TBRI Tip #14: Connection
Connection is something we all long for because it’s the way God wired us. From birth a caregiver provides connection by meeting the infants needs over and over. This establishes trust for the infant and allows that individual to have connection with others as they grow up. Kids from hard places often don’t have that good start and so don’t develop the ability to connect. It’s as if this skill is very foreign at best, or completely missing at worst. Therefore, one of our most important jobs as caregivers is to create and practice connection with our children.
In all relationships there are at least two people involved. As one of the two with our kids, we need to identify if we are the barrier in connecting with our kids. Sometimes our attachment style can make it very difficult to be able to implement TBRI Connecting Principles. We may know them and understand them at a logical level, but because of our attachment style we can’t “do them”. This isn’t anything to be embarrassed or ashamed about since our attachment style was set up a long time ago (see TBRI Tips #9). One part of the TBRI Connecting Principles is Mindfulness Strategy. In this Strategy you learn what style you are and can continue on to learn how to add in or change areas of yourself to be able to provide connection. The other part of the relationship is your child, which will look at next time.
Teach and Apply Connection
To apply this to yourself is to identify your attachment style and the areas you struggle with in connecting with others. These can often be blind spots in your parenting that you aren’t aware of until learning about your own attachment style. For example, if you have an Avoidant attachment style and have trouble sharing your feelings, that is knowing how you feel and expressing them, you may also have trouble with this aspect in parenting. For me, this was the case and I needed to learn about feelings by reading lists of feeling words and applying them to what I felt. I also watched movies and identified what people in the movies felt. Lastly, I journaled to understand my feelings. After that, I needed to express feelings to my kids so they could begin to hear about feelings and what they look like. This felt foreign and awkward but I knew it was something I needed to do for my kids. Then I needed to help them identify their own feelings by asking them if they felt a type of feeling and then being okay with it when I picked the wrong feeling for them or pointing out people on TV and what feelings they may be having. There are tons of ways on the internet for teaching about feelings, but don’t complicate it more than it needs to be. This growth process is difficult to do as you’re trying to parent, but over time it will feel more comfortable. You and your child will deeply benefit as you do your part to remove the barrier to connection in your relationship.