Families with Dash

005 Be Their Secure Base: Attachment with Teens part 2

 
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Week 5 show notes Attachment w teens part 2
 
Secure base to launch your teen
Stewardship delegation
When teenagers say “I’m fine” 
Always maintain authority as you are giving more independence
Interviewing/check in w teens
Values and goals clarification
Life maps
How to listen so your child will talk
Fetal development 
Role play
Additive empathy 
Attunement and reflecting
Strength-based motivation 
Trips w kids 
Lunch bunch
During interviews predict the near future
Tell stories to communicate values
How to collaborate on rules and consequences
Morning devotions and how to avoid a power struggle over religiosity 
Pick your battles and stop being nit-picky
 

004 Be Their Safe Haven: Attachment with Teens Part 1

Joan and Amelia talk about attachment with your teenagers. 
Be a secure base to launch your teen
Stewardship delegation
When teenagers say “I’m fine”
Always maintain authority as you are giving more independence
Interviewing/check in w teens
Values and goals clarification
Life maps
How to listen so your child will talk
Fetal development
Role play
Additive empathy
Attunement and reflecting
Strength-based motivation
Trips w kids
Lunch bunch
During interviews predict the near future
Tell stories to communicate values
How to collaborate on rules and consequences
Morning devotions and how to avoid a power struggle over religiosity
Pick your battles and stop being nit-picky

003 How to Attach with Your Elementary Aged Child

Secure attachment creates resilience to bullying
Ways to “collect” your children
Recommended Book: Hold On to Your Kids by Dr. Gordon Neufeld
Together Time with your child as an investment in attachment
Identifying with adults is an indication of a secure attachment
The power of the regular rituals
Amelia’s experience in France watching how rituals impact behavior and connection to family culture
Family Dinners – and nice China dinner on Sundays
Making tea as a ritual that slows us down and encouraging mindfulness
Amelia’s teen friend who never had family dinner
Morning rituals: devotions, day planning, etc.
Rituals of coming and going
Memory objects to foster emotional connection
Children do more greeting of others than adults do
Celebrate the arrival home of people
Look into the eyes of your children and smile into their face
Reading aloud while cuddling
Inside jokes
Stop and pause while reading aloud to discuss 
Vacation/Staycation
Take photos and reminisce together
Family projects—work projects, making cookies, home renovations
Parents need to leverage their natural authority as the person who knows stuff and gives direction. Rather than google and outsource your authority in front of your child, do the research beforehand if possible. At least, put any internet facts into the context of your family culture.
Be your child’s safe place when they are overwhelmed. 
Joan’s client who connected her grandparents’ home with safety
Sometimes feeding your child to comfort them can be alright since it is so primal
“Comfort with Containment” is a reciprocal dynamic between parent and child. 
Elementary age grandchild who was asked to contain before the processing
Importance of teaching children to contain their distress to deal with reality away from Mom
Lawnmower Parent vs. Balanced Parenting
Containing distress is an important part of socializing children so that their peers and other adults will not reject the child and the child feels abandoned.
Many times, the behaviors of emoting distress in dramatic ways because habitual. Children can learn to express their distress in socially acceptable ways so that they can access support.
Have a pet name for your child to create unique attachment
How to comfort others in distress:
Three-part brain description: Reptilian (Brain stem), Mammalian Brain (Limbic system etc), Humanistic Brain (Neocortex)
When a child is distressed, their prefrontal cortex goes offline
You may escalate the stress by trying to problem-solve too soon after the distress. 
Instead, hold, comfort and reassure your upset child. Possibly give a bath to relax their bodies. 
Soothe a child through their body systems (on the Reptilian Brain level) and through the feeling level (Mammalian brain)
Don’t use too many words when comforting them. Cry with your child if it feels right.
Wrap in a warm blanket, hug them, rock them, put them in a warm bath, feed them from your hand. Sleeping with them, cuddling with them. 
Save the problem solving for after the child is comforted. 
Warning signs of peer dependence:
If your child is overly devastated by peer drama/rejection
If your child rejects parental authority/comfort/counsel
If your child needs to be constantly connected with their peersDon’t give elementary aged children screens/phones
One of the tasks for parents is to help their children to become socially acceptable while remaining securely attached to parents.
Small changes are enough to make big results. Choose one thing and implement it.

002 Your Toddler Needs Attachment

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One benefit of Secure attachment with parents rather than peers: 
Secure attachment improves resilience to bullying
Parents as the Safe-haven 
Teen Suicide after bullying because of peer dependence 
Homeschooled kids are often more securely attached to parents
Parents can be a Secure Base to explore the world. 
Attachment comes first before confident exploring
Early on, parents should foster a healthy dependence by meeting their needs in an attuned way. 
Milton Erickson stages: First task: Trust vs Mistrust
Safe Haven allows forays into independence with a safety net. 
Goal of adulthood is not to be independent, but to be healthfully interdependent after independence established. 
Babies need lots of body connection and touch through the touch pressure relationship. 
Book Recommendation: Dr Gordon Neufeld Hold on to Your Kids. 
Foster healthy independence. 
Joan’s big mistake as a brand new teen mother. 
Old school survival technique was not to validate emotions.
Thankful for modeling from mature mothers. 
Routine helps to foster attachment. 
Nursing or holding bottle better than propping bottle. 
Toddlers identifying with parents increases with attachment. 
Parents need to be benevolent and strong to inspire toddlers identification. 
Example of strong and benevolence. 
Timing is very important when enforcing boundaries. 
Parents need to respond quickly to disobedience with strength and benevolence. 
When you give a command and you follow through, the child’s trust in you increases. The attachment increases. 
Having a three-year old to make decisions in the family is an undue burden. 
Boys who get away with ignoring their mothers disrespect women when older. 
Don’t ask children to process in the moment when upset. 
Can’t do the long drawn out explanations with young, upset children. 
Examples of how good boundaries keep everyone safe and productive: Dairy cows and bad fences. 
Training horses and how much easier not to allow pattern in the first place. 
French parenting with firm boundaries. 
Low levels of ADHD in French children. 
No time on screens
Children connect to extended family
Day care research on attachment. 
Spontaneously respond to children before they make a bid for connection. 
Offer attention before children are deprived.

001 Is Your Child Peer Dependent?

Amelia and Joan introduce themselves
Purpose of the podcast
General parenting philosophy
Three lenses for understanding behavior:
Cognitive
Trauma
Attachment
Role of attachment in relationships
Differences in the attachment paradigm and various practices
Definition of Peer Dependence in children
Why Peer dependence is potentially harmful
How the modern culture creates peer dependence
What to look for to tell if your child is peer dependent
Ways to start creating more secure attachments with parents/family
♥️Purchase our emotional resilience program for parents and kids here
♥️Purchase our other educational curriculum here: dashintolearning.com