Have you ever experienced being in a room full of people, and still felt very alone? Whether it’s at a wedding where we don’t know anybody, or the mall where we are out shopping “by ourselves”, most of us have had the experience of feeling isolated even though there are people all around us. What this tells us is that when it comes to feeling alone, there seems to be something else going on beyond whether people are physically present or not. Indeed, two factors that can decrease loneliness and increase a sense of connection with someone are intellectual and emotional understanding. When we feel like others really get what we are thinking, understand what we are okay with and what we are not okay with, what we are feeling and why, we feel more connected with them. Similarly, if we understand these same things about someone else and what is going on for them, we feel more connected with them. The more we understand each other, the more connected we feel. Perhaps that helps explain why we might feel so lonely in a sea of strangers at a wedding or a mall.
When it comes to children, attachment science invites us to think about how much our beloved, tiny humans depend on the adults around them for survival. Children don’t often know how to apply for a mortgage, regulate their emotions, or make a dinner that offers the balanced kind of nutritious fuel that their growing bodies need (heck, I feel like I’m still learning how to do these things!). They need our help to learn how. Put simply, without us, our children aren’t going to make it. This is why all of us are born with an innate drive to seek connection with our caregivers. When children feel connected with us they feel more safe to navigate the harrows of the world. They feel safer to explore it more independently knowing that we are there to assist them with whatever challenges come up. However, when children feel alone in relationship with us, and disconnected from whom they depend on for survival, this is more than just uncomfortable. It cues danger. Their frontal lobe- the part of the brain right behind the forehead that is responsible for logical thinking, intentionality, and perspective taking- starts to go offline. The body’s built in protective mechanisms of fight, flight, freeze, and/or submit are activated instead. A temper tantrum, becoming quiet and shutting down, or escaping into video games might reflect more than just the boredom on online learning. These behaviours might reflect a deeper layer of feeling alone with their boredom and what to do about it, and this can be scary.
We can’t control everything, but one thing we do have in our control is supporting our children to feel connected with us. Then they can keep their frontal lobes online and in a position to hear the advice we have for them, and increasingly learn how to navigate life on their own. So how do we connect? Here are a few options to try that have helped me increase a sense of intellectual and emotional understanding between myself and my children:
• Ask questions. Curiosity is a powerful way to learn more about what is happening. It also sends a very comforting message to our child that they are important enough to us that we would bother to ask.
• Be specific. The general “How was your day?” can feel overwhelming for a little brain that is trying to filter out what happened and prioritize what the important bits are to share. Something more specific like “What did you do at first break?” might feel a little more manageable.
• Ask follow up questions. I find myself having to be careful not to quickly jump from subject to subject. Then it starts to feel like I’m being annoying and asking too many questions. Trying to understand one topic a little more deeply can feel like you are really trying to get to know me more meaningfully. “What was it about playing Yugio cards at first break that was so fun for you?”
• Take guesses. Ever gotten the classic one word answer and felt totally
stonewalled? Don’t worry, you’re not out of options. Taking some specific guesses can act like cognitive “scaffolding” to help kids put the words to their experience, so that then they can tell you about it. “Was Yugio fun because you discovered a new cool card, or was it just fun to hang out with your friends, or..?”
• Ask about feelings. Do you notice wanting to immediately exit this blog just now? Haha. If so, you’re not alone. There isn’t a lot of opportunity in our culture to learn how to regulate emotions, and it can feel scary to ask about something we don’t feel very familiar with ourselves. I want to offer you the reassurance that just asking about feelings is very powerful. It sends the message that our child’s emotional experience is important to us, that we value them, and just that in itself helps them feel safer, and therefor, more at ease. If you know how they’re feeling and why, then you have more control over knowing what it is they need. If now you know how they’re feeling and you can’t figure out why, you can always say “I’m not sure what to say right now, but I’m really glad you told me.”
• Ask them what the solution is. Once they feel more understood and connected with us, and thus have their frontal lobes more online, I actually find children are really good at finding a solution all on their own. As a bonus, asking what they think we should do about a problem sends that same powerful message that they are important enough to us that we would bother to try and understand their ideas, and this is soothing. I remember a time I used the above skills to eventually discover that my child was afraid because they believed there were monsters under the bed. Now that my child felt understood and less alone with the problem, their frontal lobe lit up and they easily came to the solution of asking the dog to protect them at night. After all, the dog could use their elite senses of smell and hearing to detect danger before the rest of us could. Hey, if that worked for them, it worked for me. Haha.
How could I say the things I have here without including a disclaimer that I do not use these skills perfectly, or even when I want to. I get overwhelmed with my children. Sometimes I go straight to logic and giving directives, while other times I literally throw my hands up and walk away. Sometimes I shut off the tv program they’re watching, take the remotes, remove the batteries, and start planning when I can take them to the dump for safe disposal- without any exploration of why they aren’t listening to me, nor any explanation of what I am currently doing about it. Haha. It’s also true that sometimes I feel like I use these skills beautifully and they still don’t work. The main purpose of this blog is to offer you some options. I’ll invite you to experiment with them in different situations, make them your own, and see if there is anything useful about them for you. I will continue doing this myself, and whenever I notice asking “Why aren’t you listening to me?”, I will try to wonder if my child might be asking the same question about me.
