Connection Not Perfection Is the Secret to Raising Secure Kids

Posted On May 02, 2021 |

Mindful Attachment Parenting is built upon evidence-based models to help you stay present and connected to your children for a secure bond.


Finding and keeping your parenting zen can be hard

Everyone knows keeping your parenting zen can be hard. But the Mindful Attachment Parenting approach, also known as the Zen Mommy MAP, teaches you how to make it a whole lot easier. Applying mindfulness to parenting means you maintain a non-judgmental awareness of your relationship with yourself and your children. It is the foundational element because parenting mindfully is all about connection. And staying connected to your inner zen is a lot simpler with a robust self-care routine that includes mindfulness exercises. Because if you are feeling disconnected and exhausted it can be a rough road as a parent. And to parent mindfully you need to cultivate your inner witness.


Your inner witness is like an unbiased narrator of the story of your life as it unfolds

This requires that we learn to be in touch with what is present inside and outside of us, in any given moment. And it sets the stage for being able to narrate and slow things down when your little one is emotionally escalating. As soon as things get tense, you can switch from inner narration to narrating out loud. Because narrating what you are noticing, thinking and feeling helps to regulate your emotions and your child’s too. And all of the parts of Mindful Attachment Parenting are like different muscles that need to be “worked out” so that the whole body is strong. In time, you will be able to effortlessly pause in between what is happening in the moment and how you handle it.

Being able to find your inner pause button is key

This is the difference between being able to thoughtfully respond versus just reacting in a difficult parenting moment. It all depends upon which part of your brain is running the show. The amygdala is the part of our brain that gets activated during stress. Known as the fight, flight, or freeze mechanism, this is like the body’s stress alarm system. But our stress receptors cannot always distinguish between real or imagined dangers. And sometimes our stress response gets triggered by events that are not actually life-threatening. Like when you start reacting to your toddler spilling juice all over the car, in the same way you would react if you were being chased by a lion. Pausing and taking a deep breath works because oxygen cues the amygdala to calm down. We all get triggered as parents but we can find our inner pause pause button and mindfully reconnect.

You can rewire your brain to parent more mindfully

Mindful Attachment Parenting is built upon evidence-based models that are grounded in neuroscience. Dr. Dan Siegel, a renowned psychiatrist in the field of neuroscience, describes what a parent’s brain is like on mindfulness. He explains that we may “flip our lids” during stressful parenting situations. In those moments we are reacting from what he calls the “downstairs” brain or the reptilian brain responsible for our survival instincts. Once we lose the connection to our “lid” or prefrontal cortex (“upstairs brain”), logical thought is blocked. But we can use mindfulness to get our “upstairs” brain back online. And by modeling for our children how to mindfully turn off that stress alarm, calmer heads can prevail. It happens through the process of co-regulation, which can help rewire your brain and keep you in calm connection with your child. This is an example of how you could use narration to co-regulate:

“Mommy is having big feelings right now, and she is taking deep breaths to calm down so she can help you calm down too (demonstrate several 8-10 count belly breaths).”


Self-regulation for coregulation is your inroad to family zen

It is important to remember that the first step of co-regulation is self-regulation. Mindfulness helps you to really know yourself. By learning to observe your thoughts, emotions and body sensations, your self-awareness grows. Being curious about what messages they may be offering allows you to really “hear” yourself in a meaningful way. This feedback is so valuable! The MAP method helps you to learn to identify the who, what, where, when, and why of your triggers. And the trick is to link the triggering incident in the present to unfinished business from your past. By reflecting on this, you access your “upstairs brain” and you can respond mindfully. In fact, this is what we call the “inner work.” When we take responsibility for what is unresolved within us, it does not get passed down to our children through mirror neurons.

The eyes have it

Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that fire when you perform or see someone perform an action. When we watch someone help an elderly person carry groceries, for example, the same mirror neurons fire in our brain, as if we were doing it ourselves. And of course eye contact is how you bond with your baby while those neurons are firing from all the coos of love. Clearly, mirror neurons play a profound role in our ability to attune to our children’s mental and emotional states. But when we are emotionally triggered, we become preoccupied. In this state, we are unable to stay mindfully connected and they start soaking up our old psychic stuff. Because their brains read our facial expressions, which evoke the same emotions we are feeling within them. As a result, being reflective makes all the difference in what our children inherit psychologically from us.



In order to parent mindfully we have to be reflective

Mindful Attachment Parenting helps us to attune to what our children are needing emotionally, which builds secure attachments through a “felt” connection. Being attuned to and responsive to your children makes them feel secure that their needs will get met. But, we have to regulate our own emotions first. The ability to do this requires the skill of reflective functioning, which is the process of reflecting upon why something is triggering you. It is asking the question: “What do I know about this?” By taking these steps, the past can be healed because you are making meaning out of it. The objective is to use reflective functioning to do the inner work necessary to heal unfinished business from your own childhood. Then, you will be more present with your children and turning stressful times into teachable moments is so much easier!

Mindful Attachment Parenting is all about connection not perfection!

This is where the “rubber meets the road” in Mindful Attachment Parenting. What do you do on a really bad day when you are drowning in mama drama? Those days and moments in life are a big part of why we regularly practice mindfulness, positive self-talk, gratitude and self-care. So that the quality of our lives and parenting is better and so that our practice pays off for the big game. In the parenting game, the goal is for secure attachments and a win-win end result to stress and conflict. With the “win” being emotional regulation, connection, coregulation and learning from difficult situations.  And by having compassion for ourselves and our children we stay connected instead of being preoccupied with the illusion of needing to be perfect—and that is what really builds a secure bond!

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Categories: Holistic Psychology, Mindful Attachment Parenting

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