Imperfect Parenting Is Perfect {EP 12}

Robyn: If you've been following me. Have listened to any other episodes, ever seen my blog or connected with me on social media? You know that I spend the vast majority of my time talking about one, understanding kind of the relational neurobiology of being human so we have a better understanding about what's going on with our kids, what's driving their behaviors, like what's underneath- what's happening for them, which consequently, also eventually, you know, we turn that information back on ourselves, and we start to see our own behaviors through this lens as well, which is just this fun byproduct of this, because I think it brings us so much self-compassion for ourselves as well. But when we dive in and we really start looking at the relational neurobiology of being human, and then we look at parenting through the lens of kind of regulation and connection and felt safety, there is another unintended byproduct. In a way, it brings so much compassion to ourselves and to our kids, but in another way, it seems to really like open up and create an opportunity for us to feel more critical of ourselves or more shame towards ourselves.    

Robyn: It always makes me think about when I'm teaching about attachment and I'm teaching parents or I'm teaching professionals, right? I always give language to- I always bring out into the open that it's impossible to learn about attachment and not bring our personal selves into the experience, even if we're attending the training as a Professional, attachment is so deeply personal that is impossible to pull ourselves completely out of the experience. And, you know, stay in this very like left brain, objective way of approaching the material. And so I'll often joke with the audience or with the students or the learners, and say something like, Who here has ever been a child, right? And of course, that's everybody, and so that just evens the playing field right there. You know, when we learn about attachment, and we learn about how very early experiences and infancy and toddlerhood, that those earliest experiences are creating our narrative of attachment. When we think about how our own narrative then of attachment, our own experience in attachment relationships, was created when we were very, very, very young, almost always our minds and our bodies begin to touch into some of those, like earliest stored memories, earliest stored felt experiences. And then, of course, it's also true that a lot of people who attend trainings on attachment, relational neurobiology are parenting, and if they're not parenting, the folks who are typically attracted to the trainings that I do are caring for kids in some capacity. They have some investment in supporting and helping children even if they're not parenting.    

Robyn: So there's this other way that we have, you know, this very intimate personal connection to attachment, attachment theory, even if we're attending the training, you know, with a professional hat on. Being a participant in these trainings, because I've, of course, done both like, I've attended a million trainings where we're exploring attachment, relational, neurobiology, early life experiences. I've attended millions of them, it seems like, and I've taught you know, a lot of them as well and truly they they are just emotionally exhausting experiences. It's so hard not to feel a sense of loss over what we're beginning to realize maybe we missed in our earliest experiences, and if we're parenting or caring for kids in some kind of personal or professional capacity, it also can be very hard not to move into an experience of shame. As we realize all of the things that happened while we were caring for this child or parenting this child, all the things that happened that weren't ideal, things we realize we could have done differently. Right? As we're learning about attachment, it's just so hard not to notice the felt sense of regret or maybe of guilt or shame start to bubble up, right? So again, I attempt to create some felt safety in these environments, and then these experiences by just openly talking about it, right? We, we're very deliberate about inviting all of our young parts of self just into the room. We invite into the room our parenting selves, right? Including, and really especially all the times that we've parented in ways that we regret.    

Robyn: And I always try to do some appropriate self-disclosure about how that's true in my own life, how, as I've learned more and more about attachment and honestly, I've been learning about attachment since before I was a parent, I've been interested in attachment and in parent-child relationships since even before I became a parent at age 26, right? That I certainly can look back and have regrets or maybe guilt or shame about things that happened in my relationship with my child that I wish hadn't, or I know were not what he needed, or left him with an experience of not being very seen, not being known, not being co-regulated, and maybe at times even being afraid. I wrote a blog article about this, and if you want to hear the example that I really commonly use when I'm when I'm teaching, an example of a time I messed up pretty big as a parent. You can head over to my blog and check that out.    

Robyn: So I tell this story, you know, to really just even the playing field, like, yeah, we are all in this together. And here's the most important thing, that we can hold these two, at times what seem contradictory, truths together. We can hold the truth of the relational neurosciences. We can hold the truth of attachment theory and attachment science, we can hold the truth of regulation theory and the importance of co-regulation and the importance of of of creating felt safety for our kids. We can hold these things as true and also hold as true that we didn't leave our humanity at the door when we became parents, that we are expected to be perfect parents. We couldn't possibly be perfect parents, and even if we could, that would actually not even be good for our kids. Our kids don't need us to be perfect parents, and it would be detrimental to their development if we could be perfect parents, which, again, though we absolutely can't. And it seems to send kind of ripples and waves of regulation through the crowd when I acknowledge times where I've really not parented in the way that I really wanted to, or parented in alignment with my values or my ideals about parenting. You know, I think that there can be a bit of a sigh of relief like, Oh, if, if Robyn gets it quote-unquote wrong sometimes, or if Robyn, like, flips her lid or loses her cool, or parents outside of her values. Then, of course, I'm going to. If Robyn does this, and this is her job, like her job is to study attachment science and study, you know, the relational neurosciences and teach other people about it. And if this is her job, and she still, you know, has times, plenty of times, by the way, where she's not getting it right, then it must be more okay that that's also true about me.    

Robyn: So it sort of releases this expectation that can be, I think, unintentionally communicated as we learn about attachment theory, as we learn about the relational neurosciences, and as we really understand, like, the role of parents, as we really understand the importance of co-regulation, and we understand how important it is for parents to be regulated. You know, parents provide the connection and the scaffolding that kids need as we, you know, develop a deeper understanding of these truths. We've unintentionally tricked ourselves into believing that we must do those things all the time and when we can't, we are failures. So now we have the situation where we are failures, because you can't be like that all the time. Nobody is regulated all the time. Nobody is, you know, creating an experience of regulation and connection and felt safety for their kids all the time. It's just literally, not humanly possible.    

Robyn: There's this idea in the attachment literature of the quote, unquote, good enough parent. That's an actual clinical word, good enough parent. And over the years, over the decades, as we move into having more science and data at our fingertips, and as we understand more about the relational neurosciences, we've attempted to quantify what does it mean to be a good enough parent, we can look at the literature around secure attachment, and look at what we know the experiences are that kids have, that co exist with them being coded in a kind of research or laboratory setting as having secure attachment. And what we see is that children with secure attachment have parents that are in attunement with them about 30% of the time, or maybe even a little bit less so. To put that in really plain language, what the research indicates is that kids with secure attachment have parents who are quote-unquote, getting it right about 30% of the time, or even a little bit less. That's a lot of time that they're not kind of, quote-unquote, getting it right. And here's what we know about that other 70%, that other 70% in kids who have what we would code as secure attachment that other 70% of the time those children are experiencing what we would call rupture and repair.    

Robyn: So these kids have parents who are falling out of attunement with them. These kids have parents who are getting dysregulated themselves. These kids have parents who are parenting in a way that doesn't necessarily align with their values or ideals. And this happens for a whole host of reasons. You know, when I'm not parenting the way that aligns with my values, I'm dysregulated myself. I'm not feeling connected to myself or to my child or to my family. If I'm lacking felt safety. So this idea about connection and regulation and felt safety that applies to all of us, and I'm not regulated 100% of the time, and not even close, right? I don't have experiences of felt safety 100% of the time, so sometimes, yes, you know, I'm responding to my kid in a way that is really missing the mark, right, like I'm I end up not parenting in align with my highest values. Now, what we again, also know from the research is that what needs to happen next when there's a rupture, when we fall out of connection and attunement, what happens next is repair. We come back in to connection, attunement. So we can say there's about a third of the time, you know, quote-unquote, getting it right, about a third of a time we're rupturing with our kids, and about a third of the time we're repairing with our kids, and the rupture repair experience, in a way, is almost more important than the getting it right initially experience is now it's really actually not possible to quantify like which one is more important, but the rupture repair process is extremely important, so let's, let's look at that for a little bit.    

Robyn: Let's look at why. Why is rupture repair so important? Okay, so think about the last time maybe somebody noticed that they had a rupture in their relationship with you, or that you noticed you had a rupture in a relationship with someone else, and you noticed it, and you decided you needed to do something about it, right? So repairing relationship disruption, right? Repairing a moment in a relationship where things got off kilter sends a really clear message to the person you're offering the repair to. It sends this really clear message of, I see your pain. I mean, it's really easy to be with people fully, and to see them and to know them, and to give them this, you know, felt sense of being known when they're being really delightful and easy to be with. It's harder to see someone when they're in pain, and especially if that's pain that we've caused because of the relationship rupture, right? And part of why it's so hard, it's hard for a lot of reasons. Part of why it's so hard to see that is because it's painful to us too, right?     

Robyn: So it takes so much guts, it takes so much bravery, a ton of commitment to a relationship, to vulnerably boldly and with guts, say, I see your pain. I see your pain, and I'm willing to see your pain, even if it's me that caused it. Now, obviously we're not always kind of at fault for relationship ruptures with our kids, but sometimes we are right. So to say, I see your pain, right? That takes a lot of guts and and kids know this. Kids know that it takes guts for their parent to come to them and say, Yes, I see your pain. I see what's happened, right? And then we take this next step, and like actually offering this repair, right? And that is sending this message of, and it matters to me that you're in pain. Not only do I see your pain, which is not that hard to do, right, I see your pain, but it matters to me that you're in pain, right, caring about it, right? And then when we make this overt step towards repair, we're sending another message of, I'm willing to be uncomfortable myself in order to fix what has happened. I see your pain. It matters to me, and I'm willing to be uncomfortable myself in order to fix what happens.    

Robyn: And this experience for our kids is gold, the experience of being so seen, you see that I'm in pain, and the experience of receiving that level of commitment to the relationship, right? This is, again, this is like relationship gold. So that's what I mean about how that rupture and repair experience is almost more important than just getting it right in the first place. Right the rupture repair experience gives kids the experience that when relationships get like disrupted, or they go, you know, a little haywire, that they can lean into the truth that the relationship can be repaired. They have the experience of knowing, even though that it's uncomfortable, that my parent and I are like missing each other right now. I can be confident that we're going to fall back into attunement with each other. I can be confident that my parent or my caregiver is going to come back to me, right? That's also this belief that I'm worth it. I'm worth the uncomfortability of somebody taking the steps to repair this relationship, and they're learning that relationships are hard but repairable, and they're learning that they can tolerate distress because it's not going to last forever. That is such a huge piece that comes out of secure attachment, is I can tolerate this stress because it's not going to last forever, right? They get this experience of being good and lovable and that they can expect people in their lives who matter to them and say that they matter to them, that they can expect those people to be brave enough to acknowledge that something has happened or acknowledge that they've messed up.    

Robyn: And I don't know about you, but that's exactly what I want my kid to to know as he moves into adulthood, as he starts to seek relationships outside our family, and he, you know, starts to have, you know, very deep friendships outside our family, and he starts to eventually, maybe find a romantic partnership, I want him to believe these things about relationship, right? And having experiences of rupture and then repair. Y'all. The Rupture part's easy. It's the repair part that's really hard, and it matters so so, so much to our kids. We don't have to be perfect. It's not good to be perfect. We aren't perfect humans. And again, we don't surrender our humanity at the door when we become parents. We don't have to be perfect, but we do have to notice when there's ruptures, and we do have to offer repairs. And we don't even have to do that 100% of the time. And I cannot give you any sort of guideline or statistic on how often we do need to do that, but we do need to do it, so let's just say as much as possible.    

Robyn: Now, obviously, of course, this doesn't mean that we need to go around like looking for opportunities to have major relationship ruptures with our kids, right? We are not going to stress our kids out or cause stress to them on purpose so that we can have a rupture repair process. We don't need to do that. That would be unnecessary and wouldn't actually be like, super nice, right? So there's plenty, right? I don't have to try to mess up. I do have plenty on my own, like even when I'm trying not to. So if that happens to also be true about you, that you mess up plenty even without trying, right, I want you to try to take some comfort and knowing that that's to be expected, you don't have to be perfect. You're not supposed to be perfect. It wouldn't be good if you were perfect, right? We just all have to work together to try to be brave enough to notice those ruptures and find way to repair.    

Robyn: Now, I don't want to pretend that this is easy, and especially because a lot of us, possibly or probably didn't have parents that did a lot of repair or did a lot of at least kind of overt, obvious repair with us when we were kids. So it can feel really uncomfortable repairing with somebody is really vulnerable. So I'm not going to pretend that it's easy, but we can do it. We can practice, and goodness knows, I have enough opportunities to practice repair. There are plenty of opportunities. And every single day in my relationship with my child and with my relationship with my husband, where I can practice the repair and that repair, remember that repair says, I see you. I see that you're hurt. I care that you're hurting, and I'm gutsy enough, I'm vulnerable enough, I care about you enough to offer this repair.    

Robyn: If you're parenting a kid impacted by trauma, or supporting other families who are caring for kids who have been impacted by trauma. You can find even more free resources over on my website, including blog articles, more podcast episodes and several free video series of a video series on trauma, memory and behavior, and it also comes with a free ebook, so you can find all of this over at Robyn gobbel.com and just kind of poke around see what's there. There's all sorts of cool stuff to discover. While you're there, you can sign up to be the first to know when my comprehensive online course for parents, Parenting After Trauma: Minding The Heart And Brain, you can be one of the first to know when that reopens for registration, which I'm expecting or anticipating to hopefully be sometime In mid-February 2021. Don't forget to add parenting after trauma to your favorite podcast player, so you will always have the most recent episode at your fingertips, and of course, share with your friends, colleagues, everyone who helps care for kids impacted by trauma, teachers, coaches, lawyers, casa, caseworkers, everyone I will see you next time!