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When Saying Goodbye Is Hard · Get Curious, Not Furious

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You love your child more than anything, and some days they drive you crazy.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colette, a speech and language therapist, sense maker, and mom of three.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Get Curious, Not Furious.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Together let's make sense of your child and what's really happening in those moments that feel out of control.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Less reacting, more understanding.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to get curious instead of furious, keep listening.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Drop-offs can be heartbreaking.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's daycare, school, bedtime, or staying with grandparents.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing your child cling, cry, or panic when you leave can leave you wondering if you're making things worse.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we'll explore separation through the lens of attachment.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: You'll discover why separation can feel so overwhelming for our children, how our children's brains gradually learn to hold on to the people they love even when they're out of sight, and why just be brave rarely helps.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: If goodbyes have become a daily battle, this episode will help you understand what's happening beneath the behavior, and how you can support your child to hold on to your connection even when you're apart.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you listened to last week's episode Caught in a Lie, I wanted to give you a quick update.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: My middle boy, who's been having a period of a little bit of lying, and I've used the strategies that I talked about in the podcast, I wanted to share with you that it's been really helpful because he has started to tell the truth a lot more.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Recently I was sharing a story with my children about when my eldest was really young and how I would fill him up with love whenever it was time to go.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was about two years old, um, he had a little younger brother, and my eldest boy was really, really attached and connected to his dad and still is.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when his dad would leave for work, that would really stir him up.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: At the time he loved playing with diggers.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I had an idea one day, how about if we practice if we try, not practice, how about if we try filling him up with love?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So they had this little ritual when it was time for his just before it was time for his dad to leave for work, his dad would come along, get down to his level, connect with him, and fill him up with love.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He'd pretend he was a digger, scooping up love, putting it into his pockets, putting into his shoes.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this was a little ritual that they went through every morning, and it was really, really successful.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I was telling my older children this, they really found this quite amusing.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked about why it was helpful when he was little to have his dad literally fill him up with love in a tangible way.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I really liked that I can have these conversations with my children now that they're older, and it can help them understand if they see peers, other children struggling to say goodbye, and other children having a hard time, maybe at school or maybe at sports activities.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: John Bowlby was a British psychologist and psychiatrist, and he founded attachment theory.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: This emphasized the importance of our early relational experiences.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: The need for attachment is a deeply rooted survival instinct.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So our children's early attachment experiences, how they form their attachment with their primary caregivers, really gives them a kind of a working model for how they perceive themselves, how they perceive others, and their relationships throughout life.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now we know these early attachment experiences can be disrupted for many reasons and often for reasons outside of our control.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: When you stop and think about how important those early attachment experiences are for your child, then it becomes even to me sort of more significant to really pay attention to this and to spend some time thinking and exploring and wondering about how your child's early attachment relationships were formed and how that might be influencing some of the day-to-day parenting challenges you might be having now.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about how attachment develops.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: In the first six weeks of life, our infants they cry and they gaze at us, and those are developmental nature's way of getting them to attract their caregivers' attention and connection.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: They need that because they cry, because they're hungry, because they need comfort, because they need to be changed.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also those wonderful moments of back and forth gazing, often during feeding or times of getting changed or falling off to a sleep.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really how we begin to fall in love.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: From about six weeks to six months, they become a little bit more alert and engaged in the world, less sleepy.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: They begin to recognize and show preference for their primary caregivers.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: They connect through their senses and physical proximity in those early weeks and months of life.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Around the ages from about six months to two years, our toddler infants and toddlers show a clear preference for their primary caregiver, and separation anxiety is common.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I think about the term anxiety, I like to reframe it because to me, anxiety, I guess in this modern world, is very much a term we associate with mental health, with pathology, that there's something wrong, that it's not typical, that it's not okay.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: But our children being upset and crying when we leave, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to pathologize that.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to label it as anxiety or something that's bad.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: A term that I really like to use is a term coined by Dr.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Gordon Neufeld.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he talks about it as alarm and separation alarm.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I find alarm to be a much more helpful term than anxiety.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I find it more helpful?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, alarm just gives me a cue that there's something going on that that I need to pay attention to.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Around two years of age, our children start to become more independent and they develop more capacity to hold on when apart.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's that real dance between your two-year-old going, I want to do it by myself, but then if we leave them to do too much by themselves, they still come back really quickly and want that support from us.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've talked in earlier episodes about circle of security parenting, and that's that framework where we see our children going out to explore and then coming back to us as their safe haven.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those opening and closing circles of security and communication and connection are a constant and they happen moment by moment.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: As our children develop the capacity to hold on and apart from us, those times where they go out to explore become longer.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: They can only go out to explore for longer if their attack if the strength of their attachment to their primary caregiver is really robust.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: One of the other ways we can see our toddlers connecting to us and attaching to us is through sameness.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: They like to imitate us.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Think of a toddler who puts on the same, you know, wants to dress up in your shoes, wants to wear clothes like they're dead, and they really enjoy being like us.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They also like to be different, so they might say, No, I don't like that.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that dance between being independent and being dependent is a really fluid dance and it's a natural part of development.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: We can create the right conditions to help that happen.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: As our children get older, once they've built those foundations of attachment, they connect more through, I guess, a sense of belonging to us, knowing that they matter to us.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as they get a little bit older and develop more language, they can actually feel love, understand what love means, and it's really important to them and their attachments of being known for who they are, that they have that felt sense of acceptance.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: This sort of progression in terms of holding on through the senses to then holding on by being known for who they are and being seen, those steps, I guess, are a they are a guideline.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that our children will linearly progress through those phases because when they're sick, overwhelmed, their nervous system is stressed, there's some alarm happening, they're scared, there are developmental differences, then we might see those earlier levels of attachment even if they're older.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or you might see them developing through the later stages of attachment, but at times regressing to the earlier stages of attachment.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: If the foundations of that earlier attachment are disrupted for any reason, through nobody's fault, then the later skills will not be as robust.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you see your child regressing to some of those earlier levels of attachment, what does that tell you about what's going on in their world?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Get curious about why your seemingly confident child is refusing to go to a new activity or to go to school.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: As attachment is our preeminent need as humans, we need it for survival.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that threatens the security of this attachment is going to be alarming.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now don't assume that your child not overtly showing separation alarm means that they are not alarmed by being separated from you.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: How might this separation alarm show up?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It might show up as tears, crying, clinging, it might show up as frustration and aggression, frustration often taken out on other siblings.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: It might show up as anxiety, it might also show up as withdrawal or shutdown.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: There are more extreme forms of relational trauma that are beyond the scope of this podcast today.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're worried about your child's attachment when there's a strong history of relational trauma, then it's really important that you seek help from a skilled and qualified professional.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to share a story of a relational trauma that I experienced when I was eight and a half years old.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: My mom died due to cancer, and that is one of the more significant and extreme forms of relational trauma that anyone will experience.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was fortunate enough that I had those sort of protective um influences in my life.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I had a caring father, siblings, aunts and uncles, and a community around me that that really helped to buffer the impact of losing her.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't in any way detract from how alarming and stressful that relational um trauma was.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons I share this story is I remember having, after my mom died, having a cardigan that she used to wear.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: After she died, this was something that I strongly attached to and connected to.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't quite remember how it happened, but I was very attached to this object, and an older sibling in my home felt that this cardigan that I was holding on to needed to be washed.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: For all I re can remember, maybe it really did need to be washed.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember seeing it washed and by our next door neighbor and hang our next door neighbor hung it on their washing line.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: This cardigan sat on the washing line.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: From memory, it seems like it was weeks, maybe it was only days.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I've often wondered, well, why didn't the cardigan get dried and brought back to me?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what I see it now is I wonder if they left it there because they didn't want me having it because they thought I was too attached to it.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: What they did do was buy me a new cardigan so that I had something, and that was kind of the replacement of the attachment object to her.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I do wonder, was it, you know, lack of understanding and awareness back then of actually how important and normal it was for me to want to be connected to something of hers?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: She was gone forever, and as an eight-year-old, the way I had to hold on to her was by having something that was hers.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk a little bit later about what are some ways that we can use attachment objects and connection objects and other ways of helping our children hold on to us when we're apart.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: What if you were to view many of your the problem behaviors, the day-to-day challenges that you're having as attachment ones?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: What might that look like?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd think there are many common day-to-day parenting challenges are really about separation.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Your child asking for one more thing at bedtime, they're not trying to make your life difficult.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Separation, having to say goodbye for such a long period of time overnight, is alarming for them.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yes, you know when they're asleep that they won't necessarily be thinking about you, so in your mind you're going, What's the big deal?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be asleep.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: But for them at that point of having to say goodnight to you, that's all their brain is thinking about.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, morning is such a long time away.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: With a client recently, they shared a story of how their six-year-old is following them everywhere in the house.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: They said, I cannot do anything, I cannot go anywhere.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: They are just following me and it is driving me crazy.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, that parent was wondering, are they just trying to get my attention?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if so, what is wrong with that child wanting to get their parents' attention?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: How often do you desire the attention of your partner or significant others in your life?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: We are all asking, do you see me?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do I matter to you?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the more our children are seeking that attention, it's a signal that they're not feeling safe, secure, and connected.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this child that I saw in my clinical practice, his parents have separated in the last six months.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: He now lives between two homes.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And although it's a reasonably predictable schedule, there's still a period of time where he doesn't get to see his dad.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then when he is back in his dad's care, he is following his dad around the house.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because at his age, being apart from your dad for that amount of time, it's too much.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, when he comes back to his mum's house from being at his dad's, he's constantly seeking that closeness and proximity with his mum.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: In future episodes, we are going to talk about those children who are in separated families and the impact that that has, how challenging it is for everybody, and also talk about some practical ways that you can support them with that.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's stop making our children wrong for wanting our attention and connection.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's demanding on us when they seek our connection, and if it seems like their appetite for your connection is insatiable, that tells you that there's work to be done.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that you have to provide constant connection and attention.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about this in an earlier episode.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't be healthy to be there 100% of the time, although when they're very little, they really do need that proximity.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: As they get older, we want our children to adapt and to be able to hold on when apart.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: This comes with maturation.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a spontaneous developmental process with the right conditions.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's our responsibility as adults to create the optimal conditions.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what are some ways that you can support your child to develop safe and secure attachments?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Keeping the attachment alive when you're apart.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Always bridging to the next point of connection.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I have Dr.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gordon Newfeld to thank for introducing the concept, or I guess putting a framework around the concept of bridging to the next point of connection.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than focusing on the goodbye, you focus on when you're going to see them again.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that might be, oh, I'll be thinking about you while I'm in the kitchen, or I'm going to see you in my dreams.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you see them in the morning, you say, Oh, I had a I dreamt about you and we had an adventure together or whatever it is.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: At bedtime, as you build their capacity to feel safe when apart, you might keep checking in.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it depends on the age of your child, but you might say, I'm going to go out to the kitchen, I'll be thinking of you when I'm out there, and I'm going to come back in.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really important that you do come back in and check so that they know mom is or dad, they're still going to be there.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing that can be helpful at bedtime is giving them something of yours to hold on to, giving them an attachment object, something, some way they can feel connected to you.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can also do this as they go off to school if that's something that's going to be challenging for them and they're having difficulty with that, give them something of yours that they can take that reminds them of you.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am not a fan of ripping the band-aid off and forcing our children into force separation.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Although you might hear, oh, they were fine when you're gone, you just need to leave.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: How does that really leave your child building a capacity to hold on when apart?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: If those separations are fraught with tears, stress, sometimes anger, frustration, disconnection, then that really doesn't lay a very solid foundation for them to build the capacity to hold on when apart and to face separation with the capacity to know that you will come back.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are times, if you're constrained by work or other people, where you do have to do that for separation, but if it's causing trauma and tears and stress, then I would say you need to re-look at that situation, talk to whether if it's your child at daycare or if it's school, and talk about how can we do this differently so we're not having so much separation stress?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: How can you take the lead in making it easier for your child to say goodbye?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like and feel like when your child happily separates from you and goes forth to explore?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need to provide for them?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And how can you take the lead?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: You might be wondering, well, if their teacher tells me they're fine once I'm gone, does that mean that they're just doing it to act out and get me to stay longer and manipulate me?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would say no.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I would challenge you to rethink that.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes our child being okay once they're gone might be a sign that yes, we're out of sight, they needed to have their tears, a trusted adult stayed with them and well, yeah, you're sad that mom's going, and then they redirect them to another activity.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a supportive way to help build their attachments with others and to build their capacity to separate from us.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: But if they're distracted straight away and you get the message they're fine once they're gone, but then things are really tricky when you reconnect with them at the end of the day, that might tell you that actually it's too much.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Some of our children are really good at masking and pretending that it's okay to say goodbye.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: For some of them, it's not.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you might see this show up in other areas if they're frustrated, if they're fighting a lot with their siblings, have a think about is there too much separation that they're not yet ready for?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: What about using incentives and rewards?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: For example, well, if you go to school today, I'll give you, you know, I'll buy you sushi after school.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: What does that teach our children?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't really help them strengthen that relationship.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: What might be a more helpful way of phrasing that might be, oh, I am so looking forward to seeing you after school.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: How about we go and get some sushi on Friday after school or whatever it is.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you can give them something to think about to look forward to, but frame it in the context of a relationship because you know it's something they will really look forward to doing with you, not because you're bribing them to say goodbye without crying.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's something that as adults, particularly those of us who are maybe in a community like PlayCenter or a play group or at the park or with our friends if we're families away on holidays together.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: How can we as parents support another parent if they really have to go somewhere else?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I recall being at Play Center a number of years ago, and one of our parents, she had a young baby and she had an older child, and she had to take the younger baby to a medical appointment, and she needed to leave her older child, who at the time was four at PlayCenter.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Play Center was a really familiar environment.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: He knew lots of the other adults there, he had, you know, peers that he was connected to.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: But for him, his mum leaving was hugely, hugely stressful, and he was really alarmed when she went.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I saw him by the door crying for his mum, crying for his mum.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: He really wanted her back.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: In that moment, we knew she was only going to be gone for about half an hour, and so that was when some of the other adults at Play Center were able to come alongside him.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want us too close, but we kept checking in with him and saying, Mum will be back, we're right here.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Invitations to play, just kept checking in to let him know that there was still somebody there.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was too stressed and alarmed to be able to switch his focus of attention and connect to another adult.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to stop our children crying and being upset.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the ways they build resilience and adaptation is through their tears.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay for our children to be sad when we need to leave.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: How can we make it safe for them to be sad and trust that we're coming back?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Always ask yourself, what else is going on in their world that's making it hard for them to separate from you?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: What is so alarming?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is it something in the environment they're going into?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it something at home that's really stressful for them?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I recall my middle boy, his separation alarm really, really ramped up after our family breakup.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: This coincided with relationships with teachers at school that didn't work for him.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not blaming his teachers.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: There were many factors in that period of time that contributed to really, really high separation alarm.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: He went from being happy to go to school to not wanting to go to school.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was too much for him.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't able to hold on when apart.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do if we find it hard to connect and meet their need for support with separation?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I think we need to lean into the village of other parents around us, the village of our partners, the village of grandparents, and we need Need to play the long game.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't forego the strength of a secure attachment for a short term I need you to go to school right now.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling sad when someone you love leaves is totally normal.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, how did your experiences grow up shape how you deal with separation and reconnection?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is it easy for you to say goodbye to people you love and care about?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go reconnecting with them when they come back?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us, because of our early adult experiences, might put the walls up and pretend we don't feel sad when someone we care about leaves.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when they come back, we can seem like we're a bit disinterested and don't really care.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get that when your child comes home from school, they don't really want to connect with you, they get sucked into their device, and they go off playing with their friends straight away.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: That might be because they're not feeling safe to reconnect.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some things that you can do.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said earlier, bridging to the next point of connection, giving them something to hold on to, an attachment object.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: It might be something of yours, it might be a shared thing you choose together.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can also, again, Gordon Newfell's terms, matchmake to trusted adults.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're building, introducing them to new adults, whether it's a preschool teacher or a teacher, you as adults build that connection between you.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: You matchmake them, you let them know what's something that you really like their new teacher, and that's how they'll help to build that relationship.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Don't force this upon them, make it natural.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can help them bring gifts to their new teacher.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a period of time where we did lots and lots of baking.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: That was how we I helped my middle boy bridge his separation alarm for me to go to school and establish a secure relationship with his teacher.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bring her some baking, let's bring some flowers from the garden.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And these strategies are so, so effective.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: They create warmth, they create connection, and it kind of gives them a different focus of attention.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Always be mindful of what is the environment they're going into.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So for some of our children, separating and going into a classroom with lots of new children, that's too much.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is your school open to a different approach?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe at the beginning, you go in, you come alongside, you play a game with them, there's just one other adult, and then you're able to leave, and then that adult can bring them into the class.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: There are always ways of working around these separation challenges.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you see your child again after a period of being apart, let them know that you were thinking about them, that you dreamt about them, they had some adventure with you.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: With our infants, make sure they have proximity with trusted adults.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: You might give them something that smells like you, a blanket.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: There are lots and lots of ways where you can help them hold on when you're apart.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Things not to do, bribe, coerce, make it about you.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to get to my meeting, threaten punishments or consequences, tell them it's okay, you'll be fine, stop crying, rush them out of having attachment objects.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Another family that I worked with in clinic, their five-year-old girl, um, was moving between two different houses and she had an attachment object that connected her to her mum.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: When she went to the other to her dad's house, um, her dad wasn't keen on her having this attachment object that connected her to her mum.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: He felt that she didn't need it and that really it was just causing problems because when the little girl would get upset at bedtime, which is often a time when those separation fears come up, she would want to connect to her mum, and having this attachment object of her mom's cause lots and lots of tears to come up.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: We explored it from both persons' perspectives.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: I could understand mum's perspective, I could understand dad's perspective, the child's perspective, and we did some problem solving and really just emphasized that having that attachment object was a really normal thing, and pushing this little girl into not having that attachment object was going to be counterproductive.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So thankfully the dad was able to sort of back off, change his expectations, and within a couple of months, as this girl matured and got older, she no longer felt need of that attachment object.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: The need to attach securely is essential for survival.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: If we as parents can stay curious about our children, our children are feeling in their attachments, and notice the ebbs and flows, we can attune our responses to them.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Remember our older children, preteens, still have that need to feel attached, even though we see them pulling away and orienting to their peers.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk more about peer orientation in future episodes as well.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: We as adults need to take the lead in strengthening our attachment relationships and not doing anything to wound or cause harm.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear what's happening in your family.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a parent in question, challenge, or concern, send me a message.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Together we can make sense of what's going on.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you found this episode helpful, please like it, share it with another parent, and follow the podcast to help grow this community.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay curious.