In this episode Dr. Coor offers non-punitive ways to be the Safe Haven that your child needs in order to learn to cope with their big feelings rather than resort to big behaviors.
Filling a child’s proverbial “empty emotional cup” with connection can feel extremely difficult when your child is experiencing big feelings or displaying concerning behaviors. Parents are often advised to impose a “time out” in moments like these - but traditional time-outs don’t actually reduce concerning behaviors or help kids modulate their emotions. In this episode Dr. Coor offers non-punitive ways to be the Safe Haven that your child needs in order to learn to cope with their big feelings rather than resort to big behaviors.
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Sources:
Bert Powell, Glen Cooper, Kent Hoffman, Bob Marvin, The Circle of Security Intervention Enhancing Attachment in Early Parent-Child Relationships . 2013
Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper, Bert Powell , Raising a Secure Child How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child's Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore . 2017
Filling a child’s proverbial “empty emotional cup” with connection can feel extremely difficult when your child is experiencing big feelings or displaying concerning behaviors. Parents are often advised to impose a “time out” in moments like these - but traditional time-outs don’t actually reduce concerning behaviors or help kids modulate their emotions. Today I’m offering non-punitive ways to be the Safe Haven that your child needs in order to learn to cope with their big feelings rather than resort to big behaviors.
Welcome back to Project Parenthood! I'm your host, Dr. Nanika Coor—clinical psychologist and respectful parenting therapist. Each week, I’ll help you repair and deepen your parent-child connection, increase self-compassion and cooperation from your kids, and cultivate joy, peace, and resilience in your relationship with them.
In a previous episode called “How to Understand and Fulfill Your Child’s Attachment Needs” I explained the concept of the Circle of Security - so check that one out first if you’d like some background on today’s topic - I’ll drop the link in the show notes. The brief version is that you can create a secure attachment with your child by noticing, fulfilling and balancing their fundamental needs for comfort and protection with their needs for exploration and mastery. So sometimes you need to be a Secure Base for your child to explore and other times you need to be a Safe Haven for your child to return to for reconnection.
The Circle of Security, a parenting intervention, uses a visual representation to help parents understand the dynamics of secure attachment. The parent is depicted as two outstretched hands at the narrow end of an oval symbolizing the "circle." The child's journey begins at the top hand - or the Secure Base, where the parent provides a sense of safety and stability. From there, the child ventures outwards away from the parent, exploring the world at the far end of the oval. When faced with internal or external threats, the child retreats back to the parent's protective hand - or Safe Haven - moving along the metaphorical "bottom" of the circle, seeking solace and reassurance.
In “secure” attachment, more often than not, you interact with your child from a place of being “bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind.” You’re able to keep “both hands on the Circle”, which means that you’re meeting your child’s Secure Base needs and their Safe Haven needs, at least 30% of the time. That’s good news since no parent is able to meet a child’s needs 100% of the time!
But it’s important to remember that your child’s needs exist whether or not you’re meeting them. When your child has an attachment need and you’re unable to meet it - for whatever reason - that means you’ve taken one or both hands “off of the Circle”. This can happen when you’re not “wisely” balancing being bigger and stronger with being kind. When the time comes to take charge, you may be too harsh or too permissive, so that your child experiences you as mean or weak. You might even move away from your parent-child relationship in such a way that your child experiences you as “gone”.
Each time parental hands come off the Circle, the parent-child relationship experiences a rupture. Every day minor ruptures happen all the time, and there are many ruptures that occur that parents aren’t even aware of, so it’s not possible to repair 100% of ruptures. The important thing is that when you notice that you’ve fallen into a state of being “mean, weak or gone”, you get your hands back on the Circle by initiating the repair process. When ruptures happen consistently but aren’t repaired consistently, your child begins to lose faith in you and their relationship with you as a trustworthy resource for security.
Let’s take a closer look at the repair process.
Repair can’t happen when one or both of you is in a fight/flight/freeze state. Effective repair requires both of you to feel relatively safe and connected. Your parent-child relationship feels safe and connected when you have both hands on the Circle - meeting your child’s needs wherever they are on the Circle.
If your child is in a Big Feelings or Big Behaviors place on the bottom of the Circle they will need soothing and help organizing their feelings until their “emotional cup” is full and they move to the top of the Circle, ready to explore and reflect upon the rupture that occurred. If you are on the bottom of the Circle, you’ll need to do something to soothe and organize yourself, since you need to be on the top of your own Circle as well.
When both you and your child are dysregulated,getting calm enough to repair the rupture might require a Time Out for you, your child or both. But this isn’t the punishment kind of time out. This is a kind of time out where you take the time to collect yourself enough to get your hands back on the circle. During this break or pause, you’re reminding yourself that you are Bigger, Stronger, Wiser and Kind. You’re reminding yourself that no matter what you’re feeling, your child needs you. It may take you 5 minutes to regain your balance between Bigger/Stronger and Kind - or it could take several days. Either way, you can’t begin the journey to authentic repair until you’re able to interact with your child from a place of relative calm and compassion.
Your infant or young child can’t regulate their intense emotions independently - they learn this skill through nurturing, connected and supportive interactions with you. Even teens and young adults’ self-soothing abilities are still in the process of “becoming” as their brains continue to mature until around age 25.
When you hold and comfort your upset child, your calm breathing and heartbeat transmits a sense of security, prompting your child's brain to release calming hormones instead of stress hormones. This repeated pattern of soothing interactions creates a strong emotional connection between you and your child. Over time, your child's brain learns to anticipate your comforting presence, and even just seeing or thinking of you can trigger the release of calming hormones.
Within the nurturing environment that you provide, your child will gradually develop the ability to self-soothe, especially in times of mild distress. The foundation for this skill is laid through countless experiences of being compassionately soothed by you.
So - if your child is out of control, instead of using a punitive time-out where you banish them to their room or a “naughty chair”, take charge in a no-nonsense yet tender way using the concept of a Time-In. Consider changing your location and going to a room or area more conducive to calming down where it’s easy for you to speak to your child with a firm, reassuring, calm and kind tone. Perhaps do something different for a few minutes like reading, listening to calming music, or sitting outside watching people or wildlife nearby. Help your child make sense of their feelings by putting words to them. Saying something like: “Seems like you’re pretty mad about XYZ - do I have that right?” Tell your child your feelings about what happened: “When you started screaming I felt frustrated and confused.” If it’s possible, stay with your child until they’re relatively calm again.
When both you and your child are calm (enough), help your child put words to the feelings and needs involved with the current kerfuffle. Use short and simple phrases - this doesn’t have to be an hour-long lecture situation. Take full responsibility for whatever part you played in the conflict without blaming your child in any way. Don’t put a “but you shouldn’t have been doing X.” after your apology. Help your child take responsibility for their part too, without using any shame or blame - just facts. Focus on what actions your child took, what needs they were trying to meet, and what feelings they experienced. Brainstorm with your child different ways you can handle situations like these in the future. Every time you go through this process with your child it strengthens your relationship, and creates positive relational feelings and patterns that you’ll repeat for years to come.
In the end, the secret to parenting success lies in keeping your Secure Base and Safe Haven hands firmly on the Circle. Sure, we might stumble and step off the Circle now and then, but the key is to get back onto the Circle with grace and self-compassion. Remember, even in the midst of chaos and Big Feelings, you’re the no-nonsense-but-tender captain of this parent-child relational ship. So, take whatever non-punitive "Time Outs" you need to take to get your hands back onto the Circle and view these every day ruptures as not as kid or parent failings - but as yet another opportunity for repair!
That’s all for today’s episode of Project Parenthood—thanks for listening, and I hope you found this helpful! Be sure to join me live on Instagram @bkparents on Monday, December 18 at 12:45pm when you can “Ask Me Anything”! You can get your questions answered in real-time!
If you have a question for me about parent-child relationships, respectful parenting tips and/or parental mental health that you’d like me to cover in a future episode, shoot me an email at parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com, leave a message at 646-926-3243 or leave a message on Instagram @bkparents. And you can learn about my private practice working with parents living in New York State at www.brooklynparenttherapy.com.
Catch you next week!