MegAnne is NOT a parent, but..‪.‬ MegAnne Ford

This episode dives into 3 factors impacting the attachment bond.
Grab your notebook and get comfortable, because we're getting deep!
Picking up where we left off, let's explore what affects attachment.
We discussed attachment qualities and how they build trust (or not) through repeated cycles of the child expressing needs, the caregiver interpreting them, and responding appropriately. We saw how a caregiver's actions can build or break trust, all within the framework of Attachment Theory (different from attachment parenting, as discussed in Season 5, Episode 27).
The core of Attachment Theory is the child feeling safe to explore and return.
Does the child feel safe landing with and launching from their caregiver during stressful times? Can they bring their distress to the caregiver, find comfort, and feel secure to venture out again?
Sometimes, we might think there's a "right" way to practice attachment.
It doesn't have to be perfect! Mistakes are part of the process. What matters is the quality of the "repair work" – how both caregiver and child address the mistake and rebuild the connection. This repair process strengthens the attachment and allows everyone to feel safe making mistakes.
 
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Welcome to the final episode of our 8-part series on Attachment Theory, where we learn that a good relationship is a secure relationship. 
This episode is a recap of everything we've learned so far. Grab your notebook and get cozy – we're about to dive in!
A big thank you to the listeners who followed along!
If you've been listening to the entire series, I want to acknowledge the great work you've been doing. You've explored important concepts, made big shifts, and accepted some challenging invitations.
Today's episode is all about why Attachment Theory matters.
We'll discuss why understanding attachment and how we contribute to its quality is so important.
As a reminder, Attachment Theory focuses on the parent-child bond.
Throughout this series, we've specifically looked at things from the child's perspective. This helps us understand the impact of our actions rather than just focusing on our intentions.
 
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We are on the final episode of this eight-episode stretch, examining the difference between showing up in trusting ways and showing up in non-trusting ways through the aspects of feeling safe, feeling seen, feeling secure, and feeling soothed.
We've been exploring these foundational steps to building a healthy relationship. When discussing attachment and attachment qualities, we're talking about the dance between rupture and repair in a strong relationship—making a mistake and working to repair it, messing up and fixing it, experiencing stress, and then finding soothing. It's this constant ebb and flow of life that influences the quality of attachment.
Attachment theory focuses on the quality of that attachment bond, which affects your child's development mentally, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. The strength of that relationship is the main predictor of how well your child will do both in school and in life. How they learn to find security within themselves and their primary caregiver, often you, will extend to how they handle stresses in other areas of their lives—friendships, school, and future romantic relationships. This primary connection to you, their caregiver, is crucial.
The child looks to you as a safe base, and their sense of safety is determined by the quality of attachment to their primary caregiver. This means how safe they feel to leave you and come back to you, repeatedly.
The bonding perspective of the child is different from your perspective as a parent. You see things through the adult, caretaker's perspective, while your child sees things from their own viewpoint. In this eight-episode series and in my work, I invite caregivers to see things from the child's perspective. We look at what safety, being seen, feeling soothed, and having a sense of security means from the child's point of view.
 I always emphasize that a good foundation of this understanding is worth the investment.
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In today's episode, we will be chatting about the qualities and characteristics of a secure parent. Whether this is your first time listening or you've been on this entire journey with me, we are nearing the end of our eight-episode stretch exploring the four qualities of secure attachment. So, I invite you to get cozy, grab your notebook, and let's dig in.
Starting at the top, it's important to remember that strong relationships, especially between parent and child, involve a dance between rupture and repair, mistakes and reconnection, mess, and clean-up. The quality of this dance influences our attachment bond. Attachment, rooted in attachment theory, affects your child's mental, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social development. The strength of your relationship with your child predicts how well both of you will do in school and in life. It's foundational work, the unglamorous process of building a secure base.
When I mention a secure base, I mean a safe place for the child to land and launch from. It's crucial to note that your perception of bonding with your child differs from how your child perceives it. In this eight-episode breakdown, we're shifting from the parent's perspective to the child's. We're focusing on how the child feels safe, seen, soothed, and ultimately secure with you. Building these foundations is a worthwhile investment.
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We have made it to episode six of this episode stretch, talking through attachment theories and the quality of attachments, and how parents can show up to create a sense of trust or distrust.
We've been going through, just talking about the foundations of what creates that connection in a relationship, and we are coming off of the foundation of attachment theory, where it states that strong relationships are that dance of rupture and repair.
There are benign ruptures, meaning like little blips in the relationships, and then there are big ruptures that require major repair. The quality of that dance, how well we are sensitive to the ruptures and quick to repair, and the quality of the repair made is what signals the quality of the attachment bond.
So we're talking about attachment theory.
Attachment theory is the quality of that attachment bond that affects the way that your child develops mentally, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. The strength of this relationship is the main predictor of how well your child will do both in school and in life, meaning how well you are becoming aware of the ruptures and doing the repair work with them is empowering their toolbox so that they take those skills into their future relationships.
In all of this, the child is looking for a safe base, somewhere to land and somewhere to launch from that creates a sense of safety in them. It's important to know that your sense of bonding, your sense of safety with your child, is different than their sense of safety with you.
For example, I work with parents, and sometimes they come to me and say, "No, no, no, I'm not punishing them," but they act this way. And when we flip it and I say, "Well, do you think that they are feeling punished?" then they start to say, "Oh yes, they are."
It's when we shift out of our own perspective and shift into a child's perspective, we can start to see like, "Oh, the ways that I'm showing up is creating this threat response in them." And as soon as we can become aware of that, then we can start to step into our own empowerment of growth and change.
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We will look at unsafe parenting. The topic of this series is delving into attachment theory and breaking down this complex theory.
Strong relationships are likened to a dance between rupture and repair. In my positive parenting class, I discuss this concept using the visual of a pothole. Living in a downtown area, I often encounter potholes that can disrupt entire streets.
Despite our efforts to avoid them, potholes persist, much like ruptures in relationships. Some ruptures are benign, such as momentarily checking a text message during a conversation.
However, if left unaddressed, these small ruptures can escalate into larger issues that linger for months or even years. It's crucial to address and repair these ruptures to build and maintain strong relationships.
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