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Health & Fitness

Secure Parenting: The Antidote to the Helicopter Parent

Want to raise emotionally secure children who become emotionally secure adults?

My last blog talked about the phenomenon of helicopter or lawn mower parenting.  A parenting style that takes the saying, "I'll do anything for my child" literally, actually calling college professors to negotiate grades and employers to negotiate salaries.  Research shows this has led to entitled, dependent, and unhappy adults, which is the opposite of a parent's goal when they have children. The goal of a parent is to raise happy, healthy, and productive kids who become independent and self sufficient adults. Adults who are emotionally secure.

To raise children into these types of adults requires a shift in parenting styles.  Although it is common for all parents to feel as though they would do anything for their child and want to give them the world, the reality is if you want to raise emotionally healthy children forming a secure bond and being emotionally attuned to your children/adolescent will help them become self sufficient adults. How can you, the parent, foster the best outcomes for your child? The following article is a brief educational overview of what constitutes a secure environment, what it is and how to foster it.

What is Attachment Theory?

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John Bowlby was the founder of attachment theory.  He discovered it is the quality of attachment that is the foundation upon which children build their sense of self and determines the way they relate to others throughout life.  A sense of well-being for the child emerges from predictable and repeated experiences of care creating a 'secure base' from which the child can develop and explore the world around them.

How to foster a secure base:

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The key to stimulating emotional and intellectual growth in your child is your own parenting behavior. When you understand the hardware (your child's brain), you will be better able to design the software (your own behavior) to promote your child's well-being. How your child's brain grows is directly influenced by social experiences with caring and responsive adults.

Research has found that parents need to tune into their infant's constantly changing emotional states and hold up a virtual mirror to them as they develop. This very often tends to be an unconscious parental response whereby the parent identifies the infant's feelings and accurately labels them. 

Scenario between toddlers: Charlie picks up a train that David has been playing with. David throws himself on the ground screaming.

Which response do you think is most attuned to the child?

A: "Stop screaming David, you have to learn to share"
B: "Oh be a good boy David and share your train, please."
C: "I can see how frustrated you are! Charlie has taken the train! Let's find something else to play with."

For attunement, the parent is reponding to the child ideally at the child's level, looking them in the eye, with matching facial expression, tone of voice, timing and intensity. In this way, the child feels understood. If a young person has enough of these "attuned" responses, a secure attachment or base is built for the child. 

Note, the attuned response for the above scenarios would be C.

What gets in the way of providing a "secure base"?

Consistently responding empathically is sometimes easier said than done. If we, the parent, are troubled or distracted by external events from simple events such as getting to an appointment on time to more complex events such as worrying about financial pressures, we are potentially going to miss opportunities to "tune in" to our child. No one can provide attuned communication all the time, a child needs just "enough" caring and responsive parenting to thrive. When a child doesn't feel understood, little things can become big issues. When a child feels understood, they have a sense that they are not alone in the world, that they are connected with something bigger than themselves.

Another barrier to attunement, are events from your own childhood that can affect how you parent in the present. Accordingly, it is helpful to consciously reflect on what you want and don't want to pass on to your children from your childhood experiences.

How secure attachment assists brain development

Babies are born with approximately 200 billion brain cells which have very few connections between the cells in the higher brain. Connections made are largely responsible for the emotional and social intelligence, which is where you the parent can have so much influence.

Ninety percent of the growth of the brain occurs in the first five years of life (and slows down around 7 years). In the first few years of life, because your child's higher rational brain is so unfinished, their lower brain will be in the driver's seat. This means the emotional systems and primitive impulses in the lower brain can overwhelm your child and they cannot regulate their emotions by themselves because their higher brain is not developed enough to do so.

Cortisol is a hormone released under stress. It is produced by the adrenal glands when a child is feeling threatened and unsafe. So, when a little person is genuinely distressed, they need your help to calm down. With enough emotionally responsive parenting (note not all the time), vital connections will form in their brain, that will eventually mean they can calm themselves.

Holding and soothing your child will bring down their cortisol levels and activate a more positive chemistry in their brain. Taking the time to imagine how it feels for them and then putting those feelings into words will help. They will feel understood and feel more safe. By lowering cortisol and creating a warm, secure and loving environment for your child, naturally occurring positive neurochemicals, oxytocin and opiods will be released making your child feel calm, safe and warm inside. Through experiencing these neurochemical states on a regular basis, your child will start to greet the world with interest and wonder, rather than with a sense of fear and threat.

Once a secure base is formed as children grow they have the confidence and security to explore the world and test the waters. Parents are their guides to keep them safe and teach them how to navigate and negoitiate life's hurdles. When mistakes are made, a secure parenting base allows the child to come back and feel safe to work through issues and learn from mistakes. It is not the eliminating of all obstacles in their way that allows them to grow and learn the skills they need, it is being there to help them figure it out themselves ... in an age appropriate manner. A secure parenting style allows children to realize their parents will always be there for them because they believe enough in the child that they allow them to take risks and the child is confident in their abilities. This secure bond is safe, loving, caring, nuturing, and lets children, of all ages, know they can always rely on their parents because their parents believe in them.

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