Attachment Building Stategies - Refrigerator List

Attachment Building Stategies - Refrigerator List

1.  Accurate Reflection or mirroring.

2. Validate.

3. Empathize.

4. Be Curious.

5. Name It To Tame It.

6. Soothe the Downstairs Brain.

7. Engage the Upstairs Brain.

8. Joy and delight are the doors.  Have fun.  Hang out.  Get into your child’s world.  Pleasurable engagement.

9. Use sensory pathways—i.e. art, music, movement, textures.

10. Dr. Dan Siegel’s parenting list

11. Track your own inner state, settle yourself.  Breathe.

12. Conscious Play—child takes the lead, you follow.

13. Protection Games

14. Creative Opposition

Tools for Building Parent-Child Attachment and to Maintain Daily Emotional Regulation

Tools for Building Parent-Child Attachment and to Maintain Daily Emotional Regulation

1. Establish daily routines for self-nurturance such as meditation, exercise, listening to music, dancing, etc. 

2. Work to be aware moment by moment of how you are feeling inside.  The moment you stop feeling peace inside, start a process of self regulation, such as deep breathing or activities mentioned above.  Perhaps it’s petting your cat.

3. Be cognizant of the different segments of your child’s daily life, and seek to create transition facilitating experiences.  For example, before separating for school, be sure you have a quiet moment to send your child off with a hug, “have a good day”, and a reminder that you will be home when they get home.  Be sure to review any changes in routines for the day, and perhaps review the day.  People going and coming are highly stressful for a child with a trauma history.  Any new relationship—such as a substitute teacher or a Sunday school teacher can be a stressful event.

4. Keep in mind that physical separations from you are stressful, and seek to create recovery when you reunite.  For example, first thing after school, have some undistracted time, quality time.

5. Create as many opportunities as possible to have fun together, and for your child to feel how delighted you are with them.  Yes, this is more important than homework.

6. Create sensory experiences which you enjoy together.  Sensory rich experiences build attachment.

7. Play hide and seek if your child will allow, even with teens.

8. Creatively evoke play younger than your child’s chronological age, if your child responds positively.

9. At the first hint of conflict or opposition with your child, breathe.  Remember that your calmness can influence your child’s brain.

10. Say no kindly, while inviting your child to express how they feel about the situation.  Be calm in the face of their objections or disagreeable behavior.  

11. Encourage emotional expression at every turn—authentically and with passion...

12. Monitor and pace stimulation.  When your child is having a meltdown, or is being oppositional, it may be that you need to reduce stress by taking an activity away, but don’t do it as punishment.  Do it to help your child return to a calm state.

13. See yourself as a conscious and mindful parent.  This requires “emotional labor”, and very likely, self-reflection.

14. We are seeking to create engaged attunement, not indulgence.  Indulgence is not healthy.  We can differentiate between attunement and indulgence.

Parenting Tips

PARENTING TIPS

1. Parents are the emotional regulators of their children’s nervous system.

2. Parental interactions, especially early in life, become imbedded in the biology of the child.

3. Traumatic experiences before, during, and immediately after birth also become imbedded in the biology of the child. This would include all adoptions and all difficult births, even those where any medical issues were considered resolved.

4. The organization of the emotional/social brain begins in the third trimester, and is complete by age two.

5. The organization of the rational brain does not begin until about age two, and is complete at about age 3. The brain can change throughout life.

6. Interactions between parent and infant develop the baby’s brain, regulate an array of biological functions, and lay the blueprint for all future relationships.

7. How parents talk to their child is as important, or more important, than what they say.  Parents must pay attention to their tone of voice, eye contact, facial expression, and body posture.  This targets the Social Nervous System (SNS).

8. How parents are feeling inside (their own emotional regulation) drives their relationship with their child, and their child’s emotional regulation.  

9. It is the relationship, and only the relationship, not behavior modification, logic, and control which leads to desired behavior.

10. Negative behavior, including perceived willful manipulation, is a signal that the child genuinely needs attention in some manner.  It is a form of communication.  It is up to the adults to determine what type of attention is needed.  The core of negative behavior is usually fear.

11.  Frequent parental interactions of joy, delight, and empathy lay the foundation for healthy development in all domains.

12. Just the physical presence of calm parents alone can be comforting and soothing to children, and help emotional regulation.

13.  Time out usually exasberates the problem, causing an escalation in behavior and control battles, or compliance out of fear of disapproval, rather than true learning.  Time-in is recommended as a tool to help parents and children have a calming period so they can reconnect, and the parent can help the child figure out more constructive approaches to the situation.

14.  When in a stressed and worked-up state, a child (and adult) does not have access to their “thinking” brain.  Emotional responses automatically by-pass the “thinking” brain (hippocampus/prefrontal cortex). Thus a child cannot learn, and a parent cannot teach.

15.  During times of stress our thinking is distorted, and our short-term memory is suppressed.

16.  Many everyday experiences are stressful, and can remain in the body as trauma, if the experiences are not processed and understood. Children can be very resilient, but only with our focused attention and accurate reflection.

17.  The physical separation of parent and a young child (and sometimes an older child) during the day can be a strain on a child’s nervous system.  Thus the child needs numerous touch base experiences during the day while at daycare or preschool, such as a phone call, a visit at lunch, a laminated picture of mom or dad in her pocket, a conversation about mom or dad, or simply a reminder by the substitute provider that mommy or daddy made her snack or lunch.

18.  Children need the undivided attention (at least 10-20 minutes) of their parents at the end of the school day to help them recover from the day’s separation.  They also need undistracted time in the morning and before bedtime.

19.  It is through responsiveness to cues given by children that children grow to be independent, successful, and emotionally regulated adults.  This is not about indulgence or spoiling, but rather, helping children learn to cope with their reactions to the world, helping them understand their emotions, and teaching them mastery of emotional skills.

20.  Attachment is built through sensory pathways.  Relate right brain to right brain.  Engage in sensory rich activities together.

21.  The process of relationship is more important than the immediate outcome of a specific behavior or achievement.

These concepts are drawn from decades of attachment research integrated with neuroscience.  An academic bibliography is available upon request.  

Parenting Strategies for All Ages

Parenting Strategies for All Ages 

1. Monitor and pace the amount of stimulation and stress your child is exposed to on a daily basis—both positive and negative.

2. Pay close attention to the manner in which you separate from your child and reunite with your child.  Your physical presence and absence matters a lot.

3. If you need to be away from your child for a period of time (i.e. a business trip), prepare your child well, and contact your child frequently while you are gone. Provide repeated reassurances that you are thinking of them, miss them, and that you are looking forward to seeing them when you return.

4. Your presence (or attunement) to your child with an undistracted, open, and curious mind has a powerful impact on behavior.  Be mindful of your demeanor, tone of voice, and eye contact. 

5. Provide many opportunities to have pleasurable interactions with your child during which you convey how delighted you are in them, and how thrilled you are that they are in your life. This builds the trust bank.

6. Give them at least 10 minutes of undistracted attention every morning, 20 minutes after school, and 10 minutes before bed.

7. Convey empathy, validation, mirroring, and matching emotions as much as possible.

8. Through your presence, validation, and engagement your child will spontaneously open up to you.  Encourage their sharing what is going on in their mind.  Direct questions tend to shut them down.  As much as possible, enter your child’s world.

9. When your child is doing something that is upsetting you, first step is to breathe, pause, and calm yourself down.  Second step is to calm your child down if she is upset.  Third step is to provide correction in a manner in which you maintain relationship connection.  Do not try to teach or correct until you are both calm, even if it means leaving the issue alone for a while.

10. When your child is upset or expressing unhappiness about something, invite her to say more.  The experience of emotional expression combined with feeling understood, in and of itself, is soothing to a child, can calm their stress, and enable them to be compliant.

11. When encountering negative behavior, seek to understand before trying to change.

12. Think of process and relationship being more important in parenting, than outcome or results.

13. Remember that the strongest motivating factor for a child is your approval or disapproval.  For a young child, it can feel like a life and death matter.

14. Practice mindful parenting and attunement. This is almost like being in your child’s mind.

15. Prepare your child for any changes, including changes in routine.

16. Engage in self-care activities.  This will help you stay calm and attuned to your child.

17. Parent to the age presented, not chronological age.  This will vary from time to time.  Most children with a history of stress or trauma are not their chronological age.  Respecting the presented age will help them move up the developmental ladder.

18. Meeting presented dependency needs will help your child grow to be independent.

19. Young children cannot tolerate long states of distress or shame.

20. Practice self-reflection.  Consider your attachment patterns.

21. Practice self-regulation through deep breathing and somatic mindfulness.