“Miss! Miss! He called me a wienie!” And so could start a round of “who did what to whom.” While I observed this common playground scenario, it occurred to me that this child was not asking the adult to immediately “right the wrong.” It seemed to me that he wanted reassurance and an understanding that his feelings had been hurt.
How much easier it would be if we realized that what children most need from us is support and understanding. Whether it be dealing with a hurtful comment on the playground or a more serious situation such as bullying, children look to us to see what we think of them.
How could we respond when a child tells us of a hurtful situation? First, we need to acknowledge the situation using words such as, “I am so sorry Johnny called you a wienie. That must have hurt your feelings… but I don’t think you are.” Allowing the child to talk about their emotions, the frustrations and hurts, gives them the message that we care about them.
This is difficult for adults in schools because we feel obliged to do something about the situation. It can be a time-consuming venture as we try to uncover what really happened and determine a solution that is often in the form of a consequence which then needs to be meted out and supervised. There is so much to do and such little time. It’s natural to want to move into action when a child comes to us with a complaint.
There is a teacher I know, who now does a LOT of listening when children come to her to complain about their classmates. Interestingly, when she asks the student, after listening to their concern, if he or she would like her to DO something, most often the child says, “No.” There are times when she will speak with the other student, but knowing that her children just want her to listen has made her feel less pressured.
When children sense our “presence” it has a calming effect on their nervous system. In order for us as adults to be “present” we need to be convinced that what we are doing in the moment is just as important as what we will be doing next.
Our children need to know that they are important enough to us that we are willing to listen to their concerns. They want to know what we think of them, and once reassured, can hold onto that for a while, as they experience the rough and tumble of being with their peers. Of course, we need to be alert to situations that need intervention, as our students also look to us to keep them safe. However, this may not need to be done as often as we think.
I send out a challenge to those of you working with children. Try this out as an experiment for a day or two. Come alongside the child by acknowledging her feelings and hurt. Provide the child with a word or two that describes how you see him (focus on effort and growth). Acknowledge the injustice of what happened. Even if she asks you to do something, which can be done at a later time, continue to ask her if she is okay. I am sure that you will be pleased with the results.
My thanks to Lorraine Beaudry, a teacher in Alberta, who shared her experiences when I first asked for feedback about this “experiment.”
I will never forget landing in the Winnipeg airport at midnight and stepping into the terminal to see a throng of people waiting for loved ones despite the late hour. There were hugs, expressions of ‘I missed you’, and a general hub of good energy in the air. My family and I were heading to the airport hotel for the night but I was left with the sense of being an outsider to this community and a sense of longing for the warmth of their connections. I thought to myself, no wonder their licence plates read ‘Friendly Manitoba’.
The Manitoba airport represented to me the best of what community brings to parents and children. You can have all the beautifully landscaped buildings and houses you want but this does not ensure you have a community. Community is about connections between people and it is the natural context in which children were meant to be raised. An attachment village is an invisible matrix in which children mature, developing a sense of rootedness, belonging, and connection. Children look up to and orient around adults in these communities, and many surrogate caregivers abound. Parents today are often separated from extended family and the nuclear family has never been so small. We are so accustomed to being isolated and without a village, that it feels commonplace to us; even though it feels ‘normal’ it certainly isn’t natural.
To this day I refer to the neighbours where I lived as a child as “Auntie Charlotte”, “Uncle Jim”, “Auntie Bee” and so on. The street was full of aunties and uncles and there was a sense when you were out playing in the street that all eyes were upon you. Even those ‘Block Watch’ signs in people’s house windows alerted me that help was never too far away on my walk home from school. But how do we create these villages of attachment for our children when we don’t know our neighbours and are suspicious of those who would display a ‘Block Watch’ sign in their window?
While we can’t turn back the clock to days past when we lived in attachment villages, we can purposively and constructively create them for ourselves. The benefit of living today is that we have the freedom to construct the attachment village for our children and family in whatever way we see fit. We can be conscious of whom we choose to be aunties and uncles, ensuring those who will fit with our parenting philosophy and values. We can matchmake our children with those who will play a surrogate parent role, ensuring that they never have to feel away from home when they are not with their family.
Cultivating an attachment village takes work at relationships and a real desire for connection with others. Whether we come together to celebrate events like Earth Day, BBQ’s, Thanksgiving, or religious events, we get to write our own rules about community. We don’t have to follow prescribed customs; we get to make it up as we go. You will know when your village is forming because many of your people will feel like family, and as such you share trials, sorrows, and celebrations together. The children experience a seamless matrix that they can rest in, play in, and do the work of maturing.
While facing disconnection and isolation may be all too common an everyday experience of parents today, there is much that can be done to cultivate and create the supporting cast that families have always needed throughout time. We don’t have to feel guilty and inadequate because we can’t do it all and be everything to our children, it simply was never meant to be that way.
It was dark outside. My four-year-old granddaughter was about to cross the sidewalk, when she noticed a swarm of black ants covering the area on which she was about to step. Alarmed at the sight of them, she was filled with anxiety, frozen in helplessness.
What is anxiety?
In order to survive and stay safe in the world, our brains are equipped with an alarm system. This system is meant to move us to caution when we are in danger. By the age of six months in utero, the fetus already has a working alarm system. Later on, it will help the child develop caution, carefulness, concern, and conscientiousness. This is an intricate system which involves the limbic system, the hypothalamus, autonomic nervous system, attention system, endocrine system and many special neurotransmitters. The alarm system plays an important role in development, and parents are a key influence in making sure that this system remains working in a healthy way.
What makes children go into alarm?
There is almost no end to what can trip this alarm system, whether we are conscious of it or not. When we feel anxiety, it means we are in alarm. This produces feelings of being unsafe, apprehensive and restless.
Children go into alarm at bedtime, when a new baby arrives, when they go to school, when their parents divorce, when teddy bear gets lost, when they realize that death is an inevitable part of life, when they are rejected by friends, when someone is angry at them, and so on. These sources of alarm are quite obvious, but then there are also the hidden sources of alarm – realizing that parents can’t keep you safe, that something bad could happen to someone you love, sensing you are too much to handle, that you can’t meet the expectations of others, that you are not important to someone you care about or that you must keep a secret that divides you. All of these cause anxiety and a chronic vague sense of being unsafe, apprehensive and restless. These are the subjective experiences of an activated alarm system, even when we don’t see what is alarming us.
Children do not see what alarms them because the true root of alarm is the fear of separation from the people and things to which they are attached. This vulnerability is too much to bear. It is less vulnerable to fear darkness, ants, noises, shadows, or monsters under the bed. Today more children are experiencing anxiety as they face separation from their parents in unprecedented numbers at younger and younger ages for longer and longer hours. Dr. Gordon Neufeld has given us the insight into these intricate dynamics, so that we can prevent and solve the problems arising from too much alarm.
The Prevention and Solution of Alarm Problems
Deep attachment to a caring adult is the key to helping children feel safe and preventing the problems that stem from alarm. Children need to rest in secure relationships, in the context of home and in any framework in which they are cared for. Parents, teachers and caregivers together must be mindful of this most basic need.
As my granddaughter stood frozen before the ants, I came alongside her, took her by the hand and said, “Let’s count to three and then we’ll run and jump over the ants!” That’s what we did and we made it safely to the other side – together. This story is a metaphor. When our children are facing alarm, we must hold on to them, keep them attached to us and help them safely to their destination. Then they can grow up and become independent.
My daughter was five years old and eager to play dolls with the “big girls” next door. She looked up to these older girls and longed to join in whenever she saw them playing outside. Seeing an opportunity, she hurried out the front door with excitement in her eyes and her favourite doll tucked under her arm, leaving me watching from the window.
In that moment it suddenly dawned on me what was about to play out… and what I wanted more than ever was to pull her back and protect her from what might happen. And that was because I saw something she did not… I knew that the doll she was holding so lovingly was not your typical doll. This “doll” was an alien puppet that belonged to her father — a gag gift actually, but this concept would have been lost on a five-year-old. To any other eyes it would be seen as ugly, but to her it was precious. She had fallen in love with this alien and carried it around like a doll. If nothing else, it was a connection with her father, whom she adored.
So what was I worried about? Her taste in dolls was not really a concern in my eyes, especially because I could see the affection behind it. My concern was that the other children might not see the same endearing qualities of this ugly doll… and they might not be able to contain their disgust.
As it turns out, my concern was both warranted and realized. “What an ugly doll!” echoed through the air. The words were wounding and I could see the hurt look in my daughter’s face as she experienced rejection from her peers.
My heart yearned to protect her. I wanted to take the hurt away and keep her from experiencing anything else that might wound. Yet this was a pivotal moment for me as I realized this was only the beginning. There would be some things in her life that she would have to face, and I suddenly saw the importance of her developing the strength and confidence to face them. Although very tempting, maybe keeping her in a bubble was not the best idea. I had the sense that protecting her meant something more, something deeper. And so I chose not to brush off the experience or try to distract and make her feel better; rather I chose to hold her in that painful moment. I wrapped my arms around her while she felt the sadness and disappointment of the rejection until she could move through it to the other side.
As I hugged my daughter and the tears came, I felt her pain. And I realized that as a parent there would be times I would need to step in and shield her from things that were too much to bear, otherwise I risked her defenses taking over and toughening her heart. At the same time, there were going to be some times where she needed to know what she could handle things, that she could survive the girls’ wounding words. And I needed to be there for her through these experiences, to be a safe place and to keep her heart soft. This was the key to her becoming resilient and able to face the challenges that inevitably lay ahead. Because there just might be more ugly dolls in her future…
I co-facilitate a study group of professionals who meet regularly to discuss Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s theories of attachment and development. Together we are a group of teachers, psychiatrists, social workers, counsellors, parent educators, alternative school educators, early childhood educators, and most of us parents, with a strong focus on understanding and forwarding attachment thinking. Next on our agenda, we plan to begin studying Neufeld’s concept of counterwill.
As a parent and professional, I have found the concept of counterwill to be absolutely pivotal and groundbreaking. Counterwill was first discussed by insightful Austrian psychoanalyst, Otto Rank [1884-1939], and later adapted by Neufeld to describe our instinctive defensive resistance to feeling forced. It is an instinct present across the life-span, although far more intense during the growth-spurt phases of around two, and again during adolescence.
Counterwill can present as moments of defiance, balkiness and digging-in, yet it serves a constructive purpose in development. According to Neufeld, the counterwill instinct has evolved with a two-fold developmental function: to serve attachment and to forward psychological growth.
In terms of attachment, it’s primary role is as a defence that repels the influence of those outside of our attachment circle. It is meant to keep us home and keep us safe as youngsters, and is part of the attachment ‘glue’ that bonds us to our people by ensuring we have a strong instinct not to follow just anybody. It is the catalyst very much behind the toddler turning away from the smiling stranger while in line at the grocery store [perhaps even sticking out the tongue!]. I don’t know you and I am not attached to you! it tries to say.
In terms of forwarding psychological growth, counterwill again evokes an urge of ‘push-back’ to feelings of being forced, except within this realm, it is an instinctive reaction to feeling pushed even by those to whom we are attached. These are the strong feelings of resistance that can automatically surge in a youngster when they perceive they are being told what to do, demanded of, or told what to think.
NO! begins to say the two year old, crossing arms and digging-in.
WHITE! says the adolescent when told something is black.
BLACK! says the adolescent when told something is white.
Developmentally-speaking, counterwill inside the natural context of attachment becomes a healthy part of the very young child’s tentative gradual movements towards a necessary sense of ‘separateness’ from parents, and the adolescent’s growth towards psychological independence and the ability to think for themselves. Having studied the counterwill instinct, I am tremendously grateful for the increased ‘smoothness’ in day-to-day parenting that comes with this insight. I am able to see moments of counterwill when my children resist or are digging-in because of sheer reaction to how I’ve approached them, and I’ve learned to momentarily alleviate my energy of insistence, demand or force to allow things to unclench before moving forward again [rather than trying to push more in the face of their strong counterwill reaction].
Important to our study group of educators and mental health professionals, Neufeld discusses in detail how the counterwill instinct can be one of the most perplexing and troublesome dynamics in dealing with children and youth, particularly if it is misunderstood by the adults around the child, or becomes pronounced, intense and stuck. Why? What can cause a healthy and natural instinct to become problematic, frustrating and difficult for the child? How do we approach intense or systemic counterwill, seeking to restore a more settled and healthy balance? These will form important discussion questions for our study group as we focus on Dr. Neufeld’s concept of counterwill.
Editorial Note: For more information on Counterwill, please see Dr. Neufeld’s DVD: Making Sense of Counterwill.
Last night my children couldn’t sleep. Today was their first day of school and their bodies and minds were not quite ready for the transition. As my husband and I turned out our light to go to sleep, I heard my nine-year-old daughter’s little voice call out…”I’ll never get to sleep!” and then my 13-year-old son reiterated, “Me neither. I’m going to be up until three in the morning!” After reassurances from us, sleep finally came. Earlier that evening however, they both expressed having a mix of excitement and anxiety about the first day of school. With the unknown comes apprehension. On many children’s and teen’s minds are questions such as: Will I like my teacher? Will I be able to do the work? Will my friends be in my class? Will I succeed this year? For older students it may be: Will I find my classes? Will I make new friends? Will I fit in?
This morning, as I drove to the school where I teach one day a week, I listened to the radio. They were interviewing a principal from one of the local high schools about what the first day of school was like for the grade 8’s. In Vancouver, Canada, where I live, most high schools host grades 8 to 12 so for a student entering grade 8, it is a whole new world. I was very impressed how this school was handling the transition for the young teens. The principal acknowledged that it can be scary for many grade 8 students and the staff worked hard to devise a plan that would help ease them into their new school experience.
Instead of the grade 8’s arriving to look for their name on a list and having to find their own classes, the staff had the grade 9 to 12 students arrive in the morning and had the grade 8’s arrive in the afternoon so that they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed amongst a sea of older peers. The counsellors had worked with a group of grade 11 and 12 students last year to get them ready to be the “link” for the new students this year. The older “link” students met the grade 8’s in the gym and they formed into small groups where the older teens did some team building exercises with the younger. Then, when the group felt ready, the older students would accompany the grade 8’s in their group to their homerooms and they would stay with them for the remainder of the time that day. The principal said by putting these kinds of practices into place where the students are supported to feel safe and welcomed, the rate of vandalism and absenteeism has decreased over time. He also felt that they contributed to students doing better academically in school. When students feel good about coming to school and have a sense of belonging, they naturally do better.
This intuitive principal and staff understood that in order for kids to learn and grow, they first must feel secure and well taken care of. As Dr. Neufeld states, “All growth emanates from a place of rest.” Research in neuroscience shows us that stress can impeded learning, in animals and in humans. I think we all know how it feels not to be able to think straight or perform as well when we are alarmed. Master teachers understand this well and work hard to put their students at ease, winning their loyalty and hearts so that these teachers create a context in which they can impart their wisdom.
The principal at this Vancouver high school also added that some parents are reluctant to leave their young teens on the first day, given the newness and stress of the situation. He said, instead of shooing them away, they welcome parents to stay in the gym, until the parents feel satisfied that their child is fine and safe. Again, I was impressed with the way the school handled “the passing of the attachment baton” as Dr. Neufeld calls it. When children and teens experience separation from their parents or other adults they are attached to, it can produce alarm. When new teachers and older students welcome them and work to create a safe atmosphere where the new teens can depend on them, it creates a positive experience for all. It also brings out wonderful caring instincts in the older students who are working hard to create the safe environment for their younger peers. As we draw out the hierarchy between younger and older, it benefits everyone. Many elementary schools do this with great success by matching older “buddy classes” with younger ones.
When educators and teaching staff step up to orient students, provide a compass point and invite students to depend on them when they need help, it creates attachments that are so vital for student-teacher relationships. We would do well in all our schools to make this our first order of business – to create contexts of connections between staff and parents, staff and students and older students and younger ones. Children and youth who feel well taken care of become very caring students. First we must take care of the emotional needs of our students. Then in the wake of emotional and psychological rest, we have a better chance of cultivating an education system that fosters caring, independent, passionate learners.
“Daddy, I am bored,” my six-year-old son comes into my home office complaining. I have a feeling of déjà vu. I have heard this before. In fact all my children around this age have shown up with the very same expression: “Daddy, I am bored.” I used to think that they lacked for ideas of what to do. And so, I used to come up with at least a dozen suggestions. It never seemed to work though. My children left seemingly unsatisfied with my suggestions. I used to brush off my discomfort by remembering what I had read in popular psychology columns, that it was a good thing to be bored. As the years passed my two older home-schooled children are no longer in this stage. I never hear them complain about being bored. They seem to have found that never ceasing inner-well of creativity, filling them with endless curiosity. Yes, they show up at my home office, but more likely with precise questions like, ”What is a black hole?” or “What is the difference between government and parliament?” or “Why does a car have a gearbox?”
After studying the Neufeld paradigm I obtained words to many things I knew intuitively, and I also received confirmation of others things of which I was not fully certain. But I never understood the meaning of “Daddy, I am bored” until taking one of the Neufeld Distance Education courses.
Armed with this new knowledge I felt quite excited when my six-year-old came into my home office expressing, “Daddy, I am bored.” I caught his eyes and said: “Oh really, are you bored?” He nodded. I pat my hands on my lap, and I smile and said to him, “Come and sit on daddy’s lap.” He comes reluctantly and sits on my lap. But once there, things start to shift. Within a minute I can feel how he is relaxing in my presence. I make sure he is sitting comfortably. Then sometimes we look at something together on the computer and sometimes we talk about something. Other times I simply keep on working with my son on my lap. After a few minutes I can feel how his energy returns. Soon he says with a big smile: “Now, I know what I am going to do!” and off he goes.
I now understand that being bored typically does not have anything to do with lack of things to do, not even lack of exciting things to do. It has to do with the lack of inner energy due to lack of attachment. A child who lacks attachment often becomes obsessed about attachment. Saying “I am bored” is actually saying, “I don’t have the energy to do anything. I need a hug, or a lap to sit on, or a talk with someone I am attached to, like Mummy or Daddy or Granny.” When the child’s attachment needs are fulfilled, the emergent energy (inner energy) flows and the child sees a multitude of possibilities of what to do on the inner from within himself.
In today’s busy life it is often not obvious what is behind many of our children’s challenges and behaviours. Lack of contact with those they are attached to is a common cause of a whole array of problems. We need to nurture our children’s attachment to us, whatever they are doing, because in doing so we give them the energy they need to thrive, mature, and learn.
When my oldest child was eight-years-old, she began asking for a cell phone. It seemed like a ‘fun’ idea to her, and definitely in keeping with the times and trends of our young. They use technology in their day-to-day lives to keep in touch with each other in a multiple of ways, including social media sites, cell phones, and texting.
Discussions about the state of youth today often lead to worries with regard to these technologies. Parents and professionals alike feel concern over what they view as preoccupations at best and actual addictions at worst. Family life can suffer, parental influence can take a back seat, grades can slip, and life directions can seem to fall by the wayside as teens hyper-focus on who did what and with whom, all available in real-time. A minute-by-minute unfolding is conveniently and irresistibly available through our present on-the-spot technologies. It must be the modern technology causing all the problems!
But then again, I think back to the more simple attachment technology that was available to me when I was young… the telephone. I recall the laments of adults, concerned that their children were talking with friends too much on the telephone, staying on the phone for all hours of the day and night if left unchecked. These were similar themes to those discussed today: different details, but similar themes.
Granted, the technology was a whole other ballgame: the telephones of my day were plugged into the wall so at least you always knew where your child was! But past that obvious advantage, what I also recall from my youth were structures and routines articulated and followed-through around the proper use of the telephone to ensure that we didn’t get carried away past our own good. An actual ‘culture’ existed around use of the phone to ensure that the telephone fit into the rest of our lives, and not that our lives try to work around use of the telephone!
Friends were not allowed to call after 7:30 pm on school nights as this was protected family and rest time; we were not to be using the phone during meal times and friends were promptly told to call back later or wait till the next school day; we had a maximum reasonable amount of time to talk on the phone and then we were expected to hang-up; we were always asked the identity of our caller; we weren’t allowed to use the telephones at school to check-in with friends and ultimately, we were encouraged to leave the phone alone and rest from constant interaction with peers. Parents also realized that placing a phone in a child’s room would be asking for potential trouble. Did we try to test and negotiate these structures? Sure. Did we whine, cry, and get terribly upset at times? Sure. But these structures were put in place to regulate our use of something that might carry us away.
These days, technology moves so fast that we have little time to develop a proper and healthy culture around how it should be used with children and teens. Unfortunately, we see many examples of children who are given complete carte blanche access to technology, with minimal supervision and without structures or routines. We have to remember that these necessary pieces help to create the ‘safe guards’ so that children don’t become preoccupied, addicted or involved in dangerous pursuits born out of sheer curiosity, mischief and immaturity. Our young are just that: young. They are still immature by their very nature, and most don’t yet have a well-defined sense of moderation: of what is healthy and good for them. Add to that: peer interaction can be overly stimulating and absolutely addicting. Our young need rest from a constant and anxious pursuit of always being ‘in the know’.
Consider this analogy: would you allow your child’s peer group to have 24/7 access to your child, always able to walk into the house at any time of the day or night, always able to interrupt family time, always able to disturb your child’s sleep, always able to distract your child during class time, and always able to excite, provoke or even antagonize at will? Intuitively you would know that this is unhealthy for your child and ultimately, you would move to protect your child from this constant buzzing state. This is a developmental place in their lives where rest from buzzing and busyness is absolutely necessary to de-stress, process, define themselves as separate from peers, and separate from complicated, stressful and often wounding peer dynamics.
When we have time away from a troubling situation, we have a chance to slow down, calm down and develop a better perspective of what is right and wrong, how we truly feel inside, and how to perhaps fix or right the situation. Negative peer group dynamics with children and adolescents [ie. teasing and bullying situations] can sometimes become so much more pronounced, inflamed and aggressive if able to persist without letup. Carte blanche use of attachment technology can absolutely contribute to things going from ‘bad to worse’ in these situations because there isn’t enough time and space occurring to allow those involved to stop, disengage, leave it alone, think for themselves, feel their way through, and perhaps come to a different understanding about what is happening.
Technology is a wonderful thing: it can be used in amazing ways to enhance life, but it can also create huge problems if structures are not defined around how it is going to fit into healthy development and family life, particularly with our young. My daughter was too young at the time to have any true need of a cell phone, but when we did decide to include this technology in her life, we did our best to unfold it within grounded structures and routines.
Was there testing and negotiation? Sure. Was there whining, crying and upset? Absolutely. But this is par for the course… even though technology changes at the speed of light, children don’t. They still have the same developmental needs, the same need of protected space to grow up, and the same need of adults who can handle upset because ultimately, it is the adults who must carry the big picture until the child is mature enough to see it.
“There’s nothing to do! I’m bored!” is the battle-cry of children everywhere who are on summer vacation. Yet after weeks of counting the days for school to end, children are at a loss for what to do with their newly found freedom.
When I asked a number of children what they were looking forward to during summer vacation, their answers were revealing. They all said “freedom from…”: a schedule, homework, boring lessons, tests, bullying from classmates, and getting into trouble with teachers. Although they were looking forward to having some control over their time, their activities and who they chose to be with, they didn’t express any clear ideas about what they would do with the luxuriously long days that were about to stretch before them. When we respond to “I’m bored” by filling our children’s time with activities, we miss an important point. Children need times in their lives which are unstructured, when there is ‘nothing to do.’
During the years that children are developing, there is a process called individuation that is meant to unfold when their interests, likes, ideas, opinions, priorities, abilities, goals, and aspirations increasingly emerge. They eventually discover who they are and what they believe. They are slowly moving in the direction of becoming their own persons. By the time a child reaches adolescence, his own interests and meaningful activities have potentially taken shape. We hope that our education system contributes to realizing the fruits of this process. But by now we all know that we need to re-create our educational system so that it can truly support our children’s developmental needs. It is sad to see that while our kindergarten children are filled with curiosity and enthusiasm to learn, this thirst for learning diminishes as they reach higher grade levels: they become easily bored. The problem is that in today’s world this boredom is camouflaged with many sources of outer stimulation – friends, video games, television, cell phone texting, the internet, shopping malls, and so on. These entertainment factories further extinguish our children’s creativity; they are taking so much in, that there is little time or space for anything to spring forth from them.
Summer vacation, a time when pressure from school is reduced, is a time for parents to prime and support the individuation and emergent process and reawaken their children’s natural drive to learn and explore. Perhaps this can give summer vacation a more meaningful context: an opportunity to fulfill an important role in your child’s development. This is a worthy goal, but not an easy one to support.
The first key for supporting healthy development is in helping the child’s brain come to rest. When the demands of school pressure a child to perform and behave in certain ways, all of his energy is diverted away from creative endeavor to securing his attachments. He must perform and measure up to the standards of the adults that are in charge of him in order to maintain his sense of connection with them. Preserving this feeling of connection and closeness is a child’s most critical need – to feel warmth and safety, to belong, to matter, to find favor, and to find approval in the eyes of those he cares about. Children are in constant pursuit of feeling safely attached when they are feeling judged, compared, and graded, as they are in school. Worse yet, is when our children begin to care more about pleasing their peers than the adults in their lives – this leads to an insatiable urge to pursue more and more attachment with each other in a futile quest to have their need for closeness met. Children need to be brought to rest from this work so that they can grow, and it is our responsibility to provide that rest, not theirs to somehow manufacture it for themselves. If the child’s brain cannot come to rest, the child becomes less and less interested in learning as the years go by, they can lose their sense of caring, and become more easily bored. Summer vacation is an opportunity to give your child rest by creating and deepening his attachment to you. He needs to continually experience the feeling that you are holding on to him, taking care of him, taking responsibility for your relationship with him. When your child knows how much he matters to you, he can let go — his mind is free to create, explore, discover new interests, and express his unique self.
The second key for supporting healthy development is giving the child room to express his own thoughts, ideas, tastes, opinions, and feelings. Parents can ensure unstructured time and supply the ingredients that encourage children to explore their inner world. Arts and crafts supplies, fabric for assembling costumes for dress-up, musical instruments, building or writing materials, and other equipment for free play and expression give children opportunities to grow into themselves. One mother told me that her children went to great efforts to drag an empty refrigerator box four flights up to their apartment. She was amazed by her children’s creativity in turning this box into a magical place! The box first became a house, then a bus, then a classroom, and then many other things. While your child is exploring his inner world, you will have the opportunity to get to know him better, too, and further deepen your attachment with him.
Here are some questions parents can ask themselves in order to generate some intuitive answers and insights. How can I fill my child’s primary need for a deep and secure attachment to me? How can I provide quiet space and time for my child? How can I learn more about what my child is interested in? What materials and tools can I provide to encourage my child’s self expression? How can I shield my child’s budding individuality from outside pressure? There are as many answers to these questions as there are parents and children. Being the answer for your child is a way to turn summer vacation into an enriching experience for yourself and for your child.
I have talked about guilt and shame. Now it is time for blame, the third sibling. Sometimes it is clear who is at fault. However, often it is not clear, especially with children and adolescents. One of the ways of relieving guilt (did something wrong) or shame (something is wrong with me) is to shift to “I have been wronged.”
Looking outward instead of inward gives relief: “It’s not my fault.” What a burden can be lifted!
The dog ate my homework. She started it. Bad leaders incited their innocent followers. Everyone else does it.
Finger pointing is fluid, however, and counter blame along with denial arises quickly in response to blaming.
It wasn’t me that started it – it was him. The parents have spoiled that child. He was drunk. I didn’t know what was happening. I just was following orders. Voices in my head told me to do it.
And then around it can go back to guilt and shame as well as more counter blame.
You should have known better. I saw you do it. Violent video games effected his brain. It was his genes that made him do it.
Thus you can see that guilt, shame, and blame can start on a cycle that gathers dark energy.
So, there are two parts to look at – first, society — All human societies, in order to function, must have a system to deal with violations of their values. Fault-finding is taken out of the hands of those who feel wronged, or those who think society is not addressing wrongs, to curb on the one hand martyrdom and on the other scapegoating, vigilante and mob justice and its subsequent climate of bullying, to move to the (ideally) rational processes of investigation, debating the evidence, assigning responsibility and deciding on the consequences. Part of this process involves determining which members of society are not capable of taking responsibility for their actions: for example, children and those assessed to be mentally ill. These deliberations can be nuanced and complex.
In the most obvious cases, society is responsible for protecting its citizens from those who would continue to do harm. It is on the frontiers of human societies that processes have not yet been put in place, the innocent are not protected and harm is not anticipated. We are all, in a sense, now living in a new frontier: a technological one. We have still not developed our values around the use of the internet for social interaction.
Of course, there are many things that happen that are truly accidents, or acts of nature, that no blame can be assigned to directly. (who can you blame for a volcano erupting?). The focus then can shift to blaming those who did not anticipate the event: their failure to warn and protect the people. Sometimes assigning blame can give no peace, in spite of the ideals of restorative justice. Sometimes the villain is never found. Sometimes there is no one to blame.
Dr. Neufeld and Dr. MacNamara, in talking about the Vancouver riots of June 2011, have analyzed the factors that can cause blameworthy acts and show how, tragically, the justice system cannot teach those who most need to learn from experience and are likely to get into trouble.
Do you say in response to these editorials, that society itself is to blame? Or parents? Can you look at the tragedy without assigning fault?
The second part – the individual — The energy of blame is tremendous. What fuels the intensity of it? What fuels the desire for punishment and revenge in the human heart? What drives that righteous rage which makes us lose compassion? What causes it to cycle back viciously into overwhelming guilt and shame?
Those who are hardened and cannot register vulnerable feelings tend towards blame. Guilt and shame are the more vulnerable of the three feelings. Those who are more ‘civilized’ you might say tend towards feeling guilt. In some cases this can spiral down into black depression.
The driver is of this energy is a deeper feeling in the emotional brain – this emotion can build up and if not drained is like the lava that causes the volcano to erupt. This is not something to control by clamping down on it…the pressure just continues to build.
This emotion is quite simple to understand – it is also the emotion that gives rise to guilt and shame in those who are more likely to take responsibility for their actions. What is it?
It is simply frustration. Things did not turn out the way they should, or were anticipated. Frustration applies to all the little things in life that didn’t work all the way up to the big things. It includes losses…
How does frustration differ from anger? We often say that someone has a lot of anger in them when what we mean is that they are full of foul frustration. Anger is rational response to perceived injustice and belongs to the previous section of this discussion. It finds fault. Certainly one can experience both simultaneously, but in order to address underlying dynamics, they must be teased apart.
To address frustration is to find a way into a situation that does not require fault finding. To think about frustration: when something doesn’t work, the first impulse is usually to try to effect change, and if no change is possible, to face the fact that this route is futile. When for some reason, futility does not register, then a person is loaded up with the frustration, which usually erupts into aggression when something overrides any cautions that may be present.
The desire for vengeance is driven by frustration in its aggression mode. How to deal with aggression? One approach is to find socially acceptable modes of aggression. Ultimately, the goal is to find a way to drain this frustration out of the system. This only comes with the true registering of futility: the outward sign of this is tears, although we can feel our tears inside without much showing except a little watering in the eyes.
In conclusion — The question that I conclude with – how can the justice system, which is for the good of society, and often sacrifices the individual (especially our children and adolescents), and the no-fault approach, which puts aside the justice system for the sake of the individual… how can we reconcile these two things?
The answers lie, largely, in insight, so that societies and the individuals’ interventions and changes are coming from understanding of root causes and are not engaged in fighting symptoms.
Editor’s note: Dr. Neufeld unpacks the roots of Aggression in his DVD, Making Sense of Aggression, and addresses the challenge of dealing with children’s misdemeanors in Making Sense of Discipline.