Articles by our team

Attachment Rich Parenting: Could Tantrums be an Opportunity to Connect with your Child?
by Maree Gergich - Provisional Psychologist, ​BSc, BSc-Psych(Hons), GDipPsych​
April 2020

​As adults, it’s easy to forget what it was like to be a child.  

Imagine having a developing brain that is constantly learning and making sense of a strange adult world…

Imagine being entirely dependent on the adults around you to get your needs met…  

Imagine feeling emotions so strongly but not having the tools to regulate these emotions…
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What a bewildering world children live in! And yet, adults often place unrealistic expectations on children, assuming that they are able to make sense of the world in the same way that they can. 

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The Developing Brain and Attachment-Based Parenting

The pre-frontal cortex, often regarded as the “rational brain” in adults, is responsible for decision making, planning, self-control, regulating emotions, self-understanding, empathy and morality.  Children’s pre-frontal cortexes are developmentally immature compared to those within an adult’s brain, and don’t fully develop until aged 25 years.  This means that children (and even teens) are more impulsive and have reduced capacity for self-control until their brains mature more over time.
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Despite what we know about the developing brain, common parenting approaches can at times be too focussed on an adult’s wants or expectations, rather than a child’s underlying needs. However, the optimal function of a primary caregiver (or ‘attachment figure’) is to be sensitive to a child’s needs in order to provide protection, guidance with emotional regulation and encouragement. Children are born with an innate sense to seek out and rely on their attachment figures in order to survive and get their physical and emotional needs met. A child’s healthy and secure attachment with their primary caregiver is essential for promoting emotion regulation and is crucial for optimal brain development. Until a child’s brain matures, it is ideal to be patient, compassionate, guiding and effectively ‘lend’ them our pre-frontal cortex until a child’s brain matures.

Tantrums

If you have witnessed your child throw a tantrum in public, you will probably be familiar with the overwhelming need to do whatever you can possibly do to end the tantrum immediately and avoid that all-too-familiar parent embarrassment. Before you reach into your toolbox of discipline strategies, it’s helpful consider the fact that tantrums are normal and outside of a child’s conscious control. When a child’s brain becomes overwhelmed by emotions, it is incapable of maintaining self-control. Their immature pre-frontal cortex means they are unable to express emotions verbally and self-regulate. However, Mother Nature has given children an in-built physiological mechanism to release their emotional overload – the dreaded tantrum. Research into attachment highlights that in times of distress (ie during a tantrum), children benefit from being soothed by their caregivers as they don’t have the capacity to self-soothe. As such, tantrums are an ideal opportunity for parents to connect with and deepen the trust with their child. 

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​Attachment-Rich Disciplining 

It is helpful to think of a child as a student and parents as their teachers, guiding them through their childhood years.  When it comes to discipline, it can be easy to fall into the trap of using your child’s need for parental connection to scare them into engaging in ‘good behaviour’.  You may find yourself at times trying to change behaviours through punishments, time-outs, threats, and bribes. However, if used in isolation, this can dismiss a child’s need for parental connection in a time of distress.  Without “connecting” with your child first, and recognising their underlying emotion or need, the message that children receive is that their needs will only be met if they show self-control or good behaviour. Let’s face it, that isn’t always possible 100% of the time.

When children feel abandoned or invalidated by common discipline strategies, they can become anxious. The tantrum may stop, but there is a risk of creating insecurity. These tactics also erode the influence a parent has with their child – their attachment relationship.
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We can view discipline as a way that allows parents to connect with their children so they can tap into their unique developmental needs. This is called “Attachment-Rich” discipline. Creating a secure attachment with your child has a number of overwhelmingly positive benefits:

• They feel more happiness and less anger at their parents
• They can solve problems on their own and ask for help when they are in trouble
• They have lasting friendships and get along better with their friends
• They have better sibling relationships
• They feel better about themselves and what they can contribute
• They are more protected against feeling hopeless or helpless about life
• They trust the people they love and know how to be kind
• They believe that good things will happen

When you next go to discipline your child, consider whether you are doing so in an “attachment rich” manner.  Try to connect with your child first, empathise with them, recognise their need and help them to problem solve.  Doing so will ultimately help them (and you) to cope more easily with those dreaded tantrums, and ultimately foster a healthy attachment relationship between you and your child.  Some key strategies to try at home are: 
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• Sit patiently with your child, hold them close and empathise with them. Validate and acknowledge their emotions. Don’t deny their feelings.
• Give them the words to understand their emotions. Help them to label their emotions.
• Try and identify if there are any unmet needs that are underlying the strong emotions.
• Don’t attempt to problem solve until your child is calm – when they are weathering the storm of a tantrum as their brain is incapable of rationalising.
• Body movement can affect brain chemistry. Encourage your child to move their bodies to help regulate their emotions.
• Deep breathing can help with relaxation. Do some deep breathing with your child to help calm them.
• Be consistent with your approach. By utilising these strategies over and over, you will strengthen your child’s belief that their needs will be met unconditionally and that the world is a safe place.
• Be kind to yourself as our own emotions and expectations can impact how calmly we can try these approaches 

Sources
Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2019). The whole-brain child: 12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child's developing mind. Brunswick, VIC: Scribe
Lapointe, V. (2016). Discipline without damage: How to get your kids to behave without messing them up. Vancouver, BC: LifeTree Media Ltd.
Toddlers, meltdowns and brain development: Why parents need to ditch traditional discipline. (2015). Retrieved from Raised Good website: https://raisedgood.com/
The benefits of secure attachment. (2017, June 2). Retrieved from the Circle of Security website: https://www.circleofsecurityinternational.com/2017/06/02/the-benefits-of-secure-attachment/

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