The Power of Showing Up Sunshine Parenting

Show notes & links available here.
Dr. Tina Payne Bryson is one of my favorite people. She's a psychotherapist, founder and executive director of the Center for Connection in Pasadena, California, and co-author with Dr. Daniel Siegel of four of my favorite books, including her most recent one (out on January 7, 2020):  The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become And How Their Brains Get Wired.
Over the past several years, I've had the privilege of getting to know Tina not just as an amazing speaker and author but as a phenomenal person and friend. She even wrote the foreword for my book, Happy Campers!
In The Power of Showing Up, Tina and Dan share important research and findings about childhood attachment and how being present for our kids is so vital for their healthy development. This book is helpful not only for parents but also for adults who want to better understand how their own childhoods impact their adult relationships and how to change generational patterns of insecure attachment.
Big Ideas One of the best predictors for how well kids turn out is that they have a secure attachment with at least one person. As discussed in the conclusion of the Whole Brain Child, the most important thing a parent can do is to show up and really be present for their children, helping them build secure attachments. Showing up means offering a quality of presence. And it’s simple to provide once you understand the four building blocks of a child’s healthy development. Every child needs to feel what Siegel and Bryson call the Four S’s: Safe: We can’t always insulate a child from injury or avoid doing something that leads to hurt feelings. But when we give a child a sense of safe harbor, she will be able to take the needed risks for growth and change. Seen: Truly seeing a child means we pay attention to his emotions—both positive and negative—and strive to attune to what’s happening in his mind beneath his behavior. Soothed: Soothing isn’t about providing a life of ease; it’s about teaching your child how to cope when life gets hard, and showing him that you’ll be there with him along the way. A soothed child knows that he’ll never have to suffer alone. Secure: When a child knows she can count on you, time and again, to show up—when you reliably provide safety, focus on seeing her, and soothe her in times of need, she will trust in a feeling of secure attachment. And thrive! There are 4 different types of childhood attachment based on parenting patterns: Abusive, frightening parenting leads to disorganized attachment. Avoidant attachment results when parents avoid dealing with the emotional needs of a child. Intimacy is lacking and parents are not tuned into the internal world. This type of parenting results in children who shut down emotionally and they grow up to also have this dismissive pattern. The anxious parent is really unpredictable or even intrusive. The parent's emotions take over and flood into what's happening. This results in clingy, unpredictable behavior and ambivalent attachment. The "Good Enough" parent is one who shows up when needed. This secure, optimal attachment pattern can be full of ruptures and mistakes as long as reparations are made with kids. They get the message: "You're safe. I'm with you. We'll figure it out together." When kids feel safe, seen and soothed most of the time, their brains are wired to securely know that if they're having a hard time or in distress, someone will see it and show up for them. Repeated kinds of secure attachment experiences build the middle prefrontal cortex. This is the seat of insight, empathy, emotional regulation, bodily regulation, attuned communication, intuition, morality, executive function, the part of the brain that allows us to be mentally healthy and to have a wide window of tolerance to withstand adversity. We live in a time when there is so much distraction, disconnection, and despair. The antidot