Dr. Schwartz gives us a baseline - What is a securely attached adult?

How to Adult? /and a couple parenting book recommendations.

“Securely Attached Adult”

• Values attachment and regards attachment experiences as influential

• Acknowledges need for others

• Freely explores thoughts and feelings

• Remembers childhood events clearly

• At ease with their own imperfections

• Doesn’t idealize family or have involving anger

• And produces secure infants!

• - Dr. Mark Schwartz, Webinar video - Attachment-based Psychotherapy with Dr. Mark Schwartz. (harmonyplacemonterey.com)

• also included in this post: Cancer care or profit stream? Story of Dr. Burzynski and an ancient therapy (urine!). (substack.com)

I have worked through to some of those but the childhood event details are gone. I did raise my babies differently than my mother and I think they were more securely attached than I was. However later skill sets were limited by my own intergenerational trauma patterns and those of their father’s. Systemic health care problems can also have roots in systemic parenting strategies that are promoted, normalized, but aren’t really good for infants or new parents. Intergenerational nutrient deficiencies or toxin burdens also accumulate over the decades and generations.

Recognition of a problem is accepting imperfection - and that is freeing in that change can then be sought.

The “have involving anger” may be about buried resentment or suppressed negative impressions left from childhood. My therapist who helped me with EMDR (not quite hypnotic, deep trance, to help reach the core values from early childhood or a trauma experience) suggested viewing the new parents as just young people who didn’t know any better - and might have been following parenting advice of the time. I read Dr Spock - yes, dumping water on a tantrum-ing child was a suggestion. I don’t recommend it. Like water boarding your child? It gave me recurring nightmares of two ogres. *Parenting news to reflect on. ;-)

The EMDR work helped stop the nightmares and helped me recognize core messages that I didn’t know I had formed about deserving punishment instead of love. Learning new skills didn’t happen immediately though. Family role play with a therapist is recommended when learning new communication skills. The rest of the family may still have unhealthy expectations and communication methods and not understand what changed or why.

“How to Adult” Photo by Jamie O’Sullivan on Unsplash

I read recently ~ maturity is learned, not acquired. We don’t naturally gain social skills, we are taught or learn through observation.

I always did want a How to Parent handbook to be delivered with the baby.

Regarding good eating relationship within a family and for a child and baby - I recommend the methods in Ellen Satter’s books. (ellynsatterinstitute.org)

Dr William Sears and Martha Sears, RN have helpful parenting books (Goodreads reviews about The Attachment Parenting Book - A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby.)

Disclaimer: This information is being shared for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.