Author: Rebecca Thompson Hitt

“My daughter is manipulating me!” “He did that to me on purpose just to make me mad!” “I’m the parent, and he needs to listen to what I say!” Phrases like these are common among parents, and they are remnants of another age in which we did not fully understand brain development and what is really going on in the

My son bared his teeth and moved his head in toward mine so that our foreheads nearly touched. For a split second, I thought he was going to bang into my head. With that realization dawning, I decided he was being playful and just moving in to kiss me. I reached toward him and kissed him. He then smiled and

Referring to neurophysiologic feedback loops, the word ‘neurophysiologic’ is important here because we can recognize that we aren’t just communicating with our words, but also with our thoughts and our feelings. The work of the Heartmath Institute out of Boulder Creek, CA helps us to understand that our bodies are constantly communicating to one another, especially through our hearts. According

When our child does something, literally anything, we parents make connections, both consciously and unconsciously, to things that happened in our past. Memory doesn’t work in a linear fashion; in our brain, something that happened this morning may not take precedence over something that happened to us when we were five. In other words, our brain may time travel with

Earned secure attachment is a designation given to someone with an insecure attachment who integrates his or her history into a coherent narrative and works through the negative issues from the past. One way to integrate is to tell the stories of your life in connection with someone who cares for you, sharing your thoughts, your feelings, and staying connected to

Trauma has a profound impact on a person’s ability to attach, particularly if the trauma occurs early in life and more so if the trauma is a relational trauma–a trauma that occurs with someone who is supposed to love and care for this person. When a caregiver is abusive or very inconsistent, many times it means she hasn’t become aware of

The more we had our early needs met, the more our own children will develop optimally. The more difficulty our parents had meeting our needs when we were young children, or the more difficulty they had navigating discipline with us, the more difficulty we are likely to have parenting our own children. If we did not experience unconditional love and

• Attachment is the forming of a special, enduring “emotional” relationship with a specific person (in childhood, this is usually the mother, though it can be the father, partner, grandmother or grandfather, or other special person). • Attachment is about the child’s behaviors to create connection with the parent. • Bonding is about the parent’s behaviors to create a connected

John Bowlby’s research was the first to look at the importance of special human relationships called attachment relationships: the relationships we have in our earliest years and through which our brains are actually organized. Even though we don’t remember these relationships, the care we received or didn’t receive, along with how our parents (or other caregivers) felt about our care, our

Research has shown that we need consistent, loving care from at least one special person who is attuned to our needs in our early years. For example, we need to be held frequently, because in our early years, we learn best through physical touch (and how that person feels when they are close to us) rather than any words someone