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When I teach trainings in attachment, I always speak to the fact that every single person in the room used to be a child.  And many of the people in the room have children; or at least, interact with and care for children in some capacity (this stands to reason due to the nature of what I teach and who is in the audience).

That means we cannot learn about attachment without it becoming personal.

Without even consciously trying, we search our memory banks for the times when we didn’t parent in a way that invites experiences of secure attachment. We scan our entire parenting life for the moments when we behaved toward our children in the exact opposite ways as we are learning about in this attachment training.  We feel in our bodies our own experiences of not receiving the attunement, co-regulation, and presence that little babies and children need.  The we needed.

These trainings are exhausting.

It seems to help to just talk about that plainly.  We invite into the room our young parts of self who were parented.  We invite into the room our parenting selves- including all the times we’ve parented in a way we regret.

And I usually tell a story about a time I behaved very badly toward my child.  It involves throwing a granola bar at him.

At point blank range.

Not that I would ever ever EVER advocate for throwing things at your kids.  Like…ever.

But sometimes we all just lose it.

In big ways that look like granola bar chucking.  In small ways.  Medium sized ways.  In ways that are way bigger than chucking a granola bar but I’m not willing to share with you.

If we were even capable of being perfect parents (we aren’t) who are perfectly attuned to our children, never dysregulated, always meeting their needs…that actually would be very bad for them.

For starters, our children do indeed need to experience stress.  Experiences of tolerable stress, followed up by co-regulation, is like a little bicep curl for our stress resilience system.  Mild stress grows our nervous system and our capacity to tolerate stress in the future.

Which is important because well….life is pretty darn stressful.

We don’t need to create and construct experiences of stress for our kids with some intentionality to ‘strengthen their stress response system’ because there are plenty of opportunities that just emerge in real life.  Because we are all human.  Intentionally creating stress and discomfort for someone else in the name of ‘learning something’ or ‘growing the ability to deal with real life’ is frankly just not very nice.

In addition to these stress-resilience bicep curls, moments of imperfect parenting do something else really important.

They give our children the opportunity to experience repair.  To experience a reconnection after the disconnection.

Why is this so important?

I’m glad you asked 😊

Repairing a relationship disruption sends the loud and clear message “I see your pain.”

It’s easy to see someone when they are delightful.  It’s harder to see someone when they are in pain.  It’s even harder when we caused the pain.  It’s hard because it’s painful to us, too.

It takes a LOT of guts, bravery, and commitment to the relationship to say “I see your pain.”

And kids feel this.

Next, repairing a relationship disruption sends the loud and clear message “And it MATTERS to me.”

Seeing pain is one thing.  Caring about it is another.

Next, repairing a relationship disruption sends the loud and clear message “And I’m willing to be uncomfortable myself in order to fix what happened.”

Then there is the sweet relief of coming back into connection and attunement.  Of resting in the goodness of the relationship.

Even writing this, I take a huge, deep breath.

Now our kids are learning “You’ll come back to me.”  “I’m worth it.” “Relationships are hard but repairable.”  “I can tolerate distress because I know it won’t last forever.”  “I’m good and loveable.” “I can expect people to be brave enough to acknowledge when they’ve messed up.”

We want our kids to grow into adults who believe these things, yes???

Like I said…I mean maybe it’s just me who doesn’t need to go around looking for opportunities to mess up and cause my kid stress because there are plenty of opportunities that just happen without me even trying.

But if that happens to be true about you too, take comfort in knowing you don’t have to be perfect.  You just have to be brave enough to notice when you aren’t perfect and find ways to repair.  To come back into connection.  To allow both of you to breathe that sigh of relief that comes with finding one another again.

After a chucked a granola bar at my kid, I immediately felt shame and horror.  I was so so tired that morning. My own stress resilience system was not fully functioning.  These aren’t excuses, but it’s always helpful to understand what’s happening.  I quickly moved into an apology.  Making sure he wasn’t hurt (he wasn’t).  Stating very clearly “I should not have done that.  No one should ever hurt your body.”  Later, when we were back in connection, I also made it clear that it is my responsibility to manage my own feelings, he could never do anything that would ‘deserve’ getting hurt, and I would keep working hard on the things I needed to do to make sure I never went bananas on him like that in the future.

Robyn

PS Don’t throw things at your kids.

PPS My now teenage son knows I tell this story.  He’s given permission.

Would you like to explore further into this complete paradigm-shift on how we see behavior? You can watch my F R E E 45(ish) minute-long masterclass on What Behavior Really Is and How to Change It.

Just let me know where to send the links!