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I’ve been thinking about the word ‘trust’- as in “I can’t trust my child to do XYZ…” (make the right decision, behave appropriately…etc.)
Trust really isn’t the right word here, especially if you are parenting a child with a history of complex trauma or toxic stress.
It’s not about trust.
It’s about recognizing your child’s developmental age and having appropriate expectations and boundaries in place.
Children’s brains develop only through the process of co-regulation. Parents first do EVERYTHING for children. Feed them. Keep them warm. Install baby gates. We adjust ourselves, the environment, and we inherently know that babies and toddlers need us close to them. All the time.
It’s not about trust when we don’t leave a three-year-old home alone. Or even leave them playing unsupervised. Certainly not on the internet! We don’t do these things because their brain isn’t developed enough to make choices that keep them safe! They literally don’t have the neural connections to the part of their brain that dampens impulses, thinks things through, considers consequences. Their brain is fast DO DO DO. Touch, learn, see, explore. It’s reactive- meaning there is no pause between a playmate taking their toy car and bopping them on the head in frustration. Feel Do. Feel Do. As adults, we seem to inherently understand that these little people need a significant amount of coregulation from a regulated adult in order to be OK. We help with that ‘pause.’ We rush in to regulate emotions, which lays a brick in the slow-building tower of what ultimately becomes self-regulation.
Simply by being near-by, our toddlers and young children stay more regulated, right?? Things always seem to go better when an adult is close- sometimes just watching over, not even necessarily actively involved.
That ‘watching over’ adult is still co-regulating the young child. The child’s brain is literally borrowing from the regulation of the adult’s prefrontal cortex. And the adult is close enough that the child can check in for an extra boost of coregulation as often as needed. Little children do this by approaching their grown-up, showing a toy, making eye contact across the room, and rushing toward them with tears that need to be kissed and hugged. Every time your small child makes contact with you, they are receiving a boost of coregulation.
If your eight-year-old can’t play with the neighbors without WWIII commencing, or can’t play in their sister’s room without things going missing, this isn’t about trust. This is about your eight-year-old needing more coregulation than they are currently receiving. This is about your eight-year-old not having eight-year-old impulse control. Both simply indicate delayed development.
If your 16-year-old can’t navigate the world wide web without falling into a pit of video game addiction or porn, this isn’t about trust. It’s about needing more coregulation.
Children with a history of toxic stress or complex trauma need a smaller circle. Toddlers have circles of a few feet- meaning they need to be in close proximity to an adult. Basically all the time. As children grow their circle gets bigger because they have begun to internalize all that coregulation. The tower of self-regulation is growing stronger. But they still have a circle, right? We don’t leave school age children without an adult for hours. Teens still have their circle. Grown-ups have a circle!!! I touch base with my primary attachment figure regularly! I can go days if needed, but I sure prefer not to!
You might have a school age child or a teen or even a young adult child with the circle the size of a toddler. They simply cannot coregulate themselves to make a sandwich, go into a store without taking something, or navigate a frustrating peer situation (especially as they get older and peer dynamics get more complex and nuanced…leaving children with delayed social development extremely confused…which ultimately causes more frustration and dysregulation).
This isn’t about trust. This is about brain development.
Human beings are designed to do well. They are designed to develop that capacity to do well INSIDE relationship. If your child can’t do well, they need more scaffolding, support, and coregulation.
They may also need experiences of being gently nudged out of the nest – these experiences help their capacity for regulation to grow. Just like there comes a day when I watch my toddler navigate playground equipment instead of holding their hand…knowing they are likely to fall but that I’ll be close by and I can soothe them. Through this, my child learns more about their body and capabilities…something they can’t do if I never let go of their hand. But I do this incrementally. I don’t go from holding my toddler’s hand up the toddler slide steps to releasing them on the big kid monkey bars in one day. It’s little by little. Opportunities for small failures that can be supported and coregulated…not big failures that have the likelihood to result in the (real or proverbial) broken arm.
Using the word trust to describe our children’s inability to have age appropriate impulse control, cause and effect thinking, emotion regulation seems to suggest a moral character flaw. Let’s turn the words around. Instead of “I can’t trust my child…” can we use “My child needs more coregulation in order to be regulated enough to be OK.”
Robyn
