How to Build Unbreakable Relationships: Insider Tips

You. Hey there, everybody, and welcome to today's live continuing education webinar. Forming a foundation that nurtures secure attachment at all ages. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Today we're going to review the CARES approach to creating secure attachment. We'll explore the needs of children in infancy, early childhood, and middle and high school to identify challenges in, in attachment development and attachment maintenance, as well as ways to promote secure attachment in an age appropriate manner. Finally, we'll discuss the impact of not creating secure attachment in formative years and how we can address that in the adult who's experienced attachment trauma. So just kind of think about it before we get started putting it into a big framework. How can creating knowing how to help people create a secure attachment help any parent create a secure attachment with their child? How can skills that we give them help them develop a secure attachment? And if your client is an adult and did not receive these things in childhood, they likely have what I refer to as attachment trauma or, or sometimes it goes to the level of cptsd. So how can you help them provide these things to themselves as well as their children? I regularly have people ask me, you know, I am, you know, struggling with ptsd, with depression, with anxiety, with, you know, whatever laundry list of letters somebody has given them. And it's important for them to recognize and to understand that, yes, you can break the cycle. You can parent healthy children. And along the way, while you're developing these secure attachment skills with your child, you're going to be modeling them and developing them in yourself attachment. I use the mnemonic CARES consistency. We need to be consistently there and available to our people in our lives, people that we are securely attached to, but definitely to children. And consistency doesn't mean you have to be there 24 7, 365 and hover around them to meet their every need. Consistency means, you know, being available be and being predictive in your availability. When they come to you to ask you a question, not one minute being, oh, great, you know, let's talk about this. And then the next time they come and ask you a question, I don't have time for you, go, go ask somebody else. That sends mixed messages. So it's important to be consistent in what you reward, how you interact. So the child starts learning to see this relationship as predictable. Attention is important, and that is the proactive attention that teaches the child. I like you and I want to spend time with you. I'm curious about what you're interested in. I like doing things with you and I want to be there. As opposed to reactive attention that's generally punitive. The child does something and all of a sudden caregiver looks up from their iPad and says, oh, don't do that. No, no, no. Proactive attention is rewarding, is reinforcing, is self esteem or is esteem building for the child. And it also creates an environment that is low stress. If you're in interacting around things that are important to the child, that they're interested in, that they're having fun doing, then that's creating an environment where they feel safe around you. And if they can talk to you, then they're more likely to be willing to try to talk to you when they're having problems. If they can't communicate with you, you know, during the good times, they're certainly not going to come talk to you during the bad times, most likely responsiveness, and this really varies depending on the age of the child or the age of the person. But responsiveness from infancy on teaches people emotional intelligence. It teaches people how to identify their feelings, teaches them how to downregulate their emotions so they can get into their wise mind and solve problems. Now, it sounds really easy, but it's not that easy. And we'll talk about it as we go through the stages. But in responsiveness, we're teaching all of those skills so the person feels confident and confident that they can handle distress, that they can handle emotional situations, and that they can identify the things they like. They figure out, hey, what? What do I like? What am I good at? And things that make them happy. We don't want to just focus on the distressful emotions. Empathy and validation go kind of along with emotional intelligence. But it's important as caregivers that we empathize with our children. And recognize that what is a big deal to a 6 year old or a 16 year old May not seem like a big deal to us as, you know, 20, 30, 40 year olds, but to that child with their wealth of experiences up until that point, that's a big deal. We have a lot more experiences, a lot more things under our belt. So that may not seem as crucial, But it's important to recognize that to that child it is. So we don't want to dismiss how they're feeling. If somebody was mean to them at school, that sucks. We don't like it when somebody's mean to us at work. At least I don't imagine how it feels. For a child who has had so many fewer experiences. Validation is also important. This is one of the first Steps in teaching boundaries. If I can validate how my child feels, I can say, I see that you are really angry about this. Even if I'm not angry, I'm validating how they feel. I'm not telling them that they shouldn't feel that way or they should feel a different way. I'm validating their feelings as their feelings in the moment. And I'm saying, all right, you feel how you feel. And it's important to be able to recognize, to start teaching children early on where they end and where you begin so they can recognize, well, Mom's not upset about that. Mom's not, you know, all stressed out about it. I'm stressed out about it, but Mom's not wonder what that's about. And it can provide some curiosity. But again, it's a boundary issue that we often neglect in all levels of our relationships. And then S stands for Solutions Generation. And really, once you have created this environment in which the child feels safe to run to you, you've created that secure home base, they feel safe to come to you when they've got a problem or an issue. You can help them identify their feelings and downregulate, get into their wise mind. Then they're ready to start generating solutions. But again, a child has a lot many fewer experiences than you do. So you may think, oh, I can think of six ways to solve this problem. The child may be going, I can't think of a single one. Which is where the adult comes in handy. Because we have knowledge that we can impart. We're not necessarily going to tell them what to do. We're going to say, okay, here are some options, and we'll talk about scaffolding at the end of this presentation. The effects of attachment. When people are securely attached, they feel like they are lovable and worthy of support. They recognize that's that unconditional positive regard. They recognize that they're lovable for who they are even when they make mistakes. And it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to have problems. It's okay to be upset sometimes. That doesn't mean you're not worthy of love. They learn that others are available and responsive. They recognize, I mean, all of us recognize over time that not all other people are available and responsive. But they start recognizing who in their environment is available and responsive. In young children, that's the primary caregiver or caregivers. In adults, we, we still create secure attachments, but we tend to spread them out more. We have multiple people to whom we're Securely attached that can help us meet our needs. The child depends on the caregivers for shelter, for food, for all of the basic needs. So that bond is extremely strong. And they're not going to have that same kind of bond as adults because as adults you can get your own food, you can figure out shelter if you need to. There are things that you don't rely on other people to do that are critical to survival. Secure attachment teaches those emotion regulation skills. And when people are not effectively regulating their emotions, they will start to develop emotional disregulation. So they will experience a lot of anxiety, depression, difficulty managing those emotions. That eventually leads to going from flat to furious or flat to frantic. There is no in between. There's no, I'm a little stressed. They're either, you know, okay or not feeling anything or they are panicked. And that is the result of changes in the nervous system that result from chronic stress. People who are securely attached have frustration tolerance and distress tolerance. They've learned through that caregiver's responsiveness how to identify an emotion and down regulate, get into their wise mind or tolerate that emotion, recognizing, you know, I can't do anything about this right now. This, this really sucks. I don't like it, but it is not going to consume me. They have self efficacy, they can tolerate ambiguity in life. They don't have to have control of everything all the time because they've developed an understanding in life that they're capable, they're confident, and they have people they can rely on. They have a safe home base to which they can retreat. Should things, you know, really go to go to crap all of a sudden they can deal effectively with others. Remember I said with empathy and validation, the caregiver is starting to teach cognitive and emotional boundaries. You can have your thoughts and feelings, I can have my thoughts and feelings. Neither one of us is wrong. It's just what we think, what we are thinking and feeling and we can go from there. And that is again, that's something that we just overlook a lot in our, in our current culture. And it creates a lot of hardship because people are trying to tell other people how to think and they effectively problem solve and elicit assistance when needed. When they've had experiences brainstorming with their caregivers with problem solving, start to feel confident, they develop that frustration tolerance. They try something, they fail, they try again. That doesn't work. They have had experiences like that where they've asked for help, gotten help, and then been able to succeed. So as a result they are, they get less stressed out when it's time to solve problems and they get less stressed out about asking for help when needed. They don't feel, feel like it's a negative reflection on themselves. So those things are all reasons why we're actually having this presentation today in infants. Now over here in the corner I have the CARES mnemonic listed so you can think about how these things influence secure attachment in infancy. According to Abraham Maslow, people need, well, infants need food when they're hungry, shelter, comfort, protection from over stimulation. They need sleep when they're sleepy, and they need physical contact. If you take a child or an animal or any sort of sentient being and you just put it somewhere and it never has physical contact, there are negative emotional repercussions. And I think we saw some of that during the pandemic, especially for people who were literally all by themselves in early childhood in, in young children. According to Eric Erickson, we know that children, the first stage of psychosocial development is safety and children's sense of safety. An infant's sense of safety is based on whether they're getting those biological needs met. An infant doesn't have a whole lot going on cognitively that they need to get met. They want to feel comfortable, you know, not too hot, not too cold. They want to feel safe where they're not being over stimulated or under stimulated. They want to have contact, physical contact. They want food when they're hungry, they want comfort from pain when it happens. Those are all basic needs. But infants communicate them with cries. And it's really important for adults to start becoming tuned to their child's particular signals and cries. I remember when my children were little and I think this is pretty universal, not always, but when they start to get sleepy and they get a little crankier or whatever and they start tugging on their ears. Whenever they start tugging on their ears, I don't know what it is about the ear except for it stimulates the vagus nerve that would cause them to do that. But that was an early sign, before they started really fussing, that they were tired and being aware of children's. Circadian rhythms. My son was, you could set a clock by him. He woke up at the same time every day. He was wide open for about four hours and then he would lay down and he would take a three hour afternoon nap. I know, that was so wonderful. And then he would be up and he'd be wide open again until bedtime. But. And he would get hungry at the same times each day. He would get sleepy at the same times each day. And it was really important that I pay attention to his rhythms. And he would usually lay down for his nap at 10am So I didn't schedule things from 10am to 1pm because that's when he slept. And I wanted to make sure that he maintained that circadian rhythm that he had consistency in his life. Because we know that when they get over tired and it's more difficult to deal with life on life's terms. Startles, loud noises, pain. We are caregivers are there to comfort the child when these happen. And I always used to hate shot days when we would go to the doctor because I knew that they were going to be in pain and I hated to stand there for it, but had to be done. But comforting them afterwards, comforting them when they had earaches or whatever kinds of owies and boo boos that came along let them know that hey, caregiver is going to be here to help me feel safe, to help me feel better. And remember we're still talking about infants at this point. So there's. They're not falling down and getting boo boos as often. It's tends to be pretty, pretty stable. But occasionally a baby will knock its head or something and then love and belonging is the next level on Maslow's hierarchy that we need to develop in people and in children. In, in infants particularly, they need attention, affection and nurturance. There is a lot of research out there. I had two micro premies so I did a lot of research but there's a lot of research out there on how significant the impact is for emotional regulation and, and for the stress response in children when they've had contact, especially skin to skin contact with infants there it's just amazing how much that impacts and I think if you've had children or you've babysat children, especially infants, you recognize that they feel your stress. If you are holding them and you're stressed out, they're going to start getting fidgety and fussy because they feel your stress. They don't feel safe if you're calm, they tend to calm, they tend to sink, not necessarily quite breath for breath, beat for beat, but if you're breathing slowly and calmly, they're breathing slowly and calmly. When you start to get revved up, they're breathing and their heart rate tends to go up. And it's important that we recognize this because just by taking an upset infant and holding them and making them feel safe and breathing slowly ourselves, we can help them down, downregulate that stress response. And yeah, they're not going to look and go, hey, I have some control over my emotions at six months old. But essentially that's what their brain is registering. When infants don't get this, they miss out. This is a huge step in the whole disregulation area. When infants don't get this, they miss out on learning the skills, the basic skills of breathing and slowing your breathing for downregulation of emotions. It's also important to recognize at this point that infants, you know, some children with who are neuro atypical in infancy, sounds, sights, smells, temperatures may be very different for them than for the adults. And the adults may be putting them in a bath that the adult thinks is just the perfect temperature and the child thinks is freezing cold. And so the child cries when they get into the bathtub and the parent is going, I don't know why they keep crying. It's important to try to pay attention to stimuli that trigger a distress response in children. And instead of assuming, oh, he's just being fussy, keep track of it. Okay, maybe he is just being fussy or maybe it is really painful for him. My son has adhd, he's neuro atypical and his, his ears are very sensitive. Whenever water would get in his ears, it was evidently just really painful. So washing his hair, at first we would try to do that and he's like, the ears, the ears, the ears. He would cover his ears and just scream bloody murder. And I'm like, o, okay, it's okay. Then we started. I didn't understand why because he couldn't articulate how bad it hurt. He was like two at this point. But we would start putting earplugs in his ears before we would wash his hair and that was less painful for him. Now thinking back as an infant, you know, he couldn't communicate that. So, you know, I felt a little bit bad. But it is in infants we need to pay attention to their nonverbal communication. When they get fussy, you know what happened that triggered this fussiness. If we have an adult who didn't receive this type of nurturance when they were infants, when they were young, starting with breathing regulation, grounding exercises can be really helpful. Starting with helping the person recognize and start meeting their biological and safety needs is really important. So they feel that, hey, okay, you know, not everything is going great right now, but I've got food in my belly and a roof over my head and okay, I've got this. Trust versus mistrust is that first level in Erickson's stages of development, if children get that nurturance that they need, if they, if their caregiver is consistent in their, in responding, pays attention to them, doesn't just sit them in the swing in front of the television all day long, is responsive. When they start crying, caregiver, you know, gets up and pays attention. Empathy and validation to the extent you can with an infant and then generating solutions again, the kid's not going to be able to say, yeah, that, that'll work, Ma. But trying different things. I know there were times when my kids were young that I wasn't sure what was wrong. I'm like, all right, you're not wet, you just ate. You know, let me go through the list of things and try to figure out what might be going on with you in order to try to help you address this issue. Really was grateful once they started talking. But when they have this consistency and responsiveness and just, you know, positive attention, they learn that the ability to interpret, trust and act on their own feelings, which gives them self confidence. They learn that if they cry, somebody's going to help them. Hey, how cool. The world may not be that scary. They develop the belief that others will help fulfill their needs. They develop self reliance. Now this is as they get a little bit older, you know, six months or so, they see a toy they want, they can scooch over and get the toy and they start developing that sense of agency. Or before they can move that much, they may be able to point to the toy and their caregiver will give it to them. And they're like, hey, you know, somebody responded, how cool is that? Comfortable with attention. They're comfortable having people interact with them. They don't feel self conscious. They're not worried about being judged. They have the ability to be alone. Now that doesn't mean, you know, put them in their crib and go shopping or something, but they can, they don't have to be getting attention and directly stimulated 24,7. They can be sitting by themselves, you know, in their high chair while you're cooking dinner or something. And that's okay. They don't crave that stimulation because they've already gotten the attention. So they're not going, I still haven't gotten what I needed. And they tend to be more content. Failure at this stage results in inability to trust their own instincts, urges and feelings. And, and we start seeing this in adult patients too, who never had this ability, who never had, was instructed, were instructed on how to develop emotional intelligence, reliance on Others to tell them what they need. This goes back to that invalidation of the person's feelings and trumping all over their boundaries and saying, I'll tell you what you need and I'll tell you when you need it. Inability to trust others will be supportive. Discomfort with and craving of attention because they didn't get enough. They just, they still haven't had that hole filled. And irritability and anxiety. So again, we see a lot of these symptoms in mood and anxiety disorders and addictions in adult patients. So we need to think, how can we help them learn to trust their own instincts and feelings? Develop the ability to rely on themselves, a sense of self confidence and efficacy, the ability to figure out who they can trust, who else will be supportive and manage their anxiety? And develop a sense of self that doesn't rely on others to say you're okay, which helps assuage those abandonment fears. In the sensory motor stage, children don't yet have object permanence, which is why you can duck up and down behind the, the sofa for 30 minutes playing peekaboo, and the kid just still thinks it's hilarious every time because you disappear in their mind, you're gone. Imagine that. Children don't yet have much of a frame of reference, so they rely a lot on parental feedback. At this point, if caregivers are calm and happy or excited, the child will feel pretty safe. If caregivers are running around like chickens with their heads cut off or completely disengaged, the child won't feel safe. If the caregivers are inconsistent, if they're inattentive, if they're unresponsive. These are all characteristics that create insecure attachment because they're not either not getting any feedback from the parent or the feedback that they're getting is, is scary. It says, hey, you're not safe. And the whole purpose of the caregiver is to keep them safe. Schemas formed during this time rely heavily on were their needs adequately met? If so, if they wanted a toy and their caregiver gave them a toy, if they wanted food, if they were hungry, their caregiver gave them food. You know, their needs were pretty regularly getting met. And I say pretty regularly because like I said, sometimes there are things that the child is crying and you're like, all right, I've gone through the whole checklist and I still don't know what's wrong. But we do our best and we get credit for the couple of times that we miss it. But schemas formed during this time rely Heavily on whether the child feels like if they communicated something that their caregiver would respond. Was I empowered to meet my needs? And parental reactions also impact this. If the caregiver says, I don't have time for you or you know, I'm too busy on my, on my mobile device to pay attention to you, just go, go watch tv. Here, here's, here's an iPad. Go, go do something for a while that communicates a whole different message than a caregiver that is attentive and consistent and not stressed out all the time. Unfortunately, poverty and a history of trauma and all those other things can cause caregivers to be stressed and dysregulated and the whole list of other things. Caregivers who've experienced adverse childhood experiences or attachment trauma often feel insecure themselves, which the child picks up on. The child picks up on this sense that hey, I'm not safe. So we need to help the caregiver figure out how they can help themselves feel safe so they can communicate that to the child. And it, it goes back to that basic Maslow hierarchy. I can make sure that you get your biological needs met, your safety needs met, your love needs met. And that goes a long way to helping the child develop self esteem. When children experience abuse or neglect, even if it's unintentional and I, when I say unintentional, what I'm referring to is the caregiver that is either depressed or anxious and just not able to connect with the child. They don't have the skills and abilities to connect with that child and develop secure attachment and, or the caregiver who is going about doing what they think is very best for the child, but the child's neuro atypical and they're perceiving that as intrusive and painful, that's unintentional harm or pain being caused to the child. But the child still interprets it because they can't communicate with words yet interprets it as painful and that person as stressful. So when that person comes around, it may not be a comfortable thing. Mindful parenting in this, in these stages, be attentive to the baby's cries and cues before they become hysterical. Accept the baby's needs as they are to create a validating environment. You may not think it's cold, but they may think it's cold. Okay? Be consistent, calm yourself before engaging with the child because again, they can pick up on those pheromones and everything else while you're holding them. So do what you can to Remain calm and even if that means like really practicing your breathing while you are walking around with this child that has colic, keep a routine to help set b baby circadian rhythms, including when you feed them, when you play and when they sleep. Not only is it light, but it's also our physical temperature as well as our activities foreign as well as our activities that set our circadian rhythms and try to view the world from the baby's eyes. How must it feel or seem to this child based on their individual characteristics. And this really helps us be more effectively responsive to the child's individual needs. Toddlers and beyond in addition to biological safety, love and belonging needs which you know, we need from the time that we come into this world. The toddler is now developing self esteem. They're starting to figure out I'm lovable for who I am and I am still lovable even with when I make a mistake. Imagine that they're starting to develop develop self efficacy. I'm capable of trying new things and if I make a mistake, my caregiver is there to help me. These are all side effects, if you will, from the consistency, attention, responsiveness, empathy and solutions generation that the caregiver provides. If somebody makes a mistake, you know, you got angry and you threw your toy across the room. All right, that's not a behavior that we're going to reward. So let's talk about it. I'm going to be consistent in my response. I'm not going to ignore it one day and punish it the next day. I'm not going to be overly aggressive and then overly passive. I am going to notice it. Recognizing that behavior is communication. Try to figure out what prompted that behavior. I'm going to be responsive and I'm going to probably say, hey Junior, you know, that's not okay to throw our, throw our toys. Let's talk about what's going on. And depending on the age of the child, if they're two, you're going to talk to them much differently than if they're, you know, five. But it seems like you're really angry right now. Are you angry? And they may say yes. Okay, well what else can we do when we're angry besides throw our toys? Let's make a list or let's think about some things that we could do and that can generating solutions with the young child. Children, you know, two, three, four year olds are not too young to start thinking about things. They're not dumb, they just think differently and they don't have the experiences to draw from and as we help them do this, then they start feeling more confident. So next time Junior gets angry, he has other skills that he can use to express that anger and get some support and responsiveness from caregiver besides throwing his toy across the room. In terms of psychosocial development, the child is developing autonomy versus shame and doubt. Think about toddlers two to three years. Can I do things myself or am I reliant on others? Potty training, dressing themselves, eating, you know, adult food. Those are all things that are really coming out during this time. And they're also developing between four and six years, initiative versus guilt. They start asserting control and power. And I kind of lump these together because in terms of attachment, what we're really wanting to do is support the children in making their decisions, support the children in solving their own problems, not always giving them the answers so they can feel more confident and competent. Overly permissive or overly strict parents can be problematic because overly permissive parents, there are no boundaries. And the child's like, okay, I. I don't know what I. Is anybody going to keep me from walking off the ledge? There's no boundaries here. So children actually do like a certain amount of boundaries because that provides consistency. They know that within this range, the behaviors are acceptable. Overly strict parents, the child's afraid to do anything, so they just sit there and go, okay, well, I'm not going to try to do anything because I always get punished. I'm just, I'm just going to sit here and wait to be told what to do. That develops adults who don't have any initiative, who are afraid to try, who have low frustration tolerance. If there's lack of praise for exploration and experimentation, it can keep the child from feeling safe and accepted because we're saying, no, you can't do that, or that's not safe, or if you don't do what I want, then it's not okay. Conditional regard. So it's important to let them explore. Maybe I wouldn't have put the striped shirt with the polka dot pants, but hey, you know, if you want to do it, that's your, that's your call. And it's up to us as adults to limit their choices. When it's winter, we put winter clothes in their closet and say, okay, you can choose from these. When it's summer, we put summer clothes in their closet so they have a limited range. And that's those boundaries that says, okay, you can choose your own clothes, but we got to choose something that is weather appropriate and they lack emotional intelligence. I've developed another mnemonic. I know, big surprise idea during this stage. Obviously the child is verbal at this point, so we can help them identify their feeling. How do you feel? And stick with the easy ones. Angry, scared, happy, bored. You know, there are a few. So identify the feeling. Help them learn how to downregulate. Okay, let's take a breath. Dragon breathers are wonderful. They're like paper towel tubes with crepe paper taped to the end of them in little strips so the child blows through it and it looks like a dragon breather. Or they can blow bubbles. Either way, that's triggering the vagus nerve because they're taking deep, slow in breaths and slow out breaths trying to do those things. But we want to help them learn how to downregulate, learn how to become aware of their vulnerabilities. So we may say, yeah, I can see you're getting really upset today. You seem, you know, a lot more unhappy today. I'm wondering if it's because you didn't sleep well or did you eat your lunch today because you're acting like your blood sugar might be low. They may not understand all the intricacies of that, but that's starting to help them associate a event with a consequence and then act is the last one. Once they've explored their vulnerabilities, identified the problem, then they need to identify actual how do I improve the next moment? Two to six years, the child is in what Piaget called the pre operational stage. Preschoolers have difficulty discerning truth from fiction, dreams, their imagination. A lot of times they're not lying. They just can't. They're not sure what the difference is. They actually think that there's a monster in their closet or something. For parents, sometimes we can have difficulty empathizing and validating with where what our child is feeling and thinking at that moment. Because, you know, they just watched Monsters Inc. Or something and they think there is a monster in the closet or they feel like there's a monster in the closet instead of telling them, oh, that's just, that's just pretend. How can we empathize with how they feel and validate? Okay, I can see where you might get that. Let's figure out how to tell if there's a monster in your closet right now. And maybe opening the door. For example, preschoolers tend to think in egocentric, centric and dichotomous terms. The way I see the world, the way I perceive the world is the way everybody perceives the world. And it's all or Nothing. It's good or bad, love or hate. There's. There's no middle ground. That's the way they're wired in at this stage. Cognitively, they don't have the ability to really think of multiple different perspectives and stuff. So it's important for us to recognize that and help them develop that emotional intelligence without invalidating them if they are angry about something. All right, I can see where this feels like it's the end of the world. Then how do we help them identify what may be going on with someone else? One of the big things at this age is preschool fights on the playground. You know, somebody does something to somebody else, and then somebody hits somebody else, and it's a whole thing. And my son's teacher, Jessica, used to be great at handling this because she would take both children aside so they didn't have an audience, and she would talk to them, and she would say, okay, tell me what happened. And then she'd have each child try to imagine how the other child felt. And if they couldn't, she'd say, okay, you know, I understand that. How would you feel if Tommy came up and took your ball away from you? And the kid would say, I'd feel angry. Okay, so you can see why Tommy might have gotten angry. And it just helps them recognize and start putting themselves in someone else's shoes. Developing that empathy goes a long way to interpersonal communication later on. But being consistent and attentive and responsive during these years, I remember at a certain point, my mother had to make me stop watching Scooby Doo because it would give me nightmares every single time. But instead of telling me it was no big deal, she did her best to help, you know, demystify it so I felt safe. But since I kept having nightmares, you know, I'd go to sleep and, you know, I'd wake up. She decided, you know what? Right now, it's probably not an okay time for you to be watching Scooby Doo. Maybe in a couple of years you can try watching again. And sure enough, I can watch Scooby Doo now, and it doesn't give me nightmares. Children at this age typically love to play make believe, so we need to find our make believe. A lot of us have lost that. We've lost the ability to imagine ourselves as, you know, fantastical characters or put ourselves into imaginary situations or even do things as simple as having a tea party or something. We've lost our make believe. So find yours, figure out what it looks like, and try to figure out a way to mesh that with your child's, you may not be interested in the same make believe things. Okay, what are, what things are you both interested in? Use Playtime for teaching interpersonal skills like turn taking and communication. Asking them, what do you want to do? Or how about you tell me how to play this game? I know my kids used to make up their own games all the time. I'm like, okay, mommy will play with you, but you need to tell me how to do it. And they would explain it to me. Or if we were pretending we were blasting off in space, I would have them tell me, where are we going? What do we see out that window out there? And I would encourage them to develop imagination and communication as we played. An effective conflict resolution. Stopping an activity when somebody gets upset and resolving the issue, resolving conflict over what to do, choosing an activity or even you can use action figures to sort of role play this out. Let's, let's role play this and see what your action figures would do in this situation. Recognize that what the child is communicating through their play or their art or their behaviors is communication. They're putting out there things that they don't have the words for. If we consistently pay attention, if we interact with their child and we know, you know, what they like, what they don't like, what their triggers are, it's going to be a lot easier for us to be effectively responsive to them. When they are expressing distress through inappropriate or unhelpful behaviors, children often have difficulty putting into words how they feel or what's going on inside. So we can help them learn to identify their feelings and needs. Use the words you're angry, you're sad. I used to go through this with my son. I've got a video of him when he's about two and a half. And I'd say, okay, Sean, tell me what angry looks like. And he says, and I say, tell me what sad looks like. He says, he wasn't a great actor, but he was able to recognize what some of the basic emotions looked like. And so when he started feeling like he was angry, he was able to communicate that. And I remember at one point him walking down the hall at my office saying, I so angry without the R. And just clenching his fist just like he did in the video. And I'm like, okay, let's talk about what's causing that. But then when they can identify their feelings and needs, it's easier to help them figure out ways to solve it. And they can become more aware of the early warning signs of that before they get into the red zone, saying something like, you seem to be getting overwhelmed. What do you need to do right now to help you feel better or help you feel grounded? Whatever word you use at this stage, children use everyday objects in conventional and unconventional ways. So we need to honor their creativity in the right time and place. If they're using a pot from the kitchen as a helmet. Okay. Or they're using pots and spatulas as musical instruments. All right, not my favorite. But honoring their creativity is important. If they're. If you don't have to criticize, consider whether it's necessary. This is my daughter when, obviously she was very young, using one of her purses to carry around a cat and putting a onesie on her dog to help it stay warm, I guess. But she was trying to nurture it. And, you know, Reina didn't look like he was thrilled, and Messi didn't look like he was thrilled either. But they weren't being harmed, and she was doing it out of complete love. So, you know, picking my battles. Preschoolers also love to ask questions, both to learn facts as well as to learn how to interact with others. So we need to be recognized. Not getting impatient when somebody says, mommy, why is the sky blue? Mommy, why do dogs bark? Mommy this? It's like, oh, my gosh, ask Alexa. We didn't have Alexa back then. But not getting impatient because that's their curiosity. They want to know about this world that you've been living in forever and they've only been living in for like two years. We want to help children learn how to answer their own questions with scaffolding. Instead of giving them the answer, say, okay, what do you think? How would you figure out that answer? Why the sky is blue. I used to love the Cat in the Hat. Knows a lot about that. The Cat in the Hat learning series. Lots of little books that explain basic concepts. And so we spent a lot of time at the library, and I'd say, okay, we want to figure out about that. Let's go to the library and Helping children learn to self regulate in mutual conversations. When they're asking questions and they're just, you know, interrogating you, at a certain point, you want to turn the questions back or ask them. You know, use some Socratic questioning to get them to start providing some answers and also providing some of your own opinions in there so they learn about turn taking in terms of mindful parenting at this age, encourage children and your and yourself to explore and experiment what you like, what you're interested in praise your children and yourself for trying, even if you fail with kids. I love the book the Little Critter just for you, because little critter just, he tries to do a bunch of things and he's trying to be nice and he's trying to do right, but it just doesn't end up quite how he expected. But his mother appreciated the effort anyway. Reassure children and yourself that you're loved as you are. You can do this by creating an all about me book using lots of adjectives. I mean, obviously this is for, for children. You know, let's do a page on showing how you're helpful, kind, polite, creative, energetic, determined, good at whatever. So they have this book that's all about me, and it focuses on things that are intrinsic to them, not just what they do, like I'm good at baseball, but that they are kind and they're giving and they're creative things that are, you know, just who they are. And include a section for good or nice things that the child has done. So every time they do something really sweet, you can make a little note of it in there. So they can go back when they're having a bad moment and look and go, you know, I'm pretty okay. Be aware of your opinions and how you endorse them to prevent unintended consequences, especially in this age of dichotomous thinking. If they like something that you don't like and you say, and I, I just don't see the point, then they may feel like, oh, well, maybe that's not okay. So recognizing those boundaries and saying, all right, you love it, that's great. Not my thing, but more power to you. I'd love to see you enjoy it. Practice family mindfulness at breakfast, after school, and at bedtime. What are the best and worst things that happened today? You can pay attention to non verbal and verbal cues to help the child label their feelings. Use feeling words and pictures when you're talking about the best and worst things of the day. Help children learn to identify sensations, urges, and feelings associated with emotions. So if you go around the table saying how you feel, you know, why do you feel that way? Tell me, what are the sensations, urges, and feelings that are causing you to use that label or what's triggering that right now? Teach children to check in with themselves periodically and help them learn to tolerate emotions. Sometimes you just gotta sit with them and that can be frustrating. But helping children learn that I can be angry and not it won't consume me is really important. And we do that by modeling it for our children. And by sitting with them, you know, while they're trying to tolerate that distress, we can sort of sit there and be their reinforcements while they're waiting. In terms of mindful parenting, provide instructions objectively and pictorially to enhance effectiveness. I would clean my kid's room to what I determined was clean, and I would take a picture of it, and I would put it on the back of their door. And when they were supposed to clean their room, when they were doing it, they needed to make sure that it looked relatively like the picture when they were finished, because we had very different opinions of what clean looked like. Try to only provide one task at a time and start encouraging empathy during this period. When you're watching a show, how do you think that Dora felt when this happened? Or how do you think that Bugs Bunny fell? Whatever you're watching, or after a disagreement with another child, how do you think that you would have felt if Sammy would have done this to you? So, again, the child starts learning how to develop empathy and using scaffolding to assist with problem solving and efficacy. First, when there's a problem, say, okay, you know, there's this person at school that's being really mean to you. What do you think it is causing that? You know, talk about that. What do you think would help that person stop doing that? What do you think you could do? And had the child brainstorm, and then you can make suggestions. Well, what if you tried this? Or what if you tried this? You can ask probing questions. What was happening right before Sally got angry and stormed off? Or what was happening right before you started feeling anxious in your tummy? My. My son used to get really stressed out about school and going to school because he had adhd, and it was really hard for him to be still and quiet all day. And at a certain point, he just would, you know, drag and drag and drag and not want to go to school. And he wouldn't eat breakfast. And I'm like, what? Tell me what's going on? And he says, I've got carnotaurus in my tummy. And I said, okay, carnotaurus are a type of dinosaur. What. What's putting the carnotaurus in your tummy? Why are they there? And we talked about it using his verbiage instead of saying, why are you anxious? You know, that's a lesson for a different time. All right, you've got carnotaurus. What's causing that? Use demonstrations. This is how you do it. Now you try use props, like a poster that has different pictures on with the different steps, provide support to them, discuss the plan. How are we going to go about building this doghouse? And offer encouragement. Tying shoes is the best example of scaffolding. When children learn to tie their shoes, that's a multi step process. And most kids, you can't show it to them once and they've got it. You show it to them the first time, they're like, okay. And then they put their shoe on and they're holding the laces going, what do I do? And so you're like, okay, first step is to crisscross and let them do that. All right, what's the next thing we do? And they may say, make the bunny ear or whatever you call it. Or they may go, I don't know. But you let them do as much as they can up to the point that they get stuck. And then you provide nudging and assistance the rest of the way. You don't take it over and go, okay, let me just finish it for you. You, you say, okay, let's talk about what's the next step. The more they talk about it, the easier it will be to actually integrate it as knowledge. In middle and high school, children are developing industry and identity. They're learning what they're good at and who they are. It's a time of exploration physically, recreationally, academically and socially. There are differences between physical development and peers and, and lots of hormones just all over the place and a lot of desire to fit in. They're trying to decide who they are, their identity. They're also trying to cut that umbilical cord, if you will, and become more independent. For parents, we can have challenges allowing secure attachments with others because parents start to feel left out. We may have challenges understanding increasing conflict as an effective individuation. Children are going to start pushing boundaries, and that is part of the individuation process. Setting and maintaining consistent limits and rules with rationales can help with this. But again, it's, it's difficult. We need to really be cognizant of what we're doing. We have the challenge of negotiating increased responsibility. Okay, you want this privilege? Well, you need to take on this additional responsibility here. We need to be authentic and empathetic. Even during disagreements. When they tell us, you know, you are the worst person ever, you ruin my life. Okay, all right, so let me be empathetic and see how from their perspective, it may feel at the moment like I ruined their life. And how can I engage with them without getting defensive Modeling emotional regulation and distress Tolerance, that's always a challenge for people. Parents are not. We need to remember just as we did when they were young as teenagers and older, to give praise, not just to respond when there's a problem. We need to help them learn how to prevent vulnerabilities, which means turning off the computer and getting some slee sleep. Sustaining a goal directed partnership with your children. I want you to be happy and healthy and fulfill your potential. You want probably something similar to that, but also to a lot of children want to be grown before they're actually chronologically grown. So how can we work together to meet our mutual goals? I know you're safe, but you don't feel smothered. And we need to work to ensure children know that we're supportive in spirit. Even if I'm not literally at your side. If you're having to give a speech at school and you're terrified I'm going to be thinking of you. Children need different things at different developmental stages due to their cognitive capabilities as well as their psychosocial needs. When children don't get these things met, they miss out on developing essential skills or for emotion regulation and mental health, which leads to stress related illnesses. And it's just a whole cascade. As if we're working with adults who have attachment trauma. We need to go back and figure out what things they missed along the way because they didn't have secure attachment and help them develop a secure attachment with themselves so they know as an adult they can count on themselves to meet their basic needs. The key to attachment is creating an environment in which children and people feel safe, loved and accepted unconditionally. Now I'm saying people, not their behaviors, but people feel safe, loved and accepted and cares. Remember stands for consistency in attending to children, to others and in your messages, your rules and your responses. Attention in a positive and meaningful proactive way. Responsiveness to help people identify emotions and self regulate. Empathy and validation of other people's thoughts and feelings as well as our own thoughts and feelings. And generation of solutions to solve the problems that caused the distress that you were responding to. Thank you all for being here with me today. This is one of my favorite topics as you all know. Are there any questions?