I am with you, hey kid, I have your back!

Parenting from the Heart - How to create an emotional connection with children and facilitate a proper development of their brain.

 

I have been working with children as a play therapist along with their parents, for many years. And the most common phrase I hear is: "no one has ever prepared me this…"

In this article I will give you a few tips on how to create a healthy emotional connection with children.

I will also elaborate on how certain behaviours impact their brain development and how to notice and attend what is underneath their undesirable behaviours.

 

Daniel Seigel in his book “parenting from the inside out” says that to discipline children means to teach them, to teach them effectively can only happen through emotionally connecting with them before giving them any instructions. I really love his way of teaching how to set boundaries in a sensible, not rigid way.

 

At the same time, children learn mostly through observation, so who we are around them will have the biggest impact on them; their behaviours, ways of being, ways of relating and the development of their brain.

 

What to avoid?

 

To discipline does not mean to punish or impose consequences. Spanking, times out, does not support a healthy development of their personality and their brain. A caregiver is

source of a child’s safety, so it is very confusing for the child to run to their parent or caregiver  for protection if the parent is verbally or physically abusing them. Additionally, physical abuse such as spanking, or verbal abuse such as name calling causes raptures in a child's neurobiological development. It creates long lasting damage to the brain and causes death of brain connection and brain cells.

 

A violent approach to children causes them also to move to their reptilian brain, a part of a brain which is not receptive, practically the child cannot even hear what  we what to teach them, therefore, we miss the chance to correct the behaviour in a constructive way.

As a result, this behaviour does support the development of the part of the brain, prefrontal cortex, responsible for self reflection and executive thinking. 

 

Another form of violence that has a profound impact on a child’s or teenager development is when a caregiver makes any comments about their bodies. Especially during adolescence, the young women or man forms their identity, and their body goes through a significant amount of changes, they are waking up their sexuality and want to explore it. Making any negative comments about their way of being or looking, creates extreme damage to their self esteem, and a base for mental health issues that might come up in the future: for ex, the child might have difficulties to create healthy and harmonious relationships in the future, might have chronic anxiety, eating disorders, co-dependency issues.

 

So instead of punishing them in any way we need to relate with them from a place of emotional connection and love, “Feeling” them from the “insight” empathize on what is behind their behaviour, get curious about them…

 

Limits - “I LOVE YOU EVEN WHEN YOU MESS UP”

 

Every time our child misbehaves it gives us an opportunity to understand them better and what they need help with. The first step is to emotionally connect with them, to give them a sense that you are with them in their experience. Such an approach helps the child to move from the reactive (reptilian) to the receptive (prefrontal cortex), part of the brain. If the child is in a receptive state he or she will understand quicker what you want to teach them.

 

What can be a caregiver’s obstacle to discipline the child in a constructive way?

 

To emotionally connect with a child before we want to correct their behaviour might be challenging for the parent as there might be, what I call a  “loud music playing at the back of their head”, thoughts about about what the child should or should not be doing, based on a parent's value and not seeing that the child in an individual with its personal wants and desires. Having that urge, a ridgid an idea of how the child should or should not be usually comes from a part of the parent’s life that he or she has not been able to process or worked through themselves yet.

 

In other words children often show us aspects of ourselves, our shadows, we have not had a possibility to embrace yet in ourselves. And that's why it might be challenging to understand children's behaviour, and get curious about what's underneath them. An old program of our old childhood experience might be blurring our perception. .

 

Before we want to teach the child anything we need to emotionally regulate ourselves. We can do that by asking ourselves a question: “by the fact that my child behaves this way, what kind of reaction does this behaviour have on me? What kind of emotions are being triggered in me?''Does she or he remind me of some behaviours that I was punished or praised for as a child and I just want the child to behave in the same way?”

 

Seigel, states that a huge influence on children's development, has a sense that parents make out of their own life and their own childhood experiences. If a parent does investigate into their own childhood, the unprocessed and not understood experiences may negatively influence the development of their children; their cognitive ability, social skills, influence on their self esteem as well as their lack of emotional control. That could be the reason why the child performs un undesirable behaviour and facing challenges in school and home environment.

 

To be mindful of our own reaction is crucial. If we feel emotionally unstable, it is not a moment to teach them anything, then it is time to reflect on ourselves. As we notice that we feel more relaxed, we can approach the child, open up a conversation about their behaviour and deeply listen.

 

Loving touch, body posture, and a kind tone of voice lowers the cortisol level in their brain, which will result in creating healthy bonding between you and your child. The child will become more receptive to whatever you have to say. Before you attempt to correct any behaviour it is important to tell your child how much you love them and how much you value the relationship with them. Let them know that you are on their side.

 

And as you prepare the ground you can move to setting loving limits with your child. You can open a conversation which is not about who is right, it is not about guilt tripping or pity, it is not about telling them how bad, stupid they are, but it is about explaining them how their behaviours made you feel or how their behaviours might have influenced someone else. Get curious what your child was trying to accomplish when they misbehave? Maybe they were missing your presence or attention? Get curious.

 

If the child lied to you, you might say, it hurt me when you lied to me, and now I feel that trust between us has been broken, do you think we can do something to repair it?”

 

If your child broke a commitment you can also ask the kid; “What can you do to help us to rebuild trust between us?”

 

“When you said you're gonna be back home at 5 and you were late, I was worried that something happened to you”

 

If you notice that your child is very emotionally active, you need to support the child to emotionally calm down first - connect with them, before you ask what happened. You can support them in processing a difficult emotion by naming their emotion for them, you can say: “I can see that you are angry” and at the same time feeling the child, feeling the feelings with them.

 

You can say: “When you are angry where do you feel it in your body?”

 

If you approach the conflict from a space of curiosity and emotional attunement, you will model for them how to build emotional awareness, as well as teach them the art of self reflection about how their behaviours might have impacted others. By naming and acknowledging the emotion for them, you also help them to process those emotions, such an approach will support the proper construction of their neurobiology.

 

Repairing parenting mistakes

 

Nature of the human brain is maladaptive, so even if the child was exposed to life circumstances that were “damaging” to its brain in the past, the brain can still be “healed” by being exposed to new, corrective experiences. Correction in parenting can “heal” the child's brain on the neurobiological level, resulting in a child's ability to control their impulses, expand their capacity to handle emotions and correct inappropriate behaviour which will result in making better decisions and create better relationships in the future. Whatever damage has been done to the connection between you and your child, it can be healed. However, to repair the connection requires learning and practicing new skills and doing work on ourselves.

 

Compassionate Heart:

Our capacity to handle things well is not constant. Capacity of our kids to handle things varies. Through emotional connection and proper limits we can support our kids to expand their capacity to handle emotions and correct inappropriate behaviour. Nevertheless, we need to approach them  from a place of emotional connection and love, from a space of relaxation and curiosity and inquire what happens with them in the depths of their minds.

 

Whatever they do, before you move to any teaching, communicate to your kid:  "I am with you, hey kid, I have your back!" It is crucial to remember that children are not an extension of their parents, they came here to discover themselves. It is the parent's, teacher's, therapist's necessity to inspire them to develop their own personalities, encourage them to have their own voice and their own vision for their life.