set a timer for 5 minutes and let your child “have at it!” with no repercussions. Hitting? Invest in a punching bag, punch balloons or initiate a nightly pillow fight. Throwing? Find all sorts of things and spaces where your kid can throw to their heart’s content. Providing lots of time and space for play - and allowing a wide berth for acceptable forms of play - can tremendously alleviate that stress that big emotions can put on relationship.
Bridge the rough moments. When things go off the rails, which they definitely will sometimes, make sure you convey to your child that, in the big picture all is well. You and they are a-okay, even though the morning/afternoon/day/week has been hard. Bridging is Neufeld’s word for the attachment practice of making clear that our relationship with our child is steady and forever, despite any bumps in the road. Phrases like “That was hard but we’re okay”, “Phew - what a day we had! I love you and I bet tomorrow will be an easier day” and “No matter what happens, I’m always your mom” capture what bridging is all about.
One thing we can count on is that our kids’ emotions, and the behavior that results from them, will be big and messy and challenging for us. We would do well to expect and plan for this challenge to occur (many, many, many times!). When we strive to ensure that their emotions don’t affect our relationship, we support ease, harmony and rest in their brains and bodies. And thus, ideal conditions for emotional health are restored and our kids can grow and mature as Nature intended.