Parents: it’s time to talk attachment. I’m not just talking baby bonding here but solid parent-child attachment right through to the teens. A significant shift is happening that is undermining kids’ attachment at its roots. Attachment energy is shifting from parents to peers and this is not an emotionally safe world for our kids to wade in.
When my daughter was young we had behaviour problems to navigate that were a bit beyond us, so I took it to my GP who referred me to the youth mental health service. I went there, cap in hand, ready to confess the lot. All the wretched details of the blow-ups, the melt downs and troubling behaviours we had no idea what to do with. I was expecting warmth, empathy, support – and ultimately some help. Instead I got something else: blame.
From the first days with my new baby, huddled with others in my Plunket group, mothers would whisper nervously, “It’s all very well now…but what about when they’re teenagers?!” Nothing gets we parents in a pickle more. There is a universal dread of this life-stage that strikes chills into the hearts of every Mum and Dad. But what is it about teens that we are so afraid of? I believe it’s this thing called Counterwill.
Are you in a pickle about your bossy, demanding, controlling, opinionated, resistant, strong-willed child? You’re not alone. Many of us have had to contend with kids who refuse to do what we tell them and refuse to take any advice, direction or instruction from us. Yet confusingly, underneath it all, they seem more needy and vulnerable than the average child.
As adults, we often turn to therapies that allow us to release our emotions by talking them through. For children, this is not a natural way of releasing their feelings. They lack the language or the understanding to express their emotion in words. Play, however, is fully functional in children from a very young age and courses through them, simply bursting to find its way out.
Parenting can be an island paradise with the potential to nourish and feed us with all its amazingness or we can resent its reality. Parenting complex and challenging kids leaves us with plenty to resent. More so than the average parent, we are beset with tantrums, school issues, behavioural challenges and our child’s ongoing health issues. Resentment feels like the more sane response than that annoying sentiment…gratitude?!
Any of us living with teens would be quick to tell you that the mood swings, the dramatic statements and the sometimes worrying behaviours seem a little off the scale compared to how we behaved when we were young. Is this normal? The fact is, when living with teens you’re bound to hit a bit of turbulence. They’re attracted to risk. They’re distracted from school. They’re prone to latching on to risky peer groups and they push back against the help and guidance we are wanting to give them.
Parental guilt seems to be an inevitable and unenviable burden we carry as parents whether we want to or not...It's exhausting worrying so much of the time about another human being, and inevitably it leads to stress, which can lead to more regrettable behaviour all over again. So what should we do with all this parental guilt and shame?
