When our children need connection and are acting out to get it, it’s a surefire way to know that they are also dysregulated. When we are regulated and feeling good about life, we behave accordingly and will often not be compulsively seeking the attention of others. Although we all understand that we can be physiologically dysregulated and act out of that, we forget that dysregulation can come from psychological reasons as well. For all of us, feeling lonely or anxious about something also causes dysregulation and the remedy for that isn’t food or sleep, but connection. We need to meet that need for connection the way we would by providing food or sleep if the problem is physiological.
If you think about how you feel when you’re feeling anxious about something, you may need some time with your partner or a friend to help calm you.
Before that time, you may be snappy or distracted or any number of other behaviours. I would imagine that if your loved ones insisted you address your snappiness or distractibility before they offered that time with you, it wouldn’t help you in the moment. In fact, it might make it worse.
This is because it puts the connection we need as conditional. And that connection needed comes from a place of love and love can never be conditional.
What does this mean for us as parents? It means when we see these dysregulated behaviours and we know our children are looking to be with us, we need to meet them there. We need to set aside our ideas of teaching lessons and just be with them as they need us. Maybe – just maybe – there’s a time to talk about specific behaviours later and a space to teach them a different way to ask for us, but really, when our kids are young, we need to just be there for them. That is what love and connection is about.
Originally published here.
Tracy Cassels, PhD is the Director of Evolutionary Parenting, a science-based, attachment-oriented resource for families on a variety of parenting issues. In addition to her online resources, she offers one-on-one support to families around the world and is regularly asked to speak on a variety of issues from sleep to tantrums at conferences and in the media. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada with her husband and two children.
