Latest / The Birth Lounge Podcast / Ep. 481: How to be an emotionally secure enough parent with Eli Harwood

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Ep. 481: How to be an emotionally secure enough parent with Eli Harwood · The Birth Lounge Podcast

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always put the word enough next to your goals.
My goal is to be secure enough for my kids, responsive enough, you know, compassionate enough, sturdy enough, regulated enough.
Because none of us are going to be capital R regulated parents, or you know, that's, that's not real.
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That's not happening.
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And depending on the variables in our lives it will look different.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Birth Lounge Podcast.
Can I share something super exciting with you? Ah, I've got something new launching.
Well, it's actually not really like a full launch.
It is, um, more of, like, a facelift or an upgrade.
So I used to teach this class, and it was my best tips to avoiding failure to progress and a C-section and all my tips to, to tearing.
And I wanted to bring back a new and improved class.
That stuff is...
I've taught it for so long, and so I asked my audience over on Instagram, if you're not following me over there, what are you doing? I share all my favorite tips and, uh, things to help you have a better birth and also my life with Saggy Boy and Mr.
HeHe and Maximus, our dog, and just, um, letting you into my world.
But anyway, that's @tranquilitybyhehe over on Instagram.
But I asked my audience over there, which I love so deeply, um, "What do you guys want me to teach about? Like, if you got to pick my brain, what would you want to hear about?" And they said how to avoid a C-section.
Like, I really don't want a C-section, but I don't know how to not have one unless it's absolutely medically necessary, which of course, so grateful for C-sections, but we don't want them to happen every one in three women that walk in the hospital, and that's what we have currently.
And so over the last 10 years, I've really gathered a bunch of tips and tricks that will actually truly reduce your risk for a C-section up to 50%, and, um, I wanna share those with you.
You can find my free class at thebirthlounge.com/csection
and I'm literally just going to brain dump all of my best tips of how to avoid an unnecessarean.
You get it? It's like an unnecessary cesarean, unnecessarean.
I love it.
Unnecessarean.
So, um, I'm gonna teach you how to not have one, and that way, when you get into the hospital, you don't have to be worried about the interventions that are coming your way.
You already know how to navigate those conversations.
It's totally free to join, so if you wanna hang out with me that is thebirthlounge.com/csection.
See you there.
Bye.
You know, the more I share about my parenting journey with Saggy, the more conversations I find myself having around attachment and attachment parenting and what I have kind of started calling biological parenting.
I've really leaned into what does biology say about this decision or this choice or this situation? What would biology dictate here? And, you know, obviously it's not always possible to go biological route.
I- if biology had its way, all of us would be just peeing and pooping everywhere, right? Like, like animals.
So you can't always honor that.
But what does biology say about keeping your child close with you? What does biology say about sleep training versus co-sleeping, or whether you baby wear all day every day, or your child is in daycare Monday through Friday while you work? Today I'm getting to sit down with Eli Harwood, who is a licensed therapist, creator of Attachment Nerd, and the author of many books, including Securely Attached and Raising Securely Attached Kids.
Eli has over 19 years of clinical experience, over 1.5
million followers across her social media platforms, and is on a mission to make the world a more secure place, one attachment relationship at a time In today's episode, we're gonna dive into co-regulation between you and your child.
Plus, we're gonna talk about what other secure attachments or attachments in general your child is going to develop in early childhood that is gonna carry them out through their later childhood, their teenage years, and then ultimately into adulthood.
I also ask Eli about the effects of mental health, postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety on the attachment that we might have with our baby, and she dishes up some pretty good detail If you've ever freaked out on your child, even just once, and then you later laid in bed that night and wondered, "Oh my God, did I break my child's brain?" The good news is no, you didn't, and the even better news is today's episode is not only gonna tell you why you didn't break your child's brain, but also what you can do to repair and how you can start to lay a foundation of secure attachment Starting right now.
So without further ado, Eli, welcome to the show Thank you so much.
So good to be here.
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.
We were chatting a little bit a- b- beforehand, um, but I actually didn't tell you anything about how much I know about attachment and why I'm so interested in this.
Mm-hmm.
And my master's is in human development and family studies, and- Mm-hmm attachment was something that I studied so deeply.
And now having my own baby, it is really cool to see- Mm-hmm kind of him being able to develop attachments with different people.
And it takes me back- Mm-hmm to being in my master's and, and learning about them in textbooks, and then I would be able to see them in the real world.
But it's so different when it's your own baby, and it's so cool.
It's a lot of what my Instagram conversation has started to steer towards since having Saggy because people are wondering why I make certain choices.
And I will say like, "Oh, this is something I know.
I'm doing this.
This is very intentional."
Um, and some people are like, "Oh my gosh, it's so funny.
I do that same thing but I didn't even know why."
And some people are like, "I- Hmm never even thought to do that."
Mm-hmm.
And you know, obviously it varies from whatever I'm sharing.
And I just thought like, what a great conversation to help parents understand what secure attachment is, how we develop it, and- Mm-hmm for a lot of parents in the conversations in our community, we'll have a conversations and people will say, "Oh my God, I did it differently.
Did I ruin my child?" And that- Mm-hmm is something I wanna talk about too.
It's like- Great what do we do if we've already made choices and we're like, "Oh no, I wish I could go back and do it differently"? Mm-hmm.
Don't worry, we're gonna talk about all that.
So Eli, I think a great place for us to start is probably just what is attachment? And there are different types, but what does it mean when we talk about attachment with our babies? Mm-hmm.
Human beings are relational creatures, so not all creatures are relational.
Like, there is a lizard that never even meets its parents, right? There are insects that do not make any physical contact with their caregivers ever, right? So there's a relational nature to how human beings develop, and that relational nature, we theorize, has allowed us to have such complex brains.
So if a species can have a longer development period, then it can develop more complex brain structures.
So the human baby, as far as we know, you know, I haven't made contact with any alien life force at this point in my life, but had I, I, maybe, who knows, maybe I'd feel differently.
But at this point we would be one of the most highly intelligent, developed species on planet Earth.
And that instinct then to form close relationships, to depend on other people, is the attachment instinct.
So the instinct is bidirectional.
So babies have an instinct to want their caregivers as close as possible in order to survive, thrive, regulate.
And caregivers have an instinct to want their babies as close as possible to help protect them, keep them safe, and also regulate.
Uh, this doesn't just end in infancy.
You know, there's no scenario where we're like, "Oh, that person's old enough.
They no longer need other people."
Right? They can just go, you know, go off into the abyss and thrive without any relationship, right? It's part of why it was so disturbing when elderly folks were dying during COVID without any support or family members, because we are relational from the cradle to the grave.
That's a quote from Dr.
Sue Johnson, from cradle to grave.
So this attachment thing is we are going to cultivate and maintain very specific close relationships from the beginning to the end And those relationships are not just gonna be with mom and dad.
They're, like, with other caregivers, grandparents- Mm-hmm cousins- Mm-hmm people in their class, teachers, daycare workers- Mm-hmm um, even your child's- Nannies.
Yes, yeah.
Like, but think outside of your caregiving circle, too.
There's, like, different layers.
I always think about, like, a ripple, and each circle is, like, closer and closer to the child.
So your child also has relationships with the post office man that you- Mm-hmm see once a week when you drop off packages, or your postman that comes to your home to deliver your mail.
But that would not be an attachment relationship.
Oh.
So- Okay connection and attachment are two different things.
Hmm.
So attachment relationships are the relationships that we go to for these three things, identity, belonging- Hmm and refuge during distress.
So I am going to seek out very specific people when I'm sad.
I'm not calling the postman, unless somehow the postman has played that role because there's an absence of other people in my life playing that role.
But in general, an attachment relationship is one that has a very specific emotional quality.
I will seek that person out for familial identity, for belonging, and for emotional support or support during danger.
So what do you think society gets wrong about attachment? Our society is very hell-bent on separating parents from birth to technologies that we sell to help new parents instead of, you know, encouraging the tap into their instincts all the way to sleep training and, you know, the separation of parents and daycare, things like that.
So it's constant, and our society is not set up to support, you know, not doing those things.
Thoughts on that? Well, yes, I have a lot of thoughts, so get ready, because it's very nuanced, actually.
So the, there was a gentleman, he was a doctor, who used the term attachment parenting in the 2000s, and he used that term to market his personal ideology around infant care.
And he wasn't, he wasn't asking anybody to do anything that is harmful to infants, but what he was doing is he was making a conclusion about attachment that is not seen in the data.
So he was saying, if you are breastfeeding, if you are bed sharing, and if you are baby wearing, those are the things that are gonna create a secure attachment for your child.
And while none of those things will harm the attachment with your child, unless your child's, like, super sensory sensitive and doesn't want to constantly be held, they are not what we know cultivates attachment.
What cultivates attachment is parental sensitivity and responsiveness.
And caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness.
So on one side of the spectrum, we have a group of people saying, "The only way for a baby to be securely attached is if you follow these exact infant care protocols," and that is not what we see in the data.
So we see secure babies who are bottle-fed.
We see secure babies who never share a bed with a parent.
We see insecure babies who are breastfed and share a bed with a parent.
We're looking at the quality of the relationship and the dependability of the caregiver with the child.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have the idea that we need to teach children not to need us, right? And I think, like, so the pressure on parents to get your kid sleeping before they are developmentally ready to sleep, the, to teach your child to handle their feelings independently, when that's actually not something we ever want people to develop.
You know, I, I work with a lot of marriages where the primary problem is that it oftentimes the male partner, not always, but oftentimes it's a male partner who is unwilling to share the burden of their emotional needs with their sweetheart, and that's creating intimacy issues because I need to know you.
I need to know what you need.
I need to feel you.
And that person learned very early on, thou shalt not need things emotionally, because they had caregivers who thought that's what teaching independence was.
So there's so many nuances around this.
Daycare can be an amazing gift to a child and to a family.
There are a couple of folks out there right now who are interpreting attachment research and saying, "The only way for a child to be secure is if a mother is with the child zero to three, not working."
That's absolute hogwash.
The data does not support that.
I- we always wanna look out for extreme voices of advice, right? This is the only way.
When we're looking at attachment, we're going, is a child getting the relational support they need to feel safe, seen, and soothed? That's language from Dr.,
um, Daniel Siegel and Dr.
Tina Payne Bryson.
So that, that's sort of their con- The- they think they might even have a fourth S.
Seen, soothed something else.
But doesn't matter.
You get the idea.
We're looking at, is a child's emotional needs met in their relational environments overall? Okay, now talk to us about how parental mental health plays into that.
So can a child still be securely attached if mom is super anxious or experiencing, you know, postpartum depression, or dad too? Mm-hmm.
Y- so yes.
It really has to do with coping.
So a, a parent can have postpartum depression, but be able to still be sensitive enough and responsive enough to an infant that the infant isn't experiencing the side effects of that depression.
Mm.
But a parent could have such severe postpartum depression that they are unable to be sensitive and unable to be responsive, and then that would harm the relational quality that's going between them and their infant.
So it depends.
And, I mean, that's tough, right? Because, I mean, postpartum depression and anxiety is tough regardless.
Mm-hmm.
And then to add on the, the mental load of, you know, how can I show up and connect with my baby.
So what kind of tips do you have for parents, regardless of their mental, you know, mental health stuff, what kind of tips do you have for them to connect with their baby? How do we build this attachment where they are safe and soothed? Mm-hmm.
And what was the other S? Seen.
Seen.
You know, how do we show up for our babies that way? We're wanting to create what's called a, an attunement with our children.
An attunement is I am reading your cues and I'm joining you and I'm regulating you in response to your cues.
And so that could be in response to distressing cues.
So if a child is crying...
I was just helping my sister-in-law l- work on helping her brand new baby learn how to latch.
So I'm over there, you know, pretending like I'm a lactation consultant, but I, I nursed three babies and two of them at the same time because I had twins, so I feel like I, I've got a little something to say about it.
So anyway, I'm over there and I'm helping him, and he, this is new for him and so he's crying 'cause he's like, I want the bottle."
He's four days old and he had to be bottle-fed initially, and so he's like, "I want the bottle," and I'm helping him get on her boob and whatever and she is, "Rah," right? And so he's having those response of like, "Why? Give me the easy milk, lady.
Give me the milk that comes right away."
And my, my job as a caregiver in that moment, I'm holding him, is looking at him in the face and going, "I know.
This is hard," right? I'm here.
I'm creating that sense of feeling felt by another person, right? But I'm also regulating my own body, right? I'm not going, "Oh, no, you're upset.
We should stop doing that," or, "Oh, no, y- uh, are you okay? Did I break you?" You know? I'm going, "I can handle what you feel.
You're not alone in what you feel and I can handle it with you."
And I'm mirroring, so my face is going to mirror some of that expression.
You know, it's why I don't do Botox 'cause I got all these wrinkles.
They're so helpful for understanding what's happening on somebody's face.
So I'm mirroring, right? Now, w- as he gets older and he starts to engage more...
I mean, he could barely open his eyes in the light.
As he gets to be two months, three months, definitely six months, you know, when he's looking at like a shape on the ceiling, I'm gonna look at the shape with him and go, "Oh, what's that?" That synchronicity is creating trust.
It's creating connection.
It's, it's helping that child feel, "I exist."
You know, when they're laughing at something and you're making them laugh again and you do it again and again and again, you're creating a synced-up nervous system and that experience, and we can all feel this.
Like think about a time in your life when you felt great joy or great pain and someone was able to do the work of syncing up their nervous system with you.
Oh, it's so good.
It's good in the, in the depths.
It's good in the heights, right? I'm really sad and someone's like, "Oh, that makes so much sense you're sad.
I'm here with you."
It's like, I might be okay because I'm not alone in the pain, you know? Or if you're really excited about something and someone's like, "Heck yeah! Go girl," right, and they're cheering you on and it's like that, that deep exuberance, it gets amplified.
We're trying to create for our infants, for our toddlers, for our teens, for every stage of development the experience of withness, emotional withness.
Because when that happens, the human brain says, "I'm safe, I'm not alone," and it prioritizes developing executive functioning, and it reduces firing that is focused on survival.
So if I have people to rely on, I don't have to worry so much about staying alive, and I can instead inspect this insect's wings and learn something So this is exactly why childhood trauma impacts attachment, right? Because our brain is always stuck in that fight or flight having to keep us alive.
Mm-hmm.
If we have, what, like unpredictable parents, parents with severe mental illness, abuse.
Mm-hmm.
You know, what's interesting is that there's...
think of it in, in like a gradient.
No parent is sensitive and responsive 100% of the time.
That is not a real thing.
So everyone take a deep breath.
Like you grouched at your kid this morning 'cause they wouldn't get in the car.
Uh, everybody's gonna be fine.
That's not an attachment injury.
You couldn't respond when they were, you know, crying bec- the cat scratched them a teeny, tiny bit, and you literally had a hot pot of soup in your hands trying to get it to the table.
They're gonna be fine.
No one is sensitive and responsive all the time.
In fact, the data says that in a secure dyad, in a secure relationship between a parent and a child, in zero to 18 months of stage, caregivers are in sync with the child, that with-ness, 30 to 50% of the time.
Okay? So you can empty the dishwasher.
You can take a moment, pause, leave the room, reset your body, come back in.
Nobody is going to be experiencing wounds from that.
The wounds are coming when a caregiver is unable to respond to sensitive, tender needs and emotional states.
Maybe that caregiver is avoidant.
They grew up in a home where no one could respond to them, and so they learned to keep all of the emotional stuff inside and off their face.
Kids rely on facial cues to be able to read our nervous system.
So if we have a blank face, I call it resting blank face.
Resting blank face is really stressful for children.
Look up the, um, still face experiment.
Google it, and get a box of tissues as you watch it, because it shows what happens for a child when their caregiver stops responding, stops mirroring those emotional states, and it's distressing to watch.
It can also happen in the case of a caregiver who has intrusive anxiety.
So if, if I am unresolved in my own childhood stuff and my relationship to my child is, "I never want you to feel pain.
I never want you to feel like I did," and so I am constantly bringing my anxiety into the room That is overwhelming to a child's nervous system.
And so that, that registers for a child as, "I can't depend on that caregiver for soothing because they aren't soothed themselves," right? We don't look for water from a thirsty person.
We look for water from someone who has a full water bottle.
So it's very clear this person doesn't have the thing we need.
And then lastly is when a, a caregiver has distorted ideas about a child's mind.
So if I'm a kid and I'm running through the house and I'm running so fast 'cause I just can't wait to get outside, and my caregiver says, "You disrespectful little piece of ba-ba-ba-ba-ba- And they interpret my joy of getting outside as a disrespect of them.
That is going to mess with my sense of safety with them because I can't rely on my caregiver to accurately read my mind.
And again, from time to time, we all get there.
This is not a never.
This is about patterns.
Or a caregiver who's threatening, frightening, or extremely neglectful.
So there's a, there's a gradient there, you know? Like, there's an injury that comes with my caregivers are uncomfortable with feelings and they always tell me to look on the bright side.
Um, I, I don't feel like I can bring as much to that person, and there's a wound there, but I still probably have a sense of some safety.
You know, I'm not worried that my caregiver is going to check out on me.
There's a different injury if I feel like I need to regulate my caregiver.
They're so spun up and anxious that it's my job to help them feel better, and a different injury if my caregiver might be a source of threat to my safety.
Those are all different injuries, different forms of attachment trauma.
Wow.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
So much to say.
You can see how the co-regulation goes both ways, right? Like, your nervous systems are totally linked up.
I just took a trip with some friends and it was so funny because two of the people separate of each other told me, "You and Saggy's nervous systems are linked up."
And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's like the best compliment you could ever give me."
And they both were like, "Really?" And I was like, "Yeah, that, like, means so much to me.
Like, that tells me I'm, like, doing things right."
Um, and they, they kind of share-- I brought it up later when we were all in a big group and I was like, "You guys both said this," and like, "How funny."
And we all talked about, like, when I'm calm and cool and collected, even when the room around us was kind of intense- Mm-hmm he was cool, calm, and collected.
Mm-hmm.
But there was a scenario where I got a little intense and he was agitated and they noticed.
Mm-hmm.
Like, oh my gosh, you, you were having anxiety in this moment and he was feeling it.
And it was just, it was crazy to see that.
That co-regulation I think is is something that a lot of people struggle with because they probably haven't gone through some of their own anxieties and stuff.
I see this a lot.
Well, and it's also experiential.
So if you never experienced a caregiver who could effectively co-regulate you, you have an internal model that might be more about self-isolating.
I don't call self-isolating self-regulating 'cause it usually is a, it's more of a shutdown than a calm down.
Um, it's a, it's a disassociation from what I feel, not a, "Ah, I feel better."
Um- You, your historical experiences around attachment have embedded in your nervous system, so they're going to affect what you have, which is why therapy's so important, 'cause therapy can be a reparative co-regulation experience.
Someone who is attuned to you, helps you learn how to feel your feelings, helps you learn how to interpret yourself in positive ways.
But there are...
Okay, let me, let me throw a little wrench.
I like to make things nuanced There is a reality between caregivers and children that isn't always about attachment in terms of your history.
You might be someone that has really worked through your stuff, and you're having a hard time regulating your child because you are sensory mismatched.
So in the case of neurodivergence, you know, like you could have a kid that you have a secure attachment with but who is very sensitive to loud rooms, and so even though you're chill in the re- loud room, they're not because their nervous system absorbs that information differently.
So, you know, I, I never want anyone listening to me talk about attachment to think like, "Oh, I'm having a hard time.
Does that mean I'm doing this wrong?" Like, no, sometimes it just means you have a neurodivergent child, or, you know, you're in the middle of a growth leap, you know? This kid is just learning something new, and you're learning something new.
Or there's some variable you haven't even figured out or identified yet, you know? Like I've heard from parents that they're like, "Wow, I got my kid off gluten, and all of a sudden behavior's changed."
You know, so there's, there's so many different variables in human behavior and emotion that it is hard to say this is exactly what's happening.
Um, but when it comes to attachment, what we can do as parents is make sure that we have the ability to sit with what our child is feeling, to feel it, to notice it, and to not take it on so that they are experiencing that magic juice of someone is with me, and they are sturdy enough for me to borrow their calmness, to borrow their regulation, as opposed to they join me in the dysregulation.
Yeah.
Okay, you are talking a lot about like responding to our children.
And you had just said, you know, like isolation is really kinda not the answer.
Two things that came to my mind, and it almost is like a pipeline it makes me think, and not that it happens in every single scenario, but isolation as a baby often looks like leaving your baby to cry without responding to them, right? And then as a toddler or a child, it's like, "Go to your room."
Yes.
"Get, get out of here.
Go think about what you did."
You know? And it, it almost thinks, it almost makes me think about a pipeline if we could s- if we could understand our babies and how to respond to them, it makes me think maybe we might be a little bit better at responding to our children as they grow up.
Amen.
Well, and here's what happens.
The more sensitive and responsive you are in a calm way, right? Again, you can't be anxiously responsive.
That doesn't count.
That creates intrusion.
But if you're able to say, "Oh, buddy, you're crying.
Mama's here.
I got you.
I'm here with you," as the general pattern Then that creates trust, and that trust is like a- an incredible gift to the ongoing relationship.
So, you know, your toddler is more likely to trust you and rely on you.
Your teen is more likely to trust you and rely on you.
This can be done later on.
You know, so if you happen to be listening to this podcast and your kid is older, you have an older child, and you're like, "Man, I didn't respond.
I just kept trying to teach my kid to need less because I, that's what I was taught and I thought that's what was the best thing to do.
I thought I was giving them resilience.
Crap.
What can I do now?" Well, you can have conversations with older kids where you say, "I really messed up.
I didn't know.
I wish I had known."
And it's self-compassion in, in that, 'cause if we aren't self-compassionate, then they're gonna feel like they have to take care of us.
So you have to b- you have to forgive yourself before you have these conversations, and you have to go, "I did the best I could with what I had.
Now I have something different."
And you say, "I'd really like to learn to, to be different around this, and I want to give you space if you wanna process some of the negative experiences that you had with me and how I handled your tender needs and emotions when you were little.
I would love to cry with you about that, and I'd love for us to dream about what we wish would've been different.
And let me tell you, I would've picked up that cute little squishy bottom more, but, you know, someone told me that I wasn't supposed to, that I was creating, you know, dependence, and I didn't know that, that I wasn't.
I thought I was.
I'm so sorry."
Aw.
I know so many parents out there are probably listening being like, "Wow, that's the script I needed," so how helpful.
Also, you're, like, almost about to make me cry.
I just feel sad.
Like, aw, I feel sad for everyone who, you know, feels like you need to have that conversation.
I wish you had this conversation before.
I know.
I know.
Um- Wouldn't, wouldn't it be great? I have a vision in the long, long run that I need more time and funding for, but I do want somehow to create, I don't know if it's, like, in a pamphlet form, if it's in a video form, but something that gets to all pregnant parents and their partners that basically says, like, you cannot spoil your child, and if your focus is in being a supportive caregiver for their emotional needs, for their tender needs, over time, and you apologize when you miss the mark, and you learn things as you go, they're gonna be okay, and you're gonna be okay.
And if that is a kid that, you know, struggles to keep their hands to themselves when they're six years old, but you still keep trying to teach them and help them, like, they're not gonna end up in jail.
Like, if you, if you hold the vision of your child's innocent learning heart, they will develop resilience and adapt.
And- Yes, things can happen, and there may be vulnerabilities, and we have kids who have vulnerabilities.
So I don't, I don't want you to hear me saying like, "If you do everything right, your child will be a high-functioning neurotypical blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Like, no, of course not.
But if you continue to offer warmth and responsiveness and generosity in how you interpret your children and you guide them, they will trust you.
They will.
Mm.
You know? I have an 11-year-old son who, unlike most of his peers, continues to want to just, like, lay in my lap and tell me all the things he feels, and we ha- we're doing...
I have a mother-son journal and a mother-daughter journal, but my daughters are a little too young for it, so my son and I are doing it together, and last night he's like, "Mom, we have to do the journal."
You know, he's like so excited about it because he has had the experience of ongoing care, and he can feel that what matters most to me is the connection and is his internal world being regulated by me.
Yeah.
Oh my God, I love that co-regulation so much.
You keep saying the word responsiveness, and one of the things that I remember is responsiveness versus reactiveness, and you did a really good job- Mm-hmm just a minute ago explaining, like, the calm mirroring, talking in a calm voice, saying what you see.
Like, "It's okay, we're gonna be through this soon.
Like, your diaper change is almost there.
We're getting your booty clean," you know? Mm-hmm.
Versus like, "Okay, okay, I'm, I'm almost done.
We're almost done.
I'm just gonna wipe you up, and you're gonna..."
That's kind of like responsiveness versus reactiveness.
Tell us a little bit more about that so that people listening can kinda check in with themselves and see which ones they're doing and if they're comfortable with that.
I mean, you can't be responsive unless you're regulated.
So it's really about what do I need to do in order to be generally regulated? Now, I want everybody to hear, you know where I'm not very responsive is in the car with my three children when they're, like, poking each other's eyes out and throwing chips around, and like, I'm trying to operate heavy machinery.
You know, like, there's a lot, there are so many moments in the car where I'm like, "Enough.
Enough!" And, and I'm in a reactive state.
So that is reactivity.
That I...
My kids will grow up talking about, like, "Oh my gosh.
Remember Mom in the car? She was so pissed."
But they won't, they won't have sensed that I dropped their minds completely, and that I didn't ever come back around.
You know, conflict, stress, those are a part of all parenting, and the more kids you have, the more complicated it becomes.
You know? I do remember with my, my first, 'cause I had one child until he was four and a half, so I, it was just that co-regulating, and I have a supportive partner, so it was 2 v.
1.
And I remember being like, "This is just bliss.
Like, I'm, I also, like, am kinda good at this."
Like, and I had the advantages of my mom was the first cycle breaker.
She started breaking cycles when I was about nine.
So I had the advantages.
I've, I had been to therapy.
I had experienced much more safety in my family home than my mother ever had in hers.
So there was a set of advantages happening in that experience that once I had my twins no longer existed.
It was like, oh, the math is not mathing anymore.
Honestly, I think I could stay regulated when my son was young, like 85% of the time, I bet.
Now it's like straight up 50/50.
You know? I mean, I'm a working mom too, I have a lot going on.
I- but working actually helps regulate me, so I shouldn't have thrown that one in there.
I don't, I don't think that actually...
Eh, sometimes it's stressful.
I don't know.
Anyway, all that being said, always put the word enough next to your goals.
My goal is to be secure enough for my kids, responsive enough, you know, compassionate enough, sturdy enough, regulated enough.
Because none of us are going to be capital R regulated parents, or you know, that's, that's not real.
That's not happening.
And depending on the variables in our lives it will look different.
You know? So I think it's important not to compare yourself to other people either.
Like if you have a friend that had a secure family growing up, their process of giving their child attuned responsiveness is going to be easier.
It's in their nervous system already.
They're not learning it as they parent, they already have it, they inherited it.
So, you know, having compassion and understanding for yourself about how you're going to do these things.
Like if you find yourself being reactive more often, that's your cue to think through, "What's going on with me? Why am I feeling more reactive? Is this about other stressors in my life? Is this about unresolved childhood stuff? Is this my sensory stuff? Am, am I having a pr- a hard time with, you know, audio processing or physiological, you know, textile touch processing?" Some of us get touched out in this motherhood process.
You know, what, what do I need in order to be m- more regulated, regulated enough? What do I need in order to be more responsive? You're finding yourself terrified that your child is bad, and you're imagining them, you know, as a s- future sociopath.
Ooh, what belief system am I in? Where did I inherit that? Oh, that was something I learned in a religious community growing up, you know, from my caregivers.
That was a generational way of interpreting children.
Um, what is this? And, and how do I get what I need, and how do I help my kid get what they need so that I can have a different mindset about what's happening? Mm.
I love that.
Um, you were talking about being in the car with your three kids.
That made me laugh and it made me think that, yes, you had that moment of conflict, right? But I think something that- You never did was compromise their safety, right? Mm-hmm.
They never felt unsafe.
Mm-hmm.
They were like, "Oh my God, she is super mad right now," or like- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm "Wow, Mom just really kinda lost it.
She yelled at us."
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
"That's crazy."
But they never were like, "Oh, I'm in danger."
Yeah.
And I think that's a big difference for a lot of people listening.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah, I'm in danger, or I'm dropped.
Hmm.
You know? We drop our children when we accuse them of intentions that they don't have, you know? Like, you're doing this to make me miserable, or you don't appreciate anything I do for you.
Now I've dropped my child.
That's a form of danger for children, 'cause we need to be held in our good intentions.
We need to, to experience, uh, that our caregivers understand that we're doing the best we can.
And I will die on the Hill, children are doing the best they can.
They are.
It's their first time here.
They're at the beginning of that journey.
Well, as far as we know.
I guess, I guess if there's reincarnation, maybe it's not their first time here.
But I, I, that's above my pay grade.
I'm not sure how all that works.
Yeah, no, I agree with you.
It's their first time here as far as I can tell.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I always am reminding people ar- around us, like, you know, you...
Okay, we, we're introducing solids to Saggy, and, um, th- this weekend he kinda, like, made a little face and shivered, and they were like, "Oh, he must not like that."
And I was like, "Or he's just never tasted that."
And they were like, "Oh, but it's not that sour."
Mm-hmm.
And I was like, "But to you, like, one of you-" Mm-hmm has more than 30 years on Earth tasting stuff, and one of you has-" Right almost 60 years on Earth tasting stuff.
Like, your taste buds are a lot more conditioned than his.
Like, or-" Mm-hmm maybe he's just experiencing something for the first time."
And that is something that I do all the time.
I'm like, "Just remember he's only been doing this for six months.
Just remember he just learned this-" Yes last month," right? Just, like, keep it in the front of your mind.
Okay, you, you made me think about, when you said variables- Mm-hmm how different all of our childhoods are.
So I think, you know, I'm a '90s baby, and I hear a lot that our experience with our parents were relatively the same for a lot of us.
Mm-hmm.
It can be hard because a lot of us don't have great relationships with our parents now.
We have collectively our parents still treat us like children.
Um- Mm-hmm collectively moms can be very overbearing.
Um, parents will go weeks and weeks without talking to their children, just, like, won't check in, won't text.
Mm-hmm.
I hear this a lot if you don't have a secure attachment with your parent- Mm-hmm what are we doing as cycle breakers to be able to lay that foundation with our children? Because it wasn't modeled for us.
So for a lot of us- Mm-hmm it's like, well, I don't really know how to do that.
Yeah.
Well, you're...
I talk about this in all of my books, so just FYI, if you're like, "I need some more help," there's Raising Securely Attached Kids or How to Deal With Your Boop so Your Kids Don't Have To.
The primary mechanism of change that we see in the research begins with a parent's willingness to acknowledge what their childhood felt like, to grieve, which means you can't just think about your childhood.
You have to actually allow yourself to release the feelings that are there, um, around what it felt like not to have a parent you could go to when you were sad or scared, what it felt like to have someone shame you and punish you when you made a mistake instead of help you learn what you could do differently.
You have to really understand the impact of your childhood attachment relationships.
How did they impact you? And release some of the emotion around that.
And, and essentially what you're doing is you're freeing that younger version of you from any responsibility that doesn't belong to you, um, so that you can do something different now.
You're getting freer of the impact of those insecure relationships.
And oftentimes when you do that work, you can also recognize there were protective factors.
You know, maybe you had a dad who really couldn't handle feelings but would go out of his way to pack the perfect lunch for you, and that was...
Y- you could feel within that the intention was for you to feel seen.
You would have longed for him to see you in your tears and know how to scoop you up and hold you, but there was other forms of seeing.
So, you know, you're, you're going into the specificity, and you're allowing yourself to process and grieve, and then free your nervous system not to give your kid what you didn't have, 'cause sometimes our kids don't need the same things that we needed, and so that can be a very tricky maneuver, right? So if I felt abandoned in my childhood and I go into parenthood saying, "My kid will never feel abandoned," but I have a kid that doesn't feel abandoned because they have me, well, now I'm at risk of having a child who feels constantly smothered.
And so even though they may not feel abandoned the way I did, they also don't feel secure.
So we wanna be cautious to free our nervous systems of the pain of our childhoods so that we can absorb and attune to the needs of our children, be them similar or different from what we had growing up And what are some signs that you're kind of doing it right? So if you've freed your nervous system, you're doing all these things, now we're looking for our babies to do what to kind of indicate that, yeah, I'm securely attached to you, and I have other secure attachments in my life? So, m- it's tricky because there are a lot of nuances around this.
But what we would look for is that your child seeks you out, seeks proximity to you, maintains proximity to you, and soothes in your presence during moments of distress or tenderness Now, this gets tricky because sometimes our children are so tired that they're mad at us, and then we're like, "They're not seeking me out for support."
But that's actually not tenderness and distress according to the research, that's exhaustion.
You know, or we don't expect a child to seek us out when they're mad at us, 'cause we aren't letting them stick their fingers in the light socket.
They're going to throw something at us and run the other direction.
That wouldn't be considered tenderness and distress.
Tenderness and distress is, are really the moments where they feel scared, deeply scared, deeply confused, disoriented or really sad.
Now, that being said, neurodivergent kids are sometimes overwhelmed by their internal sensations, and they need a moment to calm the sensory overwhelm before they'll seek you out.
So some kids will seek a quiet spot, go under a couch, hide under a bed, and then crawl into your lap and cry.
Um, that doesn't mean they don't have a secure relationship with you, it means they utilize y- m- that support from you differently because of the way that their nervous system is wired.
And if you can sit by the couch without taking that personally and not forcing them to come out, and just saying, "Mama's here, honey.
I hear you.
That was awfu- that really scared you," or, "That felt sad," and you can tolerate that, they'll cra- they will crawl back out and crawl into your lap when they are less flooded by sensory information.
Um, but in general, does my child find refuge in my presence when they are scared? That's a really good indicator.
Hmm.
And if you're not seeing that, are we expecting those babies to just not be seeking anything? Are they self-soothing? That's a really, Mm-hmm that's a buzzword online, and I see so many people get it twisted of what is self-soothing versus a lot of times, like what you called it, self-isolating.
Yeah.
I say there, there is a difference between shutting down and calming down as well.
So, you know, this, you, you probably have this too with all that knowledge and that brainy brain of yours, but there's so much here.
I mean, I've spent decades studying this data, and so it is complex.
So you could have...
All right, so let's say, let's say you have a kid that you're like, "Wow, they don't really seek me out that often," you might have a just very chill kid.
So temperament is a real thing, you know? I have some friends with some chill kids, and they're very attuned mothers.
And I'll watch and like, "Oh my gosh, their kid seeks them like 1/10 of the time that my kids seek me out," because they are just wired differently genetically.
Um, even in the research, you know, the, the kind of most important study around this is called the strange situation.
Dr.
Mary Ainsworth created this study.
It's been going for years and years and years.
It still gets replicated.
But basically, the study is looking at- You know, how does a child respond to their caregiver after having experienced a level of distress? And we have subcategories of secure kids.
Most people don't know this.
There are four different scores for secure kids, B1, B2, B3, B4, within that category.
There are two different types of resistant, or what sometimes is colloquially known as anxious-ambivalent patterns, and there are two different avoidant patterns.
So we talk about it sometimes like, are you this, are you this, are you this? But actually, there are subcategories, and that is related to temperament.
So, you know, you have a highly sensitive child who experiences distress quickly and easily.
You know, someone looks at them cross-eyed, and they're running into your arms.
You have a less sensitive child who falls down and laughs.
Ha.
No big deal.
And they don't run to you because they don't have as sensitive of a nervous system response to that internal stimuli of pain There's nuance to all of this.
All that we can do as parents is make sure that we've dealt with our baggage, right? So that's that second book of mine.
It's an encyclopedia that goes through, like, how do you deal with feeling anxious? How do you deal with feeling angry? How do you deal with feeling rejected by your child? You know, what if you're not the preferred caregiver? You know, your child wants the other partner more than they want you, or they want grandma more than they want you, and when you're in the room, they get scared and distressed, and they go to the nanny, and you're like, "My bond is broken."
No, no, no, no, no.
No.
There, there's lots of reasons for that that don't mean you've failed.
The key is, is that instinct within the child to seek that support.
That's what we wanna be seeing.
And if they're in the room with just you, and they don't run to you, now we're having a different conversation.
Let's deal with whatever barriers might be there.
Is it your anxiety? Is it your resting blank face? You know, what are the pieces? It is never that you're a bad parent, by the way.
It d- that is not a thing.
There's no clinical diagnosis for bad parent.
It is a, there is some dynamic that just needs your attention.
Hmm.
Welcome to the club.
Yeah, I was just about to say, that is probably not a one-and-done experience.
You're gonna have these experiences throughout parenthood.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, Eli, tell us about some of those reasons that a child might seek out someone else that's in the room when Mom is right there, and Mom is like, "Oh my God," like, "What have I done- Mm-hmm to damage this child?" And it's like, no, it could be normal.
Yep.
Uh, one is, is frequency of caregiving.
You know, so children, the adaptation is this.
If there is a predator in the room, so there's a tiger in the room, a child's nervous system needs to have an automatic preference list, because it would not be helpful for them to be caught between two people.
Who do I go to? Who do I run to? So in young ages, a child's brain always says, basically, "You're number one, you're number two, you're number three."
And that will be based on how much time they spend.
So if, if you're, if you are a working parent, and the majority of the day your child is with another caregiver, they might seek that caregiver out when you're in the room.
That doesn't mean anything about them trusting you or not trusting you.
It just means their brain says, "That's the person that's here the most, so that's who I should probably seek out in, in danger."
But it isn't always that.
So sometimes it's that their personality alignment, I talked earlier about sensory mismatch in parenthood and childhood, you know? It might be that you have a really spicy child, and you are really sensitive, and your child doesn't feel your sturdiness in their emotional moments, and the other parent is a little more spicy.
So they run to the spicy parent, 'cause they know that spicy parent isn't gonna feel on fire after they run to them with big feelings.
Sometimes kids are seeking someone out 'cause they've missed them, you know? Or, um, same gender, like some kids are really into being around the parent that matches them gender-wise.
It's just a, it's really particular.
What you wanna be asking yourself is, "If I'm alone in the room with my child, are they seeking me out when they're in tenderness and distress? If they're not, why? What's going on potentially with my availability? Am I distracted? Am I harsh? Am I under-responsive? Am I overreactive?" Like, what's going on in the dynamic that makes it hard for my presence to feel like a refuge? Okay, you keep talking about, you know, seeking reassurance, and your baby seeking you out.
It doesn't always look like running into your arms.
One of the coolest things I learned, and it's something that has stuck with me, and the first time I saw my baby do it, I was like, "Oh, is that what that was?" And then, and now it's just, like, a common habit.
I see it in all of my friends' children, but it's that look back, right? Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Your baby's not gonna necessarily put down a toy and run to your arms, but they may stop playing and then just find you in the room- Mm-hmm and they just wanna see where you are- Mm-hmm what's your body language, are you in their vicinity, are you cool, calm, and collected? Like, what are you doing? I mean, I love it every time Sagi does it.
I'm like, "Hi, I'm right here."
Like, "What's up?" Yes.
Um, it's, it's like my favorite.
Tell us about that, that seeking out reassurance is not always, like, get up and go run and give mommy a hug.
Yeah.
So I was trained to score the Strange Sit- Situation Protocol, and when, when we are looking at a child's response, you know, the first thing we're scoring is seeking proximity, okay? So a child might seek proximity by running to a parent, if they can run.
I mean, obviously a two-month-old can't run.
Right.
Um, crawling, whatever.
Or they might seek proximity by looking and making eye contact.
And what we have found is children with chiller temperaments need less proximity to get the same effect of proximity as a child with a more sensitive temperament.
So, like, I have children, and they, they're...
What's interesting is their temperaments will also, like, evolve sometimes, where you're like, "Wait, you were my most sensitive child, but now you're not.
This is fascinating to watch you develop."
But one of my children, o- out the gate, was highly, highly sensitive.
I mean, she, if she, if you looked at her cross-eyed, she wanted to crawl back into my uterus.
That was her process, and she was just going to cling, cling, cling.
She would soothe, though, in response to that clinging, right? So she needed a lot of proximity in order to feel that reset, but she could utilize that.
Whereas her twin sister, they're fraternal was much more likely to just give me a look.
Like, "You still here? Am I safe?" You know, I could give a look back, and she'd go, "Okay, back to the toys."
Um, so w- yes, it's not always run and cling- It is sometimes just simply sense.
You know, they might just hear your voice.
And kids, so not all kids feel comfortable in eye contact, so this is again neurodivergence.
You have a kid on the spectrum, they may just listen to the sound of your voice.
So you may notice them playing with a toy, they freeze.
That might be a distress response.
And then you go, "You okay, buddy? Mama's here."
That, and they f- experience proximity through audio contact, and then return to play.
What we really wanna see is kids regulating with parents, and then pushing off of that parental base to explore the world and play.
That's what we're, our hope is, and we call that safe haven and secure base.
So is there such a thing as an over-seeking child? Like, can a child seek too much, be too clingy? No.
Well, what there is a child who clings but doesn't feel soothed upon clinging.
So yes, there are children that we would call hypervigilant who have caregivers who are not predictable enough, so they haven't been able to make sense of how and when and where will I be able to rely on you, and so the child begins to feel responsible for keeping the parent close.
So they are less likely to play with the toys, they are less likely to seek everything else out as a result of the relationship.
Now again, this gets tricky.
You can have a highly sensitive kid who is less likely than other kids to do those things, but is actually utilizing the relationship at the level they need.
So don't read into this.
This is always like, okay, take a deep breath.
Are you, have you worked through your stuff? Are you being generally responsive? Are you being generally emotionally sturdy? Your child will develop and take risks as they're ready.
But if you feel like, wow, here's the truth I'm bipolar and I'm off my meds, and my kid can't tell whether or not I'm gonna be manic Mad Mommy or, you know, deeply depressed Rug Mommy who's laying on the floor, and so that's part of what's happening here is my kid is having to manage me because I'm not managing me.
I should probably call my doc and get back on my meds.
That, that would, there would be some clear level of like, or, oh, I'm in an abusive relationship.
I'm only allowed to be connected to my kid when he's not in the room, but the second he comes in the room he gets jealous of my relationship with our child, and so then I do shut down, and my kid is having to be vigilant, because how confusing that must be for them.
Versus, hey, my kid is just sensitive and doesn't wanna play on the soccer field yet.
It's fine.
Like, maybe they won't play soccer, and it will be okay.
You know? Do we have certain ages where we do have genuine- generally expected milestones when it comes to attachment? I wouldn't call attachment as a milestone thing.
We're really looking at the quality of the relationship, th- regardless of what milestone a child is at.
However individuation is a fancy way to say when kids start being less interested in us and more interested in creating closer relationship with their peers.
There's a wide range of that.
You have kids who will start doing that in fourth and fifth grade.
You have kids that won't do that till a- after college.
You know, so I don't, I wouldn't worry too much about milestones.
I would worry more about what's the quality of our relationship, and what's the quality of my emotional presence? If I were a kid struggling, learning, going through something, would I find me grounding, reassuring, soothing, helpful, or not? What do you feel about the battle between the gentle parenting- Mm-hmm and then some people calling it permissive parenting? Mm-hmm.
Well, you know, first of all, gentle parenting is not something that is, it's not, it, uh, researched, it's not a protocol.
It's just a term that the internet loved.
And the internet loved it for good reason.
It was a response to what we could call harsh parenting or overreactive parenting, punishing, punitive parenting, that came from a behavioral movement in the '80s and '90s, um, where parents were really, really encouraged to focus on getting their children to act in particular ways, and not really focused on creating that sense of trust and relationship.
So gentle parenting as an idea is simply that, it's an internet idea.
I think that many, many, many people have connected many, many different types of things to it.
So for some people, gentle parenting has played out as, "I should never tell my child no."
I still remember watching a video where someone was talking about why we don't say no to our, have to say no to our children, and I was like, "Lord, have mercy."
That's not- Don't wanna see the inside of that household.
That's not...
Well, and of what it does to teachers, what it does to the wh- like that, that, th- that's such a f- that's an interpretation of s- of that.
So permissive parenting if, it also, again, mm, this isn't, like, an exact thing that we can say, "These are the things we define it as."
It's a cultural conversation.
We have some research that looks at permissive parenting versus authoritarian versus authoritative versus secure, so there i- there is some, but it's, it's still more of a conversation.
In my book, I have a chapter called How to Deal With a Permissive Habit, How to Deal With a Control Habit.
Those are two different chapters.
I think that if you came from an overcontrolling family, sometimes you resort to being negligent in structure, so you aren't giving your kids enough structure because you've, you're just not sure how, where, what's the line? When am I controlling, when am I not? On the flip side, I see a lot of people who come from chaos becoming overly controlling parents.
You know, so it's really about that skill set of attunement and emotion regulation within yourself.
Um, if you are connecting with your children on a, on an overall level they will experience your presence as gentle towards their tenderness, but that doesn't mean everything is gentle.
I don't know, I, I worry sometimes that some of the impact of that movement will be kids who cannot handle other people's frustrations, and you need to.
Like, I don't know if you've ever been in a relationship, but there's some frustration in those things.
And I, I think it's important that while you might use gentle as a word to help inspire you to avoid some of the abuse from your childhood, make sure that you couple the word gentle with dependable, with reliable, with sturdy.
You know? Be a guide.
Don't just let your child guide you because if the child is, is the guide their emotional ability, you know, up and down, it that's gonna be chaos.
It's exhausting.
And they won't exper- they won't experience you as gentle, they'll experience you as fragile.
Chaotic.
Mm-hmm.
Unreliable.
Mm-hmm.
Always having to guess what they're gonna get when they get with you.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and feeling like it, they run the show.
They're in charge.
Hmm.
That doesn't feel good to a kid.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Being parentified, is that what you would call that? Mm-hmm.
Yes, I think there are different flavors of being parentified.
If, but if in my pa- parenting philosophy I never say no and I let my kids do anything, anywhere, all the time, and I don't create expectations then yeah, there's no gua- guardrails for my child.
And they may not feel responsible for what I feel, which is traditionally what we use the word parentified to mean, but they, I guess, I'm like, it's neglect.
Less than parentified, it's neglect Dr.
Karyn Purvis was a mentor of mine passed away a few years ago.
She's at Texas Christian University, did a lot of research on kids with trauma, and she said, "If you rob a child of nurture, you compromise their ability to feel loved.
But if you rob a child of structure, you compromise their ability to grow."
Mm.
And so if I can't tell my child no, if I can't give my child guidelines, my child cannot get to certain places of their capacity and resilience and development because I'm not putting up the guardrails that would help them do that They just don't, they don't, they're just wandering alone.
They don't, they have no idea of what people around them expect.
They don't know how to reach those things.
Um- Yeah yeah.
I n- I never want people to feel pressure to breastfeed, so just know I'm using this metaphor, 'cause it's fresh on my mind.
Sure.
But, you know, with my nephew, I'm helping him, and he's, "I don't wanna, I don't wanna breastfeed," and, "I w-," and we're working with, through that discomfort.
If my sister-in-law was just to go, "It's okay, he doesn't have to.
We're not, we're just gonna give it up," even though she's wanting to breastfeed, she's, some of the benefits of that, then he would never breastfeed, and that's, again, fine.
That will not be the end of his life.
I don't have, that's not a checklist on my intake form.
I'm not like, "Oh, new therapy client.
Were you breastfed or bottle-fed?" Um, but as an example, she had to learn how to tolerate some of his distress and continue to teach him and guide him.
The next day, he latched and started breastfeeding.
He is now breastfeeding.
He is capable of it.
He was able to learn that skill.
So I'm, I want you to see this metaphor as, like, a skill set.
You know, if our child says, "I don't wanna go to school," and we go, "Okay, you don't have to go to school," they don't learn the skill set of being able to go to school.
So per- the permissive problem is a form of neglect.
It's neglecting because it's not giving our children the structure they need in order to grow, and then to feel confident, and with, among their peers, to know that they are capable of doing those things.
Yeah, among their peers is something that really sticks out to me.
Like, you want your child to have social skills, and it starts at having social skills with you at home- Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm and then those relationships- In the relationship kind of, right, go out in that ripple effect that I mentioned earlier.
Like, y- you want your child to be confident to navigate the world around them, and depending on how you interact with your child, and I, I suppose their attachment, is gonna impact those things.
Mm-hmm.
We've done a really great job of kind of how do we set it up and what is secure attachment and what are kind of the things that harm us, but one thing that we haven't talked about is what are the long-term benefits? Mm.
Something that always stuck out to me was that, you know, if we can give our child a secure attachment, they are more likely to go on and have, like, a more positive life, have positive relationships- Mm-hmm have long-term relationships that are fulfilling to them.
And then obviously- Mm-hmm if you're able to, to model that for your child, they're more likely to go on and have a positive relationship with their children, and it's kind of this ripple effect.
What other things do we know about secure attachment and kind of long-term health? Well, you did a great job of summarizing a lot of it, but if you wanna...
I'm not gonna go through other research, 'cause there's so much research.
That's in my first book, Raising Securely Attached Kids.
But we know, in general, when children have the advantage of a secure relationship with at least one caregiver- That they are likely to have a thicker prefrontal cortex, a smaller amygdala, so it's helping with positive brain development.
They have a better internal model for handling conflict in relationships.
They have a more positive self-concept and sense of self-worth, and they are more willing to take risks, which means they are going to, on a experiential level, experience a broader swath of life.
So if I, if I can feel safe and secure in a relationship, then I can fix my priorities on, you know, I don't know, solving cancer.
I mean, like, there, there are other things I can work on because I'm not trying to figure out am I worthy? Do I belong? Where do I fit? Do I matter? Are my feelings valid? That stuff's been taken care of.
My feelings are valid.
I have people.
I am worthy of safe care.
And then I would say this is one of the biggest ones, the capacity to then create more secure relationships.
So it's like an investment bank, right? So the earlier a child feels secure, the more secure relationships that they then create, which means the more secure relationships they have, so the more secure they feel, so the more secure relationships they create.
And so, and by more, don't compare, again.
So a very introverted neurodivergent child may have one or two really good friends, and that's enough, but they're gonna rely on those friends and utilize those friendships in a way that's gonna really benefit their nervous system.
Versus if they don't have some of that secure experience, they might cling to kids who are mean to them and bully them and keep trying to get those kids to like them instead of really seeking and trusting the places where they feel seen, soothed, and supported.
Mm.
So we're really looking at confidence, resilience connectedness, pro-social skills, and the ability to trust themselves and pursue the life they want.
It sounds so easy in words, and then as a parent you think about, like- Mm how the heck am I gonna do this? And it suddenly gets so hard.
When you say it, you're like, "Yeah, yeah.
Check, check, check."
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And then you're like, "Wait, how am I gonna do this, actually do it?" It's a lot.
Yes.
Yes.
And then there's, and there's all these challenging moments, and, you know, that's...
One thing I will say is we as a species are wired for attachment, but we have been historically wired for attachment in the context of much of a more communal human experience than we are currently in experimentally right now.
So I don't believe we were ever meant to be alone with our children.
Nobody was meant to have to put your kids only to bed.
We were supposed to be in the village, and everybody goes to bed, and so that is a very different energetic experience as a parent.
You know, this is when we eat.
This is where we get our water.
This is how we do everything.
In modern parenting, the amount of, of complexity that we are all navigating and our kids are navigating in isolation, it's nutso.
So just know that, you know, what we're doing right now is a little bit crazy.
So if it feels intense and a lot and you're like, "Is everyone else having a hard time with this?" the answer is yes, they are.
This is hard.
I mean, I don't have a solution for that because I don't really want to move in with other people, but on an intellectual level, I can tell you that would help with the nervous system buffering because there would be more adult nervous systems in the room to buffer as we're helping to raise our children.
And, you know, traditionally that was women.
It can be men, though, as well.
It can be anyone of any gender who is willing to be regulated and supportive of children.
Um, so if you're struggling with some of this, you know, think about what, what could I do to get m- you know, more of my friends in the room? Like, how can I get more village in my life so that I'm doing a little bit less emotional labor and feeling a little less crazy? A little less alone.
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Okay.
We've kind of hit all of the things that I wanted to talk about, and I, I think you've done a great job of laying a foundation of understanding attachment and how it's different with each of our children, and how our own nervous systems play a huge role in this.
You know, the nervous system talk is relatively new.
It's, it hasn't always been a thing.
Like, this was not a thing when we were younger.
It wasn't a thing when we were in high school or college.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
It's only been in the recent years where people have really started to kind of focus on their nervous system.
If someone is wanting support in how do they start this work, how do they start to put these things into their life, right? How do they start to kind of pivot some of their lifestyle choices to be more regulated themselves, and to start to help their child do the same? Mm-hmm.
Where can people connect with you, learn from you, grab your books? You have so many books out.
Tell us about all of those and where we can grab them.
Okay.
So, with books, you can buy them anywhere you buy books.
So if you buy them on Amazon, or Books-A-Million, or wherever, your local bookstore.
I have a journal that is designed to help you work through your childhood stuff and learn how to rely on adults in your life now.
So it's about, it's really about more about romance and marriage attachment, so that's called Securely Attached.
Raising Securely Attached Kids will kind of really help you understand all the research.
And I don't write like a, a research dork.
I have, like, little call-outs.
So I have nerd alerts so you can read the research if you want to, and if you don't wanna read it, then the rest of it is like, "Okay, here's what this actually looks like in real life with real kids."
And then I have How to Deal With Your Boop So Your Kids Don't Have To: An Encyclopedia for Ditching Your Emotional Baggage, which is really, like, if you're a parent and you're like, "I actually do not know how to handle my feelings," that's your book.
And it's not a read it all at once unless you want to.
It's a choose-your-own-adventure.
I'm gonna read this chapter, I'm gonna read that chapter, and this is what I need help with.
So I like to think of that as, like, a paper parent on your shelf to help you when you need it.
And then I have a mother-daughter and a mother-son journal called Uniquely Us, um, that you can use with your kids.
That's usually good for, like, ages eight and older.
It's just another sweet way to deepen that relationship and the communication between you two.
And then if you're more of a I want to be learning in vivo with other people, I have the Secure Parent program online that you can join, and it's a lifetime access program, and you can pay what you can if finances are tight.
And it's just designed to help get you support and information.
So we have support groups.
I do a live Q&A every month, and then there are also videos and programs that you can work through, and guides, and all sorts of goodies in there, um, including a I Wish I Had Known guide for any of the parents who are having that Oh, crap, I didn't know, I didn't do this, to guide you through how to make some of those repairs and start changing the trajectory of a relationship that's h- with a kid who's a little older.
My gosh.
Illie, as you were talking, a question dropped into my brain that I forgot to ask- Oh, I'm ready that was probably one of the most question, one of the most requested questions that I got.
I don't know how I forgot this.
I didn't talk about this at all, and now I'm like, "Oh, my God, I didn't cover that at all."
Spanking.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
The, this is actually really- I know, it's, it's not a quick question.
Uh-uh.
No, but it can be.
We're gonna make it a quick question.
In no situation will causing physical or emotional turmoil intentionally for your child teach them what it is you want them to learn.
What it will teach them is, this is someone who is willing to create pain for me in order to control me, and some kids will internalize that as a mistrust in their relationship with you.
Some kids will internalize that as, "I am bad.
I'm a bad kid," so now we've wrecked their sense of self-confidence, and some kids will internalize that as, "This is the most effective way to get power in the room," and they will then learn how to do that with other people.
It's just a, it's just not a helpful tool.
It's not the most effective.
Um, if your only goal is to control your child, sure, but that will erode the most valuable resource you have with them, which is trust.
It's interesting, my son came to me yesterday, and he was telling me that he was with a group of his friends, so they're all in middle school now, and they were all just, like, hanging out and chat, and they all started talking about whether or not they were spanked.
And most of them had been spanked, and one of them said he'd been hit in the back at some point.
And my son was like, "Mom, thank you so much for never spanking me."
And I was like, "Oh, buddy."
He's like, "It's just, I just thought, ugh, that would've made me feel so weird if I, if you had done that to me."
And so just remember, like, yeah, short-term gains, but long-term losses.
Or get more creative, get more support, figure out how to work through your feelings.
Teach without harm.
Yeah.
You won't...
I've never heard anyone be like, "You know, I really regret not spanking my kid."
I mean, sure, I'm sure now that I've said that someone will be like, "I know someone who says that," but honestly, are they someone you look up to, who you really think has a, a steady, secure mind? Probably not.
They're probably someone who's desperate and didn't know what to do, and so now that's what they think they should've done.
But it's, it's, it's not worth it.
Yeah, it's really not.
I love what you said earlier, like, kids are doing the best they can, so just remind yourself of that.
Like, if you were doing the best you can- Mm-hmm and someone came up and spanked you or, like, punched you in the face, would you continue to want to, A, be around that person or feel safe around that person? But would you continue to wanna do the best you can? Of course not.
Like- No it, kids, you know, they're, they're doing- And if you've, if you've done that in the past, you can stop doing it now and regain that trust.
Yeah, of course.
So you can say to your kids, "I'm so sorry, I used to do that."
Hmm.
Do you think it's as simple as that? Do you think it's as simple as, as apologizing and that child will now trust you as, uh, assuming you follow through and you don't ever spank them again? Hmm.
Depends.
It depends on how long you spanked them, how hard you spanked them, how overwhelming that was to them, how sensitive they are.
Um, I think that when, anytime we make a pivot as a parent, so anytime we recognize I was doing something or not doing something that was negatively impacting my child we need to forgive ourselves first, and then we need to figure out what does actual repair look like.
And so that is initially having that conversation, and some kids are gonna be like, "It's okay, Mom, I know you did that because you're just trying to teach me not to spill my cereal on the couch," or whatever.
And other kids are gonna be like Yeah, it's okay, Mom," but you're gonna feel in their body it's still not okay, that they, like, flinch when they do something wrong, and they look to you like, "Am I gonna get in trouble?" You know? And then, then your job is to be like, "Oh, honey, you're real- are you worried I'm gonna do something about...
Uh, that's fair.
I can see why you think that, 'cause that is what I did in the past.
I'm so sorry.
I'm not gonna keep doing that, but I understand why your body is still worried.
It's gonna take us time for your body to really trust that there's something different happening now."
Mm.
You know? I mean, I, I think of this of, like, when parents stop drinking alcohol and stuff, you know? It takes kids a long time to really trust and believe that you're reliable, and you're gonna be here, and I can trust that, because they've got a pattern internalized.
So how much of a pattern was it is going to affect how long the repair takes and how much consistency and acknowledgement and warmth and all of those things.
We've talked about repair before on the show, you guys, so, we know all about that, how important it is to repair with your child.
Even if you didn't grow up in a home- Mm-hmm that modeled that for you, really try and learn it now, you guys.
Um, and it can be simple.
Repair doesn't have to be this awkward apology.
Sometimes it is.
Um, but a lot of times it's just Dude, I'm sorry I did that.
I was- Oh, my I was stressed.
I was angry.
I was- Yeah.
We were crossing the street and, like, you know, I, I was scared.
Like, you just- Mm-hmm you just tell them what's going on.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, my gosh, Eli.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, one more time where we can find your books, and then don't forget to tell us where we can connect with you online.
Oh, right, right.
I run my mouth for free on social media, mostly Instagram and Facebook.
You can...
@attachmentnerd.
And again, you can buy my books anywhere, and my website is attachmentnerd.com,
and you can find all of the things there, socials, books, program, all of that.
Your mom's group- I'd love to see you there or your parents group.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, the Secure Parent Program.
Oh.
Mm-hmm.
Amazing.
Oh, my gosh, you guys.
So good.
I know today's episode was probably, like, a lot to think about and you're probably now, like, scrutinizing every parent decision you've ever made, whether your baby is one week old or 20 years old or 50 years old.
You know, you're, you're probably thinking like, "Oh, what have I done?" You're doing the best you can and as you get more information, you change and you pivot, and that's actually the really beautiful thing about parenting, is, like Eli said, we don't have to get it right all of the time.
We're getting it right some of the time and we want to get it right enough.
That's right.
We want to get it right enough that our kids are feeling that safe and seen and supported and loved and cared for, and, like, when they cry out, we're gonna respond, and we're gonna respond appropriately, um, and we're gonna just sit there and be with them.
Oh, my gosh, I love it so much.
We're all doing the best we can, you guys.
Parenting is so hard, um, but we're doing it.
We're doing it together, and I'm glad to be able to be doing it with all of you guys.
I will see you guys in the next episode.
Be sure to follow Eli on social media and grab her books, and you can find me at tranquilitybyhehe and at the.birth.lounge.
Until next time, head to your app store and download the Birth Lounge app for evidence-based childbirth education and data-driven postpartum support delivered straight to your phone.
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