Building a Strong Relationship with My Child
It wasn’t what I envisioned–it’s better, and more real
When I became a parent, I really wanted to have a strong bond with my son. I’d been raised using an authoritarian approach, and I had painful memories of feeling alone and “not understood” at times, especially in my teens. I definitely knew I wanted to leave behind strict or harsh parenting methods, and so when I found the parenting books on attachment parenting, I excitedly thought, “This is it!”. I knew it was what I wanted to do and I read everything I could find on the topic.
I imagined a loving, deeply connected and cooperative relationship with my son, in which I didn’t need to use punishments or threats. However, by the time we got to the preschool years, I was already stuck.
My son wouldn’t cooperate and I didn’t know what to do.
Here’s what I learned
Conflict still happens in connected parenting. In my beginning attempts to learn a new approach, I was trying to keep everyone happy and content. In hindsight, I also realize that I was uncomfortable with conflict. I think I believed (without consciously realizing it) that it was possible to avoid conflict. But ultimately what happened was that trying to keep everyone happy left me irritated because my expectations were too high, and it interfered with my ability to set limits.
Connected parenting doesn’t mean we’re all happy all the time. Using a connected approach can lead to more peaceful parenting and a calmer home overall–and I’ve experienced that.
Rather, staying connected means I’m practicing (imperfectly) to stay connected and accepting of all feelings, no matter whether they’re joyful or painful.
That sounds embarrassingly obvious to me now, but I didn’t really get that at first. I had an unrealistic vision of what my family life would look like.
Family conflict didn’t mean I was failing. I often felt like I was failing when I’d lose my patience, or when my child was upset or having a tantrum. And sometimes that led to my being reluctant to set limits.
But I wasn’t failing. Moments of disconnection or conflict will always occur.
Over the years, I’ve learned to:
- repair after conflict and reconnect, and
- tend to my own anxiety (or fear, or other painful emotions) when they arise, so that I don’t give in to my child’s demands just because of my discomfort with painful feelings or my fear of disconnection.
Inability to feel my feelings was a huge barrier to setting healthy boundaries and limits. One of the biggest challenges I encountered as I was learning these skills was my inability to feel some of my feelings. It was hard to know how and when to set limits when I couldn’t feel the sensations and signals from my body, and I hadn’t yet started to heal my own wounds around rejection and disconnection.
I knew it was important to set limits and teach my son appropriate behaviour so we could have some peace and cooperation in our home. I also wanted him to have the skills to cope in the world, but I wanted to avoid emotionally wounding him and stay connected in the process.
I was often floundering as I tried to figure out how to keep my connection with my son, while also setting limits. I didn’t realize it at the time, but in hindsight I had some fear that if he esd upset with me, we’d become disconnected and perhaps stay that way. Again, that’s not really rational when I read it on the page, but I know it was a subconscious factor driving my behavior at the time.
I finally discovered somatic healing work, and that helped me connect with my intuitive knowing so I could set clear limits.
Somatic work has been a game changer for me. After years of trying many different types of healing work, somatic work was the key in helping me improve my ability to stay present with difficult emotions (my own, my child’s and my husband’s), and to set limits.
Prior to that, I often waffled on setting limits because when my son got upset, I’d think, “What the heck! This isn’t a big enough deal to make him upset over it”. So I’d give in. But more importantly, I had a hard time even connecting with my intuitive knowing in the first place, and feeling clear about the limit I wanted to set.
As I learned to stay present with my painful emotions in a way that was comforting for myself (instead of blaming or trying to change others)–it became easier to find my own solutions that were aligned for both me and my child. That’s because I was able to attune to myself and my child. For instance, now I usually *just know* when I need to set a limit and what to say. It’s less something I think about, and more something I just know deep inside is the right decision, and I just do it. I feel strong and grounded in the decision.
It’s a transformation that started inside of me, and feels real and authentic. I can feel the connection to myself and my child.
Our relationship feels great, but not in the way I expected
At the outset, I had had kind of a fantasy, perfectionist vision of how our relationship would be, and I was worried and frustrated when it didn’t happen. But once I began to learn more skills for connecting, it turned out even better than I expected. Our relationship feels connected and more real, in that there’s room for all the emotions, not just the pleasant ones. I’m also noticing that my son has now learned these connection and conflict resolution skills in his interactions with me. I see him using them in his other relationships, by respecting others’ feelings and resolving conflicts with them.
Overall, it is more peaceful in our home as a result, despite still having some conflicts, because I’m getting better at bringing empathy for myself and my son to each interaction. And the bonus? After I’ve allowed and accepted our painful feelings to express themselves and we’ve resolved the conflict, my innate joy tends to bubble up spontaneously. Our happiness returns.
