I invited Carrie Contey, PhD. onto the podcast to discuss her ideas of Knot Parenting. Carrie and I talk about the power of really, truly seeing our kids for who they are- especially kids with vulnerable nervous systems whose behaviors sometimes distract us from their core preciousness and goodness.
Carrie Contey, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized coach, author, speaker and educator. Her work offers a new perspective on human development, parenting and family life. She guides, supports and inspires her clients to live with wide-open and courageous hearts so they can approach family life with skill and spaciousness. Carrie received her doctorate in prenatal and perinatal psychology and is masterful at synthesizing and articulating the science, psychology and spirituality of humanhood. She is the co-founder of the Slow Family Living movement, the co-author of CALMS: A Guide To Soothing Your Baby and creator of a variety of impactful courses intended to support and guide parents from toddlerhood all the way through teenhood. Carrie has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, NPR, CBS radio and in many publications including Time, Parenting and The Boston Globe. Her latest endeavor is her Knot Parenting podcast, an 8-episode mini-series, available on a variety of podcast platforms. You can learn more about Carrie at www.carriecontey.com
A Broader Container: Developing Humans
Right away, Carrie shifts the perspective we’ve been taught about parenting – that our responsibility is to shape another human into their future selves – into one wherein we realize that our children are already born with their core beingness and that our role is to learn and grow along with them as they unfold.
She reminds us “There’s a whole essence of a being in that little tiny body. And that little tiny body is so vulnerable and so immature and is not wired yet. And so, they arrive in this little creature form, but they’re in there, and they’re always in there. And, yes, it’s easy to just see the behavior because it’s so triggering, and it can be so scary at times. But when you can remember that you’re not making them who they are, you’re just figuring out how you can grow yourself and stretch yourself to hold that this person is who they are. And yes, there’s plenty you can do to work with the behavior. But if you hold the mindset of A), I’m not making them who they are, they are who they are; and B) I have to be aware of my own self and my beingness if I really want to get there with them and be in attunement with them. It changes, and it doesn’t always make it easier, but it offers a broader container for the experience that you’re having, which can seem almost untenable at times.”
Knot Parenting
That’s the idea behind Knot Parenting. The knot, the tangle, is about using the experiences that you have with these humans to grow yourself. Our children can grow and stretch us and our capacity to love, and our capacity to hold intensity, and our capacity to regulate ourselves.
“You’ve cultivated skills in yourself, for better or for worse, but probably for a lot better, that you may not have ever tapped into: your resilience, your passion, your love, your care. You may have never excavated that aspect of yourself had this exact human not shown up in your life.”
Grief
There is grief in the fact that you may never have chosen this. You would never have asked for an experience that would be this hard. It does not feel like an honor that you are being stretched and grown in this way.
You deserve to be seen in the profound humanity of how much is required of you, and especially in the truth that your nervous system is limited in the amount of energy it has to match the intensity of it.
Dreaming the Systems of Care We Need
A culture that can shift into recognizing the revolutionary potential of parents who are facing this intensity would create systems that circle around these families, offering more energy in the sheer presence of more nervous systems to hold you and your child. Carrie invites us to dream this with her.
How to connect with Carrie Contey, PhD.
Website: https://www.carriecontey.com/
Podcast: https://www.carriecontey.com/podcast
Email: hello@carriecontey.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/carrieconteyphd
Instagram: @carrieconteyphd https://www.instagram.com/carrieconteyphd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@carrieconteyphd
Freebies: https://www.carriecontey.com/resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Listen on the Podcast
This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’