Highlights from PARENTING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

by Dan Siegel and Mary Hartzell, See the book here.

"How you make sense of your childhood experiences has a profound effect on how you parent your own children.”

“Research in the field of child development has demonstrated that a child’s security of attachment to parents is very strongly connected to the parents’ understanding of their own early-life experiences.”

“Mindfulness is at the heart of nurturing relationships”.

“When we are preoccupied with the past or worried about the future, we are physically present with our children but are mentally absent. Children don’t need us to be fully available all the time, but they do need our presence during connecting interactions. Being mindful as a parent means having intention in your actions. With intention, you purposefully choose your behavior with your child’s emotional well-being in mind. Children can readily detect intention and thrive when there are purposeful interactions with their parents.”

“Being able to respond in flexible ways is one of the biggest challenges of being a parent. Response flexibility is the ability of the mind to sort through a wide variety of mental processes, such as impulses, ideas, and feelings, and come up with a thoughtful, nonautomatic response.”

“Mindsight allows parents to see the minds of their children through the basic signals they can perceive. The nonverbal messages of eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, gestures, body posture, and the timing and intensity of response are also extremely important elements of communication.” Sharing joy is crucial for your child’s development.

It is also crucial that we take the time to pause and reflect on our emotional responses to our children, and to think about whether our unresolved issues are present in our interactions with our children, and to take responsibility for them. We can do this by becoming aware and bringing the issues into conscious memory.

According to the book, we have two types of memory: implicit memory and explicit memory. Implicit memory is outside of our conscious awareness. It begins at birth and lasts throughout the lifespan. Explicit memory is our conscious memory. It begins at about age 1 ½ - 2. Our attachment patterns are stored in our implicit memory. Many unpleasant memories are also stored in our implicit memories. Sometimes current events, including our interactions with our children, can trigger responses from us which come from our implicit memory. We are then responding from past experiences, rather than from the present, without realizing it. We can work to make our implicit memories become explicit. In the process we are then able to be more mindful, intentional, and fully present with our children. We can then integrate this process into our daily lives.

“It is through sharing of emotions that we build connections with others. Communication that involves an awareness of our own emotions, an ability to respectfully share our emotions, and an empathic understanding of our children’s emotions lays a foundation that supports the building of lifelong relationships. As a parent, your ability to communicate about emotions supports your child in developing a sense of vitality and empathy. These qualities are important for the nurturing of close, intimate relationships through-out the life span.”

Example: Your child comes in from playing, excited about the colorful beetles he’s collected in a small open glass jar. “Look, Mommy, look what I found, aren’t they pretty?” All you see is the possibility of bugs loose in the house. “Get those creepy things out of here right now,” you say sternly. Your child starts to protest. You take him by the arm and march him toward the door. Your child’s emotional experience was totally missed. His joy and delight were not shared. A better response would be: “Wow, let me see? They are colorful aren’t they? Thank you for showing them to me. I think they will be happiest living outside.” Your child, and all of us, needs to “feel felt”.

Attachment is the psychobiological process whereby children learn to feel safe in the world, and protected by their parents. It is essential for healthy development to occur in all domains. It also contributes to the physiology of brain development. Attachment researchers have identified specific patterns of attachment. The primary categories are: secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized. These categories are defined in the book, and examples are given. The book also explains how research has shown that the manner in which adults tell their life story to another individual can reveal their own attachment patterns. This is done through an instrument called the Adult Attachment Interview. Examples of questions from the AAI are in the book, and referred to as “Questions for Parental Self-Reflection”.

The final chapters of the book explain and give examples of how parents can lose emotional control with their children because of their own unresolved issues, and how parents can then create repair with their children. It also talks about good parenting as establishing a culture of compassion and empathy as a part of everyday family life.

Prepared by Chris Walker, LCSW

Therapist and Parent Educator

434-923-8253

christine@attachmenteducation.com