This is a quote from a podcast that explored the intersection of attachment, the nervous system, and the body, and was so accessible. The host, Tammy Sollenberger of The One Inside podcast, spoke with Anna Vincentz, IFS therapist about parenting and healing in relationships (Episode 125). Listening to their discussion reinforced my understanding of how ordinary parenting (that does not look abusive), the kind most of us experienced, can lead to insecure attachment and a sense of unease in your own body and in the world. As Anna says, “if my [caretaker] never smiles back to me, then I’m not going to know my own smile, because that’s how I learn it.” This really landed in me. Children need to be reflected back to themselves to learn about their internal world, to learn about the external world, and to learn about how they connect with the external world. They learn all of that through relationship.
Children don’t need perfection – they don’t need 100% mirroring all of the time. But they do need enough of it – a recent study found that attunement by parents to babies 50% of the time is enough to develop a secure attachment. It might be that some of a child’s feelings are more likely to be reflected back to them than others. So many of my clients learned in childhood that anger was not an ok emotion. Often they don’t have any explicit memory of being taught that. I am guessing anger was either ignored, or met with anger or distancing. A child’s anger can be challenging for many parents, even when the parent is well-regulated. It can be hard to be with it, name it, and reflect it back and allow it to be. However, that is what is needed at least some of the time, for a child to learn that anger is ok, and not threatening to the relationship. Staying calmly engaged with a child while they experience anger both teach the child that anger is not threatening and helps them move back to a calmer state. Children need to co-regulate with parents to feel safe.
Anna Vincentz goes on to say that “how our parents can be with us is how we can be with ourselves.” When parents are good enough at being with their children’s inner experiences, that allows the child to attach to the parent, and then eventually that experience allows the growing child’s parts to attach to self. Unfortunately, many of us did not get good enough parenting, and did not learn how to be with ourselves and all of our parts. The good news is that we can develop this capacity as adults, through a compassionate relationship in which we are accepted as we are and the other can be with all of our parts. We don’t have to change the past to heal – the present moment can be a corrective, healing experience.
I encourage you to listen to the episode, and to check out Anna’s Parenting from the Inside podcast.
