PFL 26: How Secure Are Your Relationship Attachments?

Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.

 

They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan and they've managed their time, changed habits and experience greater success both at work and at home.

 

So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose and organization and joy?”

 

That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…

 

Welcome back to Balance reDefined. I am Connie Sokol, and I'm so happy to have you join me for some more life-changing information and connection…

 

Today, I want to talk about something that I read in an article. Oddly enough, I was about to get a spa service - showing that that is a very worthy and good thing - but I was flipping through this magazine, which I don't usually get time to even at the orthodontist because you're talking with kids and things like that. But every now and then, I get to flip something open, and it's so joyful, and this was fantastic.

 

It was Michelle Jones, and she is a clinical director of Concordia Families - want to make sure I get that right. It's a clinic specializing in family court-involved therapy and reunification services. But what she was talking about that was so good to me was understanding attachment.

 

She talks about the way that we attach and respond to our - especially our - children and those kinds of attachments. There's three kinds of attachments, and it was really interesting to me, and I'll tell you why.

 

She said that once she was observing a man who was feeding his eight month old son, and the son was seated on a high chair, and so he started dropping pieces of food off of his tray onto the floor - as they are wont to do.

 

Having had seven children, gone through this experience. Just a timer to rinse and repeat. Literally. So anyway, she said this father kept looking kind of embarrassed about this, like his child was misbehaving or something, and he would swiftly give them a little spank on the hand, and he'd say, “No, no.”

 

And the son, who's about eight months old, as I said, looked startled, but then he would drop the food again. And so when he do that, the father would do that.

 

He would like hit him on the hand, and then he'd say to him, “Why are you doing that?” And so she was pretty bold and she said, “Hey, I just was curious why you're doing that.” And he said that he wanted to teach his son to have good manners and not to be rude.

 

And she said she was surprised by his answer because she's an LCSW, so she's social worker.

 

And she was like … “Um…” and then explained kindly that the infant's development stage and what he was doing, what he was learning something from that behavior. And so he was kind of misunderstanding his son's motives at that age. He wasn't capable of being rude. It was really more of a discovery process. And so she was explaining to him the whole concept of object permanence.

 

You know, that between four and seven months, that babies, they learn when things go away and when they're covered up, then they come back. You know, when you play peekaboo and that kind of thing.

 

And so what was beautiful is that this father was so kind that he responded, “Wow, I didn't know that,” and didn't realize that he was just reading his son inaccurately. And it sounds to me like he was pretty humble guy and being able to say, “Wow, didn't know that. I can do that differently.”

 

What was beautiful about this is not only that man's response, but that this woman, Michelle, was kindly candid, you know. That's what I call it when you have to share something that's hard but could give someone a positive choice if you share it. And she was sharing with him that this was called “misattunement.”

 

Misattunement is when you're reading that person's motives wrong, or when you don't attend to say your infant's needs because you think, “Oh, we don't want them to be spoiled or something like that.” When the truth is you can't spoil a baby obviously, because that's not where they're at on their level of development.

 

When you quickly and appropriately attend to those needs that they have, then they learn to feel trust, and feel confident, and feel secure. So that's called a healthy attachment, and I love what she shared.

 

I got thinking back to all the time that I have misattuned to my children and teenagers. This is a very common thing I think with parents. So if you're listening, you're going, “Oh my word. I've totally traumatized my children for life.” No, probably not.

 

Most of us, you know, we don't have real handbook on parenting, and so we're learning as we go along, and that's the beautiful thing of why you're listening to these podcasts, and why I'm learning things and sharing them so that we can correct those things as quickly and as much as possible.

 

So I want you to think - because I was thinking back on these things…

 

And even just mostly recently in the last few weeks with my own children have, you know, have I been attuned to their needs or not? I don't want this to come across like we're catering to everything and every second we're wigging ourselves out because was I attuned to them.

 

I have found for myself, you know, I'm an avid B-plusser. I have found that if I pretty much B-plus, 80 percent of the time respond in some positive, semi-positive way to my children's needs, they do great. They do great.

 

This is not about being, you know, filling every jot and tittle for them. That actually enables them and makes them less resilient and less able to move forward in life. So I want you to consider a couple of these kinds of attachments and just see what this looks like in your life.

 

She is saying in this article that a secure attachment allows a child to feel safe and protected and gives him confidence that he'll be taken care of.

 

So that's number one in those three attachments that I said at the very beginning - secure, insecure, and the third one is disorganized. So secure, insecure and disorganized attachments.

 

So these secure attachments are so healthy. There are so good. They allow the child to feel confident, to explore the world, and develop optimally.

 

I was, I was thinking about my oldest daughter who is right now 19, and she deals with anxiety, threads of anxiety, and I've worked with her over the years to try to use coping skills to understand what those anxiety symptoms may be, how to prevent them, how to deal with them as they come, how to deal with them quickly so they don't get her down into this anxiety vortex.

 

And I've watched as she has been also doing her part to be open to those coping skills because you can lead a child to the slurpee but you can't make him slurp. Right?

 

And so I've watched how she's been open to those things, sometimes more open than others. And as she's learned these coping skills and been able to be open to stretching herself a little, she's been able to do more experiences and have more joy and more good opportunities come to her than she ever had before.

 

And we were just talking about this the other day that she said, “Gosh, if I hadn't learned these things, if you hadn't taught me, if I hadn't learned them, I wouldn't have tried for these scholarships, I wouldn't have applied to these different colleges, especially out of state and one in Hawaii.” And then she was accepted.

 

She said, I wouldn't have tried for this Nanning in France and gone and had an incredible experience for three months there. And I wouldn't have had the subsequent trip that we took her and I together to explore Europe together as part of her senior trip/moving into adulthood.

 

So all of these experiences, she's realizing, wow, the more that I got these coping skills, the more confident she felt an exploring the world, the more confident she felt that she could handle hard things.

 

And the more she tried new and stretching things and realized again and again, she was able and more capable to do those things.

 

So to me that looked like a good secure attachment, at least for right now. You know, it's not talking about all the things that I've done wrong. So that was a good thought for me is secure attachment. So thinking your own mind, what's something you've done well with your children? We all start with what's the weakness but in different things that we learned.

 

But I like to start with what we're doing. Well, I always say start with you're having success. So what does that look like for you? How does that feel for you?

 

What in one of your relationships with your children particularly do you feel like you’ve done that well and that's taught them to feel trust and to trust and to be confident, and maybe to explore the world, and that they know that they are protected?

 

What's some things that you've done for your children that way? And take a minute and just kind of review that in your mind and feel good about that and get that little mental pat on your back. Great job! Because most parents I meet are doing a great job.

 

They're doing the very best they know how to do. Same with me…

 

The next kind is that insecure attachment, and that develops when a child learns not to trust or is made to feel like they shouldn't have needs.

 

Did you ever feel that as a child? Like you just couldn't have them because somebody else in the family was taking up more of the time or in space of, of the parents or something.

 

And typically insecure babies will become more clingy and less able to be soothed. Now, with that being said, I want you to understand also there are genetic threads that come, because I also have noticed for myself.

There's been some different things from the genetic pool that are not things that I have control over, and even not from my side or things like that that I still as a mom had to deal with with my children.

 

So there was anxiety and depression and different things, aspergers and things like that. So I've needed to deal with those things.

 

And because of those threads, I've worked with pediatricians and with psychologists and being able to say, “What can I do for my kids that will help them from a very early age?” So if your child is clingy and can't be soothed, oh my gosh, this very 19 year old that I'm talking about, she was so colicky when she was born.

 

I could not put her down for four months...

 

Seriously, I mean crying at the drop of a hat and so many of them. My asperger's son who just had to have the right toy or the right book or the right blanket, or he was just ... it wasn't being spoiled. It literally was that it rocked his world, and we didn't know for a long time why that was.

 

And I was checking out with different doctors and things of what it was. So on those insecure attachments don't think, “Oh well, that must be me, and I'm doing something wrong.” That's not necessarily what that means. It just means you've been given a set of circumstances and genetic pool that this child has.

 

So let's look at it that way...

 

Let's not look at blame. Let's look at how can we solve this. I always say to my kids, “Let's just put this on a chair. Let's just look at it. Take a look at it, and see what are the things we need to learn about it, and what are the things we can do to deal with it so you have a better improved quality of life.” It's not really assigning blame.

 

So we do want to go to an origin. I mean it is helpful to know if there's genetic origins, but we want to go to an origin. If you're being rude and mean to your child, well then it makes sense that they feel insecure. So go to the origins and be honest with yourself about that.

 

The third type is disorganized attachment and that develops when a parent is abusive towards a child. And this is the most difficult and the most, the most damaging type of relationship - as you would understand - because it teaches the child not to trust their own judgment.

 

They can feel and see that something is being done that's wrong, but they don't have the equipment, the mental acuity, to be able to say this is exactly why, right?

 

It's really confusing that the same person who is hurting a child is the one that they must turn to for protection, as you can imagine. And I think there's a lot of us who can understand how that feels, whether it's been from our childhood, it's been an abusive relationship when you're older, whatever that may look like.

 

So if you're dealing with ... I'm assuming that you are not abusing your child.

 

If you're listening to what I'm saying, you're realizing, “Wow, maybe I am really confusing in what I'm sharing with my child, and I'm not being helpful and being consistent in the way that I'm behaving with them.” That is a great thing to start with is how are you speaking to your child? What is it?

 

The kinds of things that you say to your child, are they positive? Even when you need to share something that seems a negative, like, hey, they're getting a failing grade or something. Have you done that in a kindly candid way?

 

Have you sat down, and you've anticipated questions? You've expected that there's a reason why, and you're giving them that benefit of the doubt.

 

You're giving them that opportunity to explain situation...

 

I remember finding a receipt that had something on it that my daughter should not have been doing and I said, hey, can you tell me about this?

 

And I shared that in another podcast, and she was like, “Oh.” I didn't need to blame. I didn't need to come in guns firing. I just had to ask some really careful questions, and she was able to let me know what had happened, and we had a really good bonding moment through that, which could have turned into not so bonding had I not been careful with that.

 

So if it's more of the case for you that you are dealing with, say, an ex spouse or a family member that is treating the children poorly. This is a different scenario.

 

I know that I just got a text from a friend yesterday that just said, “I am so stressed about my ex, and me sending my children into an environment that I know is negative and is not a healthy environment. How do I do that?”

 

How do I work with that? And I'm going to share that in another podcast, the specifics.

 

But what's really helpful is being able to help your children use their voice, and then be able to identify some of those things that they're going to face, and then give them solutions that they can use when they're in that environment.

 

That way, even if they're in an abusive environment that you cannot control or legally can't change, that at least the children have some coping skills, and they have some tools on their life tool belt that they can use even when they're young.

They still have something that they can turn to that will help instill confidence and trust in themselves, in their own judgment about what is right and what is wrong in the way that they're being treated.

 

So this starts at such an early age in the day and age that we are in, starts at such an early age because there is so many dysfunctional things and relationships that happen - from workplace, school, place, home, community, even church.

 

That really is key - that we teach our children these skills and teach them how to use their voice and teach them these things.

 

So like I said, I'll share that on a different podcast, but just considered today, what are some of those attachments in your life that are the most meaningful, and what are the quality of, the qualities of those relationships that you have? Do you have these healthy, secure attachments, or are they insecure, or even disorganized?

 

And what I call this is functional because the quality of that attachment is going to affect the children for their future relationships. It really becomes a prototype. And again, we didn't have perfect parents to create, you know, these amazing attachments.

 

But we just kind of have good enough. And as I've said in other things, being a B-plusser is great because it gives you the opportunity to be just good enough and that's fine.

 

In fact, researchers have noticed that in the healthiest relationships and secure infants and parents, even when they're misattuned, 70 percent of the time, 70 percent being misattuned, that it's okay because unhealthy relationships, parents quickly reattune after they have what's called an auto-attunement and attachment rupture.

 

So if there is an attachment rupture, then you quickly correct it, and you kind of sew that back up and make amends. In order to do that, of course we need to be sensitive, and we need to be patient, and kind of first and foremost, we need to have awareness - because this awareness, it is what is going to set the precedent of how much you repair those disorganized or dysfunctional attachments or the attachment ruptures.

 

The last thing I want to share with you is that what one other piece of this article that was so important to me is that she said the most important thing and forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child, but who plays and communicates with him or her.

 

Responsiveness is the key to attachment. Isn't that beautiful? So it's really who plays and communicates with that child eyeball to eyeball.

 

So today, to take that first step and actually making them more secure attachment, I would encourage you, go home, look at your kids in the eyeballs and either play or communicate.

 

Just ask him a question. “How was your Algebra today?” Not just how was your day. “How was your Algebra? Hey, how did things go with your friends? I know it was kind of rocky at the start of the week. Did that all get resolved with that group chat?

 

Hey, how'd that soccer practice go? Because I know you were working on your kick. Did it go well or do you need some more pointers? I'd love to see how it's going, if you want to show it to me.” Do you see what I'm saying?

 

Or just get down on the floor and play, and that's a great way to create a more secure attachment today...

 

Stay tuned for more wonderful ways to ReDefine your daily balance.

 

You got it. Thanks for listening and remember to rate and subscribe. And if you are feeling the need for real balance in your life, get your free five step life plan, and get started today! Just go to conniesokol.com/download.