Pippin loves to herd. He loves to herd alpacas, which is a good thing because this is his job on the farm. He herds turkeys, which is not his job. He tries to herd people, which is often amusing and harmless. He herds cats, which is next to impossible.
But he also tries to herd cars, which is downright dangerous.
Pippin is a mini-Australian shepherd and sheltie cross. For him, herding is an instinct. It is part of who he is. We cannot prevent him from herding, nor would we want to. When he goes for the cars, however, we wish the herding instinct had an off switch! Because he cannot help it, it becomes our job to keep him safe: we warn guests to slow down on the driveway, we try to keep him inside when we’re expecting someone, we call him to our side to keep him out of harm’s way.
Pippin is also still a puppy, and he loves to chew! Or more like, Pippin needs to chew. His favorite flavours are socks and shoes. He is partial to sandals and flip flops – perhaps something about the saltwater smell. We have come to the place where we expect something to be destroyed when we come home from being away, even just for a few hours. The question becomes: what will it be this time? It becomes a bit of a game (although not a fun one). Will it be my daughter’s favorite flip flops? My husband’s wool socks? My expensive sandals? Again, this is an instinct for Pippin. He is driven to it.
Now, I believe he knows it is wrong. When the mauled shoe is held up in front of his face, he winces and takes his “I’m sorry” pose. However, in the moment, there is no hesitation, no memory of the appropriateness of his chosen snack. He just needs to chew! And chew he does. Because he cannot help it, it becomes our job to keep our treasures safe. We put things up high, we put shoes in boxes, we close doors. He still finds things to chew, like a game of Uno in a scrumptious cardboard box, but we can minimize the damage.
Our children, too, have instincts. Emotions are stirred up within them, and they are often moved by frustration, by alarm, and by pursuit. When something isn’t working, they often act impulsively out of these instinctive places.
They forget in their frustration that it is not okay to hit or that they care about their little sister. They may remember before, or after, but not in the moment! It therefore becomes our job to keep them, and their siblings, out of harm’s way. Can we find out what isn’t working for them? Can we find something else to hit, or find another way to get the frustration out?
If they are getting in trouble at recess, if their impulses keep getting the better of them, it is our job as adults to come alongside and keep them safe – maybe a run around the track together, maybe a visit to the library, maybe a special project to keep them out of harm’s way.
It may be that when a young child anticipates going to school, they may move to pursue, clinging to mommy and refusing to go. They forget in the moment that mommy will still be there, or that part of them likes school. All they feel at the time is the alarm and they are moved to keep close.
These are instincts. By nature, instincts are impulsive. As a child grows older, they become more capable of tempering these instincts, bringing in the ‘on-the-other-hand’ thoughts and feelings. But this doesn’t happen until at least age five, and even then can take years, especially when the feelings are intense. Goodness knows that as adults, we still have trouble tempering our own instincts and emotions! And I am not sure when this happens for puppies …
And so, while we wait for our children to mature, it helps to see that instincts are a natural part of being a child. While I wait for Pippin to remember in the moment (instead of after the fact), that it is not okay to chew his family’s belongings or herd cars, it calls for patience and creativity on my part – patience in not expecting Pippin to be other than a puppy, and creativity in finding ways to keep everyone (and everything) safe.
We can anticipate the instincts, the heightened emotion, and move to change their circumstances. Or we can move to help our children release the built up frustration for all the things that aren’t working for them – through words, through throwing sticks in the water, through screaming (just maybe not in the grocery store or at your mother-in-law’s!), or through the tears of disappointment.
And we will undoubtedly need to make adjustments and compensate for our youngsters’ impulsive instincts. In Pippin’s case it meant finding him a chew toy, something he could destroy without getting in trouble. It meant finding him something else to herd (and keeping him away from the sheep and the ducks next door!), taking him on walks, letting him run outside to get some of that energy out. Once we see what is needed, we can find our way to the child’s side, trusting that nature has a plan.
Editor’s Note: Mathieu Lyons is on Faculty and also the Director for the Neufeld Institute’s French program. We welcome this piece as his first editorial.
This year, my daughter (Emma, four) started her first organized group activity. She requested for many months to attend gymnastics’ class, but my wife and I tried to push back as much as we could, knowing intuitively that the social context of a structured group activity with other children, ranging in age from four to six, would be beyond her developmental abilities. Being very sensitive myself, I see my daughter’s sensitivity and tender feelings, and know that she can easily be wounded and overwhelmed by her frustration in situations devoid of a caring, in-charge adult she feels closely connected to. However, Emma’s desire to venture forth and try new things could not be tamed and we decided to give it a try.
The first week went well. Even if we didn’t have much room to meet the instructor and introduce him to our daughter, she quickly deferred to the young man, who easily collected her by making her laugh with a few silly dance moves. The following week, Emma faced many futilities she had little experience with before: waiting her turn, other kids cutting in line, and not being able to accomplish every move successfully. In reaction to these encounters, Emma would sit down and ignore her instructor, scream, or sometimes cry out of frustration. Sitting in the observatory room, my heart would break. Is this too much for my angel? Things were not working in her favor, and it was not easy for me to look from a distance – unable to be that safe place for her to find her necessary tears when facing such futility. I could not help but wonder: Is this a good idea? Should I bring her back?
Once the session ended, I had to find my alpha, or confidence, so that I could help guide her in the way she needed. How can I provide for Emma’s needs from such a distance? The answer came to me around a warm banana muffin for Emma and a pumpkin spice soy latte for Daddy. Creating a moment of connection where I would engage her attachment instincts toward me using food, and an occasion to be like Daddy by attending my favorite coffee shop, was a great start.
In the middle of a quiet, family-oriented coffee shop, Emma sat down on my lap while eating her muffin and we hugged. There was a very long silence before she finally broke into tears, “Daddy, why are the girls cutting in line? This is not fair. I can’t do the moves Daddy. It’s hard.’’ In the middle of a coffee shop, I had created a safe place for Emma to cry. Even if many people looked at us from a distance and wondered why this little girl was crying, I was glad to be able to provide plenty of room for her to find her tears about what didn’t work that day.
The following week, a little girl pushed Emma intentionally when she was jumping off a structure. Emma looked in my direction through the observatory window. I knew she wanted and needed to cry. Her instructor came over and tried to help her with her feelings but it didn’t seem to work. Even if Emma really liked her instructor, her relationship with him was still very new and superficial. Sharing her feelings in that context was probably too much vulnerability to bear. From the observatory, I tried to connect with her but the window between the two of us was keeping us separated during a moment where physical connection was essential. I saw and felt Emma numbing out her feelings, turning around, and going back to join her class. At that point, I realized that our visit to the coffee shop would now be part of a new ritual we would have following gymnastics.
Since that day, before every gymnastics class, I make sure to tell Emma, “After gymnastics, a warm banana muffin is waiting for us at the coffee shop. I can’t wait to have that special time with you.” Now I realize that my daughter can venture forth, find her opposite feelings about gymnastics, melt her frustrations, and find her tears in a nurturing ritual where it is warm and safe. The answer is Daddy! I am the answer to my daughter, gymnastics, frustration, and tears.
I cried all the way to school drop-off this morning. My daughters, buckled in their booster seats in our minivan, heard the voice of Hillary Rodham Clinton playing through the car radio as together we listened to her concession speech. My seven- and eight-year-olds glanced back and forth from each other, then back to me, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror to smile, somewhat nervously. They weren’t sure how to react as they watched Mommy’s emotions come out on the rainy drive to school.
Stop crying, I told myself. Put on a brave face. For your kids. Make sure they see it’s all okay.
“And to all of the little girls …” Hillary said.
My quiet tears turned to sobs, looking back at my own girls as if my presidential candidate were talking right to them. They sat up tall, proud to be addressed. My eldest whispered, “That’s us.”
“… never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”
Tears momentarily sequestered, I clapped, told my kids to listen. “That’s right!” I said. “She’s right.”
But I couldn’t help myself. As Hillary’s speech went on and the reality of the election results kept sinking in, I began to cry again. Only this time, I decided to stop beating myself up for it.
The reality is I hadn’t sheltered my children from the emotions of this election, anyway. Starting with the national conventions over the summer, I was alarmed, anxious, and at times, angry. I’m a vocal person by nature, a messy person by nature. A human by nature. It was all too much, and even as I tried to remain a steady rock for the sake of not alarming my children, I couldn’t always contain the emotions stirred up inside me.
I wasn’t alone. Everywhere around me, I watched other adults’ anxiety pour out along with mine in our political Facebook rants, frantic support of “Black Lives Matter” school programs, and fierce opposition to the Standing Rock situation. Many a mama friend shared passionate posts and articles on social media, determined to educate our preschoolers, kindergartners, elementary-aged children as change agents to make this next generation different, damn it. We can do better than this. Change. Everything. Now.
We have been stuck in what Dr. Gordon Neufeld refers to as the traffic circle of alarm. Alarm – an almost constant dose of it – dumped us into the circle, with only three routes to drive ourselves out: changing the situation, moving to attack, or grieving.
An election isn’t about grieving. What moves us in elections is the opportunity for change. (And in this election, what also moved us was a typhoon of attacking energy.)
But the concession speech has been delivered. The U.S. election is over. We cannot change the outcome – at least of the election. For those who did not see our candidate of choice into the presidential office, it is time to grieve. And it is okay to grieve in front of our children, as long as they know it is with control and we are still there for them, no matter what.
Me crying in front of my children doesn’t mean it’s not all okay, as I first admonished myself. It means I know when to give myself permission to express what is inside. It means my children know that I get disappointed sometimes, too. It means the next time they don’t get their way, they’ll believe me when I say I know how much it hurts. It means my kids see that I’m a person who cares. It exposes my soft heart – the best chance I have of keeping their soft hearts that way.
In the midst of my grief, they still see me walk them into school, help them unload their backpacks into their cubbies, remind them to wash their hands. They see me getting and giving hugs to the other parents, and teachers, as together as a community we cry a little more.
They see, through the tears, because of the tears, that we are okay.
Bullies thrive on exploiting the vulnerability in others. Instead of protecting those who are in a weaker position they take advantage of them. They revel in having the upper hand. They don’t play by the rules or believe the rules apply to them. Bullies don’t think twice and lack the capacity for reflection. They are fearless, tearless, immature, and have to get their own way. They do not adapt when they face futility – they cannot hear ‘no’ and accept it. Bullies are dark inside; there is a void where vulnerable feelings are no longer felt.
This costs of bullying to our children, teens, schools, and larger society are staggering. Stuck kids can grow up to be stuck adults. The interventions that have been launched to curb bullying have come up short. Nothing seems to work long-term, yet the costs continue to mount.
The bully continues to baffle us. With incredulity one looks one at their acts of cruelty, the ineffectiveness of punishment and consequences, as well as their lack of empathy. They remain a mystery and what drives them remains impervious to change. The challenge is we cannot solve a problem we don’t understand.
The Hardened Heart of the Bully
One of the reasons we cannot make headway on bullying is we fail to make sense of the bully’s vulnerability problem. A bully’s emotional system has become inhibited and they no longer experience a range of vulnerable emotions from sadness to joy. They lack empathy, caring, and consideration. Some studies have found bullies even lose the capacity to blush with embarrassment. They don’t show remorse, gratitude, or forgiveness.
The human emotional system is meant to be responsive to one’s environment, but if feeling sets someone up to get hurt too much, the brain will naturally start to inhibit the experience of these emotions. Emotions go missing when they would get in the way of surviving a wounding environment. In other words, bullies lack caring because to care sets them up to get hurt too much.
Bullies have hardened hearts. Their brain has moved to defend them from seeing their own vulnerability. This renders them devoid of caring and responsibility. They are numbed out, tuned out, and in some cases, detached altogether from human relationships. Bullies are deeply wounded individuals, which is ironic considering the wounding they create in others.
Whenever we treat bullying as something that has been learned, we miss the emotional piece that underlies it. Bullies are in a flight from vulnerability and cannot tolerate anything that would signify weakness in them. They project onto others what they are most defended against in themselves. Bullies are psychologically very fragile. The problem is their lack of vulnerability does not draw out the caring in others. Their inhumane acts often draw the bully out in us.
The reason for the emotional defenses in a bully can be many, from feeling too much separation from the adults that they are attached to or feeling too much shame or a sense of unsafety. Separation can be experienced either emotionally or physically, but can include when a parent does not have the heart of their child, or that child has to work for parental love and approval. When a child feels there is something wrong with who they are, often as a result of repeated messages by attachment figures or peers, it can create havoc with a child’s emotional system. There are many reasons for hardened hearts, but what is clear is that a bully’s ‘caring’ has gone missing.
Problems with Bully Programs
There are a number of problems with bully programs today. The challenges largely stem from not understanding the root of the vulnerability problem of the bully. While good intentions may drive the following interventions, they can exacerbate the bully dynamics and increase the chance of wounding towards others.
- A Focus on What Happens Between Kids – A popular intervention when bullying has taken place is to have children share their experiences with each other, highlighting how they have been hurt. Well intended as this approach is, it is aimed at using emotional honestly as a tool for change. The problem is that bullies do not have soft hearts and are likely to use what other children say against that child to hurt them. If the modus operandi of the bully is to exploit vulnerability, this type of approach places another child front and center for being attacked as a result of revealing how they were hurt.
- Zero-Tolerance Policies – The problem with this approach is that we have to wait until there is a victim before we deal with a bullying problem. The signs of a hardened heart and lack of emotional expression are evident and can be used as a cue to which children need help before someone is bullied. Zero-tolerance policies also move the bully along, and while certain kids may no longer be in danger of getting hurt, the bully has not changed and will continue to wound others. You can move a bully but this does not mean you have ‘changed their bully ways.’
- Consequences and Punishment – While consequences and punishment need to be part of many settings such as schools and workplaces, they are largely ineffective in changing the bully. Consequences teach only when someone can face futility and emotional vulnerability is restored. One needs to feel sad about what does not work in order to learn what does work. Bullies don’t feel sadness given their muted emotional system – consequences and punishment are rendered impotent against this problem, as a result.
- Sensitivity or Empathy Training – The idea that we can teach a bully to have a soft heart fails to understand how the emotional system works. Emotions are meant to be felt vulnerably and move someone to care, to caution, to be considerate, and to have courage. You cannot make someone learn emotions; you can only help them feel them. When you try to teach a bully to be more sensitive to other people’s feelings and to respond with empathy, you can actually make them more effective at exploiting people emotionally.
How to Soften a Hard Heart?
If being too hurt is the problem for the bully, then caring for them is surely the answer. The challenge is that bullies are so wounding towards others that they draw little compassion out of others to care for them. The good news is that every bully can be made human again but the answer lies in bringing the emotional system back online and resuscitating it.
The focus will need to be on building a caring relationship with the bully. This is easier when the bully is a child or a teenager and requires at least one caring adult who is willing to try and forge a strong connection with them. The adult will need to invite the child to depend on them, to take the lead in caring for them, and convey that they can handle the child. When issues arise it will require being firm on behaviour, but being easy on the relationship. Bullies are brought into relationship with others through a strong caring stance.
Emotional defences in the bully can be softened when right relationships are achieved and will require leading them to more vulnerable feelings, shielding their emotional system from further wounding, and reducing harm wherever possible. The softening of hard hearts takes patience, time, and good care-taking.
When a child lacks emotional vulnerability, then the adults in their life can move proactively to prevent further wounding to others. This means good supervision and the implementation of structure and ritual to guide their behaviour and keep them out of harm’s way.
We would prefer to think that the bully is someone who exists outside and is separate from us. The problem is that the bully can emerge from each and every human being. When the heart goes cold and when our caring feelings go missing, it is then we become inhuman and can act inhumane. It is the lack of vulnerability that is at the root of the bully problem, and is indeed a problem for us all. The challenge is how to keep our hearts soft in a world that seems too much to bear at times.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there were four alpacas – Butterscotch, Charcoal, Cusco, and Fiesta – living on our farm, somewhat peacefully. One day, three new alpacas came to live with us, and the peace was disturbed. We observed with bated breath as the alpacas worked out who would be the new alpha, the new leader of the pack. Sir William, one of the new ones, turned out to be the winner. We breathed a sigh of relief. Sir William was in charge and all seemed to be okay again in the alpaca world.
Soon, however, we started noticing that Sir William was giving the alarm call more and more often. At first we thought he was taking good care of the herd and warning of impending danger. But really he was crying wolf. We realized Sir William was getting spooked by anything and everything – a duck from next door, our cat (who doesn’t even remotely look like a mountain lion), a fallen tree branch. And it was then that we put the pieces together … Sir William did not feel safe. His insecurity, his deep-seated alarm, was coming out as needing to take charge of his world. But he couldn’t keep himself safe. And he couldn’t afford to let his guard down. How exhausting Sir William’s life must have been! Always on call, taking matters into his own hands (or hooves in this case), living in fear.
As the puzzle pieces came together we realized what Sir William actually needed – a llama! He needed someone to trump him, to say I’ve got your back. You can rest. I’ve got this covered. I will take care of you. Llamas, unlike their smaller and less bold cousins the alpacas, are often used as guard animals. They have a gentle, yet strong, presence that keeps predators at bay. The animals in their care are able to go on living – grazing, sleeping, exploring – without obsessing about their own safety. And poor Sir William was certainly obsessed.
Many of our children are in the same position as Sir William. Something in life has spooked them, alarmed their system – maybe being away too long from mom or dad, grandma dying, a sick sibling, starting school, even getting older. We don’t know what it was for Sir William, as he came to us at five years old. But we do know now that he was alarmed when he came. And because of his overactive alarm system, he moved to take charge of his world. As his brain tried to find the true source of the alarm, it landed on false threats all around him – random animals and inanimate objects.
For some of our children, we see this same phenomenon in their fears and phobias (that often make little sense to us) or their need for order. Some children may follow Sir William’s lead and take charge of their world. In the alpha mode, they make demands, they warn of threats, they lead their herd! But it doesn’t feel right – either for you as the adult in charge, or for them, because it is not the right mode for receiving care and, just like the alpaca, they cannot make themselves feel safe. In the alpha mode, there is no rest. And while the alpha role can offer much fulfillment through providing care and protection to those in our care, when out of sync, this same role can lead to elevated alarm, inhibition of feelings, and an inability to let down our guard. Many of our children live in this very place. They, too, could use a llama in their life!
What our children need is a generous invitation to rest in our presence. As they desperately move to take the steering wheel into their own hands, we can gently assure them that we’ve got this! We can provide the message that we are in control and we will take care of them. Not that there aren’t appropriate times for our children to be in the driver’s seat, but first they need to be able to depend on us. And we can help make it easier to depend by anticipating their needs and getting there first – with food, with contact and closeness, with emotion. We can provide a safe place to express the frustrations, the alarming feelings, the disappointments, the tears. For in making room for these experiences, we free children to be children. We free children to go on living – grazing, sleeping, exploring – without obsessing about their own safety.
For more about anxiety, consider enrolling in our five-week online course, Making Sense of Anxiety, which starts November 1st, 2016.
Six years ago, Neufeld faculty member Martine Demers took on a particularly noteworthy challenge: helping to turn around a K-6 elementary school nobody wanted.
Over the 20 years that Martine has been the behavioural consultant at her school board in Quebec, she’s certainly run into her share of challenges. How could she not encounter some tough trials, after all, overseeing 17 different schools and working with students, teachers, educators, administrators, after-school daycare educators, and parents?
Long considered “undesirable,” this elementary school of 270 students was really struggling. Due to student population decrease, a nearby elementary school was closed and most of its students and staff were being transferred to this school. A wide range of emotions were stirred, as most people were not in favor of the school closure – nor the transfer to this school. The beginning of the school year also brought the arrival of a new administrator, Elizabeth Gillies-Poitras, and the obstacles she and Martine faced were numerous.
Set in a community with a range of low to medium socioeconomic backgrounds, some children come to this school lacking supplies, enough food, or adequate clothes for Quebec’s notoriously bitter winters. Some of the children live with difficult circumstances – fractured families, disengaged parents, unsafe homes. Some children are in foster care, or youth protection is involved due to suspected child abuse or neglect.
Within this range of backgrounds and needs there are also many children with high sensitivities. “These are diverse kids – as learners, as well as in their expressions of behaviour,” Martine said. Some of the elementary students are on the autism spectrum, and a number of the students have mental health diagnoses such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Reactive Attachment Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some students also struggle with anxiety/alarm problems.
Parent involvement in the school wasn’t strong, either. Many parents had a hard time in school when they were young, and so to shield their hearts from painful memories, they cloaked themselves in an armor of defenses when communicating (or not communicating) with teachers or bringing their children to school.
Before Martine and Elizabeth set their sights on making a difference there, the school followed strict policies for dealing with meltdowns, recess conflict, and in-classroom turmoil – usually involving consequences. The energy at the school rightly earned it the nickname of “The Dungeon.” “It was a ‘You’re out of here’ mentality,” said Martine. “When adults were overwhelmed or at their wits’ end, they’d send students who acted up away to the office with an expectation that they would be suspended and sent home.”
There also wasn’t much nuancing of age and developmental capacity between kindergarten and sixth graders when it came to discipline. “It was a one-size-fits-all” intervention,” Martine said. As a result, there was a lot of frustration all around – from students and adults alike. Already frustrated students felt more frustrated and thus acted out more, while adults became more and more frustrated that the problems weren’t going away – and sometimes getting worse.
Martine and Elizabeth’s ultimate goal was a rather lofty one: opening up diverse minds and fostering a community where everyone belonged. Elizabeth’s motto was, “Everyone belongs. Everyone has a place in life, with their strengths and weaknesses. We all need to work together to make it a good place.”
Martine and Elizabeth settled on four key tasks on their path towards making this big shift.
1. Partnering with teachers and other adults, using a hands-on approach.
Despite her consultant title, Martine saw her role as hands-on. She worked most closely in a special class with students with severe behavioral and emotional problems. She partnered with the teachers and spent a lot of time in the school, rolling up her sleeves and helping out in the classroom. She got to know the students. Elizabeth, Martine, and other team members worked together to progressively start shifting how crises and challenges were being approached and handled.
Elizabeth also led by example. “I didn’t ask anyone to do something I wasn’t ready to do … I got involved hands-on,” Elizabeth said. She needed “to count on everybody and for them to count on me.” She hoped this would lead to a strong sense of community.
Martine knew that she couldn’t tell the staff what to do, which would trigger resistance and resentment. Instead, she saw her role as coming alongside educators, offering empathy and words of understanding:
- Yes, how tiring, exhausting, frustrating this is!
- It’s really hard and really isolating.
- We need to share the weight of these situations together.
- Nobody should carry that weight alone in a school.
Through a unique “we’re-in-this-together” spirit, Martine aimed to support the adults at the school in order to form the full village to support these kids. She’d often say to the staff, “We’re going to brainstorm, pull together, laugh together, and maybe even cry together. But we will get to the growth on the other side.”
Meanwhile Elizabeth conveyed a message of “accepting the students for who they are at the present time, their individualities,” as well as “recognizing efforts and improvements, celebrating moments as they take place, and building on the positive.” In developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s words, Elizabeth was priming connection and teaching staff to solicit good intentions from the students.
2. Sharing insights and gradually re-introducing the children to the adults.
Martine also helped the adults see situations differently, stressing the children’s immaturity and vulnerability. For instance, teachers were fed up with meltdowns common after recess. But Martine helped them see that recess was an alarming time for the kids. They didn’t feel safe there, and so when they returned from recess, all of their big emotions erupted. Meltdowns could be prevented by the adults working together to help the children feel safe at recess.
Martine also helped teachers understand the importance of rituals and connection. “Some teachers were starting their days without even greeting their children,” she said, referring to what Dr. Neufeld calls “the collecting dance.” “It was, ‘Okay, let’s get going! We’ve got a lot to do today and we don’t have any time to waste!’ But how could the kids be receptive for learning, or taking direction, when nobody had even greeted them?”
Again and again, Martine stressed, “We can put out our hands a gazillion times, but it’s only when they’ve hooked onto us that we actually have them and they will truly do our bidding.”
3. Changing interventions.
Instead of sending disruptive students away, interventions were changed so that students with big emotions visited the “Feelings Room” – recognizing, as Dr. Neufeld has articulated, that the first key to emotional health is that emotion needs to be expressed. Students visit the room with an adult – a special education technician or attendant. There, they find gymnastics mats, oversized balls, big pillows, and beanbags, all of which they can throw, kick, punch, or even pile together and slam their bodies into. They get bubble wrap to stomp on, cardboard to destroy, skipping ropes, exercise dice. Martine said, “Whatever we find is the child’s bent, we add to the sidelines of this room so it can easily be pulled in if needed.”
In the “Feelings Room,” children are given a generous invitation to get big emotions out in a safe way. They hear words such as:
- Nothing here will hurt you.
- Sometimes we have big emotions that need to come out.
- I don’t have a problem with those words, but we have a place for them.
Staff members are reminded over and over not to take any of the eruptions personally (as tall an order that may sometimes be). “What happens in the ‘Feelings Room’ stays there,” Martine said.
The room provides space for the kids’ emotions, and nobody is getting hurt – neither the child involved or other students. “It’s a safe place to evacuate that preserves the child’s dignity. It’s not in front of other students who are going to laugh or make comments.”
Once the storm has passed, the adult helps the child to name the emotions and recognize changes in the body – toward the important reflecting work that Dr. Neufeld says provides the ultimate resolution to emotional health and maturity. Now the messages conveyed become:
- Where is it coming from? What’s not working?
- You’re not alone.
- Nothing’s wrong with you.
- I can help you with that.
- No wonder there was an explosion! The emotions are bigger than your body.
- Sometimes there’s just so much sadness it just overflows.
4. Teaming up with parents.
As part of her work in the special class with students with severe behavioral and emotional problems, Martine implemented parent groups. In these supportive groups, Martine offered an inside view of where their children were developmentally and helped make sense of where their kids’ big emotions were coming from. Most importantly, she supported them as they shifted their stance to come alongside their children. For many parents, this equated to making space for their kids’ emotions, providing generous invitations for their children to be in their presence, and setting the stage for growth by changing their discipline practices (moving away from separation-based discipline, which only fuels dynamics in a downward spiral of defenses and stuckness).
Parent support meetings take place in the classroom, where parents squeeze into kid-sized chairs and enjoy food together (leaving plenty of extras for the children to enjoy the next day). Parents learn about the school’s philosophy, and the developmentally friendly, attachment-based approach of Dr. Gordon Neufeld upon which it is based.
Parents and teachers focus on how to team up together. “It’s okay for parents to have disagreements with the teachers,” said Martine, “but we’re not hashing it out in front of the kids.” She asks parents to be careful about what they say in front of their children. When it’s necessary to bring students into a meeting, teachers meet first with the parents, and come to an agreement about what to say to the kids, so that kids see parents and teachers working together. “It is key, and important, for families to feel the support provided to their child, that we understand them and that we don’t judge them,” said Elizabeth.
Some Big Shifts!
Since the school team became more aligned and began implementing Martine’s and Elizabeth’s approach six years ago, there have been many signs of growth.
1. A softness to the school.
The school that formally felt like “The Dungeon” now has a calmer, softer energy. There is a sense of community and support. For instance, teachers are greeting students first thing each day. Staff members bring in used clothes to donate to families in need, striking a gentle balance between providing support and preserving dignity. Staff team up together – no longer working in silos and feeling so isolated.
Teachers still use some consequences, because there needs to be social justice, but it’s delivered in a gentler way. “I’m really sorry, but there is a limit,” they might say. Interventions also take into account the age and developmental capacity of the child.
2. A safe place, with caring adults, for the students.
Students know they can count on the adults in the school and believe the adults are on their side. The frequency and intensity of their crises has lessened now that they have a place for their expression to come out. Many kids are starting to name their emotions.
In June, as school ends and students are facing separation from their teachers and this safe, predictable place, there is an increase in defensive detachment and alarm. While the subsequent resurgence of meltdowns can be challenging, it’s a testament to the predictability and stability the kids experience at school. They’re expressing their emotions of upset and injustice that school has to end.
3. Parents, invited and welcomed into the school, have become more supportive.
Now, parents have a hard time leaving parent meetings, wanting to linger, too, in this place where they feel heard and supported. Parents’ most frequent feedback is one of appreciation – for not being judged, and the revival of their intuition, which had often been questioned or extinguished by other approaches. Parents begin to retake their rightful position as their child’s best bet and being in the lead.
“They realize they share a common ground,” said Martine. “They’re not crazy or alone, when everybody else is telling them they should be putting their child on medication for their big outbursts.” Some parents may need additional help for their children, but if this is the case, they are accompanied by someone at the school.
4. Once the school nobody wanted, now it’s the school many families are opting into.
Regularly, there are visits with parents and children who want to transfer to this school.
“They’re hearing about how it’s more of a community, how it helps children with special needs,” Martine said. “The school is packed. We’re bringing new kids to the school that would not have come before.”
Pride in showcasing involvement and improvement in all domains. The school has established mentoring opportunities where older students help younger students. “The beauty of relationships is a wonder in development!” Martine touted.
“I’ve seen good growth … and we have more headway to make,” Martine added. “And that’s okay, because there’s always shifting and changing. Each school year brings new challenges and opportunities that re-confirm our resolve that a developmentally friendly, attachment-based approach is the best way to support the children in their growth.”
Advice for Other Schools
For other schools interested in implementing a similar approach, Martine warns, “It’s not always easy, and sometimes it can be tiring. But at the same time, the value of it is incredible.”
Here’s how Martine recommends planting seeds for growth in other schools:
- Prime attachments with staff and students.
- Believe in connections.
- Take it one step at a time.
- Get the team to hold together. Provide support regularly, deal with challenges as they arise, rather than when they have overgrown and staff feel overwhelmed.
- Share the weight of the challenging situations. Be creative and think ‘outside the box’ for alternative ways to support students and teachers.
- Remember that you’re not alone.
- Invite and aim to work with parents. When you have them on your side it will be easier to build attachments with their children.
Be patient. True growth takes time!
We are proud to share with you Dr. Deborah MacNamara’s address to the United Nations in New York for the Global Day of Parents, which she presented in June 2016.
The digital age has reshaped the landscape in which we are raising our children. While our new tools and technologies allow us to do things we could only once dream of, it has also changed the conditions under which we care for our children. What is the impact of the digital age on parenting and child development? In order to answer this question, we will need to ask what comes with these new tools and whether they are what our children need to realize their full human potential.
Many parents today are raising the first true digital natives, despite being digital immigrants themselves. The challenge lies in being able to lead our children into this age instead of just following them. Many children now have unprecedented access to information, entertainment, and connectivity, especially to their peers, but is this what our children really need? If the goal is to raise them to be socially and emotionally mature global citizens who are resilient and adaptive, then the answer is no, this is not what they need. Furthermore, these things are proving to make parenting more challenging and have the capacity to adversely impact the conditions under which our children flourish.
I have spent many decades considering human development as a faculty member at the Neufeld Institute, working alongside internationally respected clinical and developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld, who wrote Hold On To Your Kids with Dr. Gabor Mate. I have helped parents in my counselling practice make sense of the digital world and the implications for raising their kids, as well as managing problems related to it. I have also addressed the importance of play in young children’s lives and the pressures of technology in my book Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers. I have also aided educators in considering technology and its impact on student/teacher relationships, as well as guided university students in forming educational plans and career goals to meet the demands of a digital age.
But this issue is important to me on a more personal level because I am also the mother of two children who are both entering their adolescent years. I remember when I gave my seven-year-old an iPad to try out for the first time. It really was love at first sight as she enjoyed watching video clips and playing games. It was only two weeks later, in the middle of a warm embrace as I put her to bed one night she told me, “Oh Mommy, your hugs are still better than technology time.” I was stunned by her comment and wondered how my seven-year-old relationship with her had become comparable to two weeks of minimal technology time?
The problem facing parents today is that we do not have cultural tradition to guide us. As Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki stated, it takes societies anywhere from 100 to 200 years to develop the cultural rules and rituals around the use of new tools. We don’t have this type of time when it comes to raising our kids so we will need to find another way. We will need to become conscious of the conditions conducive for healthy development by turning to developmental science, attachment science, neuroscience, as well as parenting intuition and insight.
The greatest need our children have, that must be met for healthy development to unfold, is that of human attachment. Attachment is how we fulfill our children’s hunger for contact and closeness and is the single-most important factor that influences the trajectory of their growth. Every child needs at least one strong, caring, emotionally available adult to feel they belong to. Attachment for a child is about who they feel they are the same as, who they are loyal to, who they want to be significant to, cared for, as well as share their secrets with. The answer to what our children need most of all is love.
But the key issue here is that it is actually not how much we love our children that matters most, but whether they have given their hearts to us. Children do not follow parents or learn from teachers they are not attached to. You cannot protect, preserve, or be a guardian for a child’s heart that has not been entrusted to you for safekeeping. Healthy brain development is based on whether a child can experience vulnerable emotions such as caring, sadness, and disappointment, but the world is too wounding for their hearts to be left unattended. Parents were meant to be the natural caretakers of a child’s emotional system, to orient and guide them, to lead, to look out for, and to share one’s values. We need to hold onto the hearts of our children, it is what will make them fully human and humane. We cannot live this part of our lives out loud from behind screens and through devices. Our attachment with our children is the one thing that cannot be displaced or replaced by algorithms, apps, or reduced to 0’s and 1’s.
Many years ago I was looking for information on raising kids in a digital world and I stumbled across a computer scientist who told a story about growing up in Italy about 40 years ago. He said his friends all had Sony Walkmans and he wanted one, too, but his father refused. Despite pleading his case that he was the only one among his that didn’t have a Walkman, his father remained firm. Six months later he went to his father again and told him that a friend had got a new Walkman for his birthday and had offered to give his old one to him. He again pleaded with his father, “Papa, you don’t even have to buy it, my friend will give it to me for free – please can I have a Walkman?” Again the father said no, and when asked why by his son he said, “Because I don’t want you to have anything in your ears that would interfere with you hearing your Mama or your sister talk to you.” What this father knew intuitively is that relationships were more important than technology or tools.
If there were one thing we need to remember most when raising children in a digital age it would be to let nothing come between us. But there are clear signs that this is not the case. According to the Centre for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California, family time has dropped dramatically by more than a third since the onset of the digital revolution despite staying relatively consistent for decades prior to this. The study involved more than 30 countries.
Parents and teachers also now compete with digital devices and a child’s peers in order to get their attention. Many of our children are increasingly more attached to their friends than to the adults who are responsible for them, which is only fueled by devices that enhance peer connectivity.
It is also our caring for our children that unlocks their instincts to care about others. Tragically there are signs our children are losing their caring feelings at an alarming rate. Research on empathy in North American youth has found a 48% decline today in comparison to 30 years ago, as well as a 30% decline in their capacity to consider someone else’s perspective. Video games and digital devices cannot teach empathy nor activate instincts for contact, closeness, and caring in the same way that human connection can.
What our children need most are relational homes to grow up in, where adults invite them into relationship and to rest in their caretaking. Research on resiliency in kids has consistently demonstrated the link between children’s emotional health and social success with strong caring relationships with adults. However, the message that adult relationships are the answer to human vulnerability has not been translated well into child rearing practice.
When our children can take for granted their relational needs will be met by the adults in their lives, they will be free to play, to discover, and become their own separate beings. Play is the birthplace of personhood, not entertainment nor instruction. Our relationship with our children is also how we represent the limits and restrictions that are part of life and all the futilities they must face. Adults are still the ones who need to help a child accept that they can’t always get what they want and can survive this experience.
What is clear is that our relationships with our children cannot be displaced or replaced by all that comes with this new digital age. But there are clear signs we are being challenged to hold onto our kids.
I watched as my 14-year old niece became peer attached and clung to her phone as the lifeline that preserved her connection to friends. We took her on a camping trip as an extended family in order to reclaim a foothold back in her life. In realizing the campground didn’t have any cell coverage she told her mother it was going to be a boring trip because she couldn’t talk to any of her friends. Despite being surrounded by her village of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, she longed to be elsewhere.
On the third day of the camping trip I came across her and her mother in conversation. My niece was sobbing and my sister said my niece felt lost and confused. As I comforted my niece I asked her if she knew the number one rule when she felt this way and she said no. I told her that she needed to hold on to someone who wasn’t lost and confused about who she was. I asked her, “Are your friends lost and confused?” to which she replied yes. I asked, “Is your boyfriend lost and confused?” to which she replied yes again. I then asked her, “When you look around here today, who is not lost or confused about you?” She looked at me and said, “you” and it was then that I felt I had re-entered her life once more. I asked her who else and she looked at her mother and said, “My mom.” And with that I left them to have a conversation.
Later on my sister told me they talked at length and my niece cried for some time. After telling her mother about all the things that were not working in her life she looked at her, surprised, and said, “Mom, I never thought you would understand what I was going through or that you had gone through some of this too.” Separated from her phone and her peers, we, the adults in her life were once again able to reclaim a foothold in her heart.
What is clear to me is that we need to find a way to hold onto our kids in a digital age, as there is no turning back and this is the world they will inherit. We need to lead our children into this new age and introduce them to their new tools and technologies when they are ready and mature enough to handle all that comes with it.
The role of adults in a digital world is to buffer against the technological turn. We need to remember that despite all of our wonderful new tools for learning, creating, and communicating, our children still need adult guides who can ensure that what comes with a digital age does not derail their development.
The answer to parenting in a digital world is quite simple: we need to believe we are what our children really need. It is a story as old as time, just retold in a digital age.
We need to invite our children to depend on us in ways that make us irreplaceable. We need to be the ones to listen to their stories, to impart our values, and to teach them something only we can share.
We need to create rules and rituals that will preserve our parental relationship and our ability to hold on to our relationship with them.
We need to make it easy for them to attach to use to us by collecting their eyes and making sure they see delight, enjoyment, and warmth in ours. As Gordon Neufeld states, “If you do not feed your cat and your neighbor does, you will surely lose your cat to your neighbour.”
We also need to take the lead and use technology appropriately so that our children will follow suit.
What is clear is we do not have the luxury of just following our children into the digital age. We need to lead and this is more than just tracking their use on devices or monitoring if they are getting into trouble. We cannot become police officers in our own homes and classrooms, ending up in battles with our children that will surely erode our relationships. We need to lead our children into the digital age and ensure that what comes with it does not come between us. Most importantly, we cannot let our love for our new tools blind us to what our children need most of all from us.
In conclusion, we cannot send our children into the digital world empty handed with only their technological tools in tow. Maturity is the prerequisite for true digital citizenship and to that end, parents are still the best ‘devices.’
If this topic is of interest to you, you may be interested in exploring a new course that Tamara Strijack has developed based on Dr. Neufeld’s Raising Children in a Digital World video material: Preserving Play in a Digital World.
I love the sub-title of Deborah MacNamara’s new book: Making Sense of Preschoolers (Or Anyone Who Acts Like One). When I read this title, immediately some youths and adults come to my mind, to whom I would like to say: “Don’t behave like a preschooler!” Or, “Don’t be so childish!”
I would love to say this to them, perhaps with a raised voice, perhaps even add a little shaking to it … tempting fantasies. But fantasies only, because I know it would be of no use whatsoever to do this. As the word child-ish says: For young children it is normal to behave “childish.” For older children or adults it is not normal to act childish, they are supposed to behave adult-ish. But no one chooses to act childish. It is not the decision of our free will to be or not to be mature and adult.
This is a central conclusion of everything developmental science can teach us: Children are not born “adult-ish.” They cannot learn adultish-ness. Mature experience and acting cannot be enforced.
Narrow act-as-if-mature behaviour traits can be trained (e.g. “Say, ‘thank you.’”), so children obey a concrete prescription. But this is not at all the same as true maturity, and rather unreliable. Loss of self-control is an essential part of childish-ness – and someone who has lost control is not a good subject for directing interventions.
So what’s the matter with youths or adults who don’t behave adult-ish?
They are “stuck.”
I always imagine snails in their shells. Snails need developmentally friendly conditions to come out of their shells. They can survive dangerous and hostile conditions inside their protecting and defending shells, but they cannot grow while they are stuck in their shells.
When older kids and adults get stuck in their childish-ness, it is because the conditions of their life do not allow them to leave their defending shells often and long enough to become adult.
This would mean it is of eminent importance for us to know which conditions children need to be able to leave their shells and grow out of childish-ness. It would mean everyone responsible for a child should know how to avoid a child getting stuck in his or her defensive shell. It would mean that it is of extreme importance to know how we can lure stuck children into leaving their shells again to be able to continue growing and come to maturity.
For the first time in history, we are not confined to tradition or our instincts and intuition alone to do this. Thanks to developmental science and attachment research, today we can understand the dynamics moving a child to hide in their shell or to move forward into maturation. We can understand what the child needs most as favourable conditions for maturation. We can understand the difference between behaviour and development and our need to sometimes bridge stuckness (and bad behaviour resulting from it) to reach vital developmental goals.
Since we want our children not only to behave as-if-mature, but to truly become mature, our insight helps us to set our priorities right. And our insight helps us to understand our child from inside out, to not take their stuckness and resulting behaviour personally, to not let anything divide us.
This is what I love most in the Neufeld attachment-based developmental approach. Finally, my intuitive feelings are in harmony with my mental knowledge and concluding convictions. Recognizing the needs of a stuck child enables me to maintain my warm invitation for this child, despite alienating behaviour resulting from stuckness. This makes it much easier to stay calm – my emotions don’t get triggered by childish behaviour as before.
As Neufeld Institute director for the German language, I get a lot of feedback: how precious this conscious awareness is in relationships to our spouses, to grandmothers and grandmothers-in-law, educators, doctors, teachers, trainers of our children. By my conscious knowledge I can explain to others, much clearer than before, what I feel about a child’s needs, because my intuition is supported by mental knowledge that does not need any special worldview to accept.
I finally do have words to talk about my child’s developmental needs. The words are simple, the approach is simple – though that does not necessarily mean it is always easy to follow its conclusions. I have to walk the maze in every given moment. This means I have to be alive, sensitive, conscious – no routine, no solid certainty if something will work, always trying, exploring, experiencing. I do not have to believe blindly, I can test every statement regarding to my child. To watch the children in my care maturing – and myself, too – is the most wonderful reward I could imagine.
To learn more about stuckness, enroll in the Neufeld Intensive I: Making Sense of Kids, where participants learn to recognize the signs of stuckness, determine the causes of this condition, and get children unstuck. Our next course meets online on Thursdays from 10-11 am PDT, starting October 6, 2016 and running for 22 weeks.
When the roots are deep, we need not fear the wind.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this saying, and what it means to me as the parent of two adolescent children. When it comes to our children, ‘the wind’ can take many forms in our lives, both real and imagined. Certainly, the kids and I have faced inevitable issues and challenges along the way, but I’ve also found myself gutting many fears that never actually materialized. I think we can all be gripped with worries at times about the path our child might take. Or maybe we are sitting inside very real agony watching the path our child is taking. It strikes me that we have very little true control over the wind.
I think this is why I take comfort in the understanding that when the roots are deep, we need not fear the inevitable wind. It has helped me to realize where my parenting energies need to be focused: on cultivating roots that anchor both my children and our relationship together regardless of any problems or issues affecting the relationship; the space between parent and child. This is my true place of influence in my child’s life. That is where my work is and always has been.
But what does this mean? How can we put this into daily practice in our parenting relationship? How can we understand, protect, and nourish this vital connection that anchors growth, maturity, and resilience for our children? Probably the first step towards considering these questions is to simply bring consciousness to their importance. When we begin to even yearn for the answers to such questions, it leads us to become more reflective and mindful about who we are and how we are in connection to our children. Through this process we consider more what children need, not what parents need. In this way, we can find our way through along with our child during the more difficult times of parenting. We can rest in a sense of trust that we know exactly what is needed in the inevitable tough times: to focus on the roots of relationship, regardless of the winds.
Parenting is not about what you do to your child, it is about who you are to your child.
For more about the child-adult relationship as the context for raising children, you may wish to register for our upcoming online course: The Vital Connection, Part I of the Power-to-Parent series. (Starts Monday, October 3rd and runs for nine weeks.) The course will meet online weekly from 1-2 PM PDT, covering topics such as how to cultivate a context of connection and how to win back one’s child if need be.
You might also be interested in Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s upcoming webinar, Attachment Roots: Back to Basics, about how the capacity for relationship is meant to develop as well as why this development is so necessary, taking place on Tuesday, September 20, 2016 from 10-11:30 AM PDT.
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 emotionally 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 feelings 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 also joy, delight, and enjoyment. 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 prevented the love that was there for them in getting through the wall of defenses their brain had erected. They could not feel their emotions, despite being aware, on some level, that they really should be feeling something. 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 that 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 (or adults) lose their caring, 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 antidote to facing too much separation and 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 kids’ 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
1. 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. It might be reading picture books about characters with big feelings with a young child, 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 ‘heroes’ 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.
2. 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 that 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 care-taking 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.
3. 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 who 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, and 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 online. 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.
If you are interested in more on the topic of attachment and emotions, you might be interested in Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s upcoming webinar, Attachment Roots: Back to Basics (September 20, 2016) or Dr. Deborah MacNamara’s online course, Heart Matters: The Science of Emotion (starting October 26, 2016).
Reference
(1) Gordon Neufeld, Level I Intensive: Making Sense of Kids, 2013, Neufeld Institute, Vancouver, BC. www.neufeldinstitute.org