Today, I’ve invited Dr. Sarah Bren to talk to us about attachment, knowing whether or not we have a secure attachment with our kids, and how to maintain that secure attachment through the process of repair. 

You’ll Learn:

• Why emotional health and achievement don’t have to be an either/or (and which one often leads to the other)
• Why repair is so important - and how to do it right
• A time I (recently) blew up over a bathing suit and had to do some repair
• The most impactful skill you can learn for better relationships

You’ll get some really practical tips about how to actually say sorry and make amends and talk to your kids when there's been a rupture in your relationship. I know you’re going to love this conversation and the confidence you feel when your attachment with your kids is strong.

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Dr. Sarah Bren is a clinical psychologist and a mom of two. She has dedicated her career to translating the science of attachment into simple, real-life strategies for parents wanting to support healthy child development while not losing sight of their own mental health along the way. 

She is also the co-founder and clinical director of Upshur Bren Psychology Group in Pelham, NY, where she and her team of highly specialized therapists work with parents, children, and families. 

What Is Secure Attachment?

Dr. Sarah defines attachment as an instinct to form a bond that allows for physical and emotional proximity to a caregiver. It’s biological and increases our chances of survival as a species. She says, “We’re hardwired to create these relational bonds.”

Everyone attaches, but attachment science looks to the quality of that attachment relationship. Basically, secure attachment happens when a child believes that the parent will consistently and reliably meet their basic survival needs most of the time. This includes needs like food, sleep, warmth, and safety.

Attachment Myths

Dr. Sarah says that many parents are quite anxious about the attachment relationship with their kids. Here are a few myths you can stop worrying about right now.

Myth #1: Attachment is fragile. 

It can feel like the stakes are really high when it comes to creating a secure attachment with your child. 

The good news is, “It's not that fragile of a system. Not every single move you make is going to make or break an attachment relationship. It's a pretty robust system.” 

Dr. Sarah says that secure attachment is actually the default. Our job is to not actively derail it. 

Myth #2: If there’s friction in the relationship, your attachment is not secure. 

Smooth sailing is not a requirement for a secure attachment. You won’t always get along, and there will be friction sometimes. You’ll still need to hold limits. You’ll still upset your child, and you’ll be frustrated by them sometimes, too. 

In fact, when your kid is really mad and throwing their vilest muck at you, it’s actually a sign that they feel safe in the relationship. They know you’re not going anywhere. 

Myth #3: Attachment is fixed. If you experienced insecure attachment as a child, you’re doomed. 

Dr. Sarah explains that our initial attachment relationships create a sort of blueprint that we then use to anticipate how other people will receive us, respond to us, and meet our needs in the future. 

Fortunately, attachment is not fixed. While early experiences are important, the blueprint is also a living, breathing, editable document. As you move through life, different experiences and relationships will edit your blueprint. 

Each of us tends to have attachment patterns based on our individual blueprints. So, if you have a history of less secure attachments, you can learn to override those old patterns if you want to be securely attached with your kid. 

Rupture and Repair

In real life, there are going to be times that you lose it. You yell, you miss something that your kid needs from you, you’re not capable of soothing them when they’re in distress. That’s okay. 

Dr. Sarah says that what’s really important after this kind of rupture is the repair - a moment of coming back together and acknowledging what happened.

Repair is actually what creates a secure relationship. It shows your child that you are two separate people. You’re both going to mess up sometimes, and they can believe that you’ll come back together and be good again. 

This can be as simple as saying, “Earlier this morning, when we were having trouble getting out of the house, I just totally lost it. I know I was probably really scary in that moment. I got loud, I got mean. That was not my best moment. And I'm sorry.” 

The key is recognizing that there was a rupture in the relationship and the feelings that created. Maybe your child didn’t feel safe with you when you yelled. That rupture is what needs to be repaired. 

One mistake I see parents make is brushing past the acknowledgement. Saying, “I’m sorry. Let’s go get ice cream.” This is an example of using sweets or treats to soothe without really addressing what happened. It might make your child feel better in the moment, but it doesn’t actually repair the rupture. You can’t rush real repair.

Dr. Sarah also points out that there is a before, during, and after to any incident. The “during” is NOT the time for repair. You both need a chance to cool off, especially as your kids get older and stuff gets bigger and messier. You can’t truly repair if you’re still in fight or flight. It’s okay to say, “I hear you. I still need a minute.” 

It can sometimes be a long time after a rupture before you’re both truly ready for repair. There is a trust piece here in knowing that you don’t have to force the repair right away because you know you’ll get there when you’re both ready. 

You can trust the strength of your child’s desire to be in connection with you. Because they do want that (yes, even teens). They want a relationship with you. They want repair. 

One Skill to Improve Attachment

Research has shown that there is a 70% prediction rate of what a child’s attachment style will be in the 12-18 months of life based on their parent’s attachment style. 

The biggest indicator in the 30% of insecurely attached parents who had secure children is the parent’s capacity for reflective functioning - basically the ability to pay attention to and be curious about what’s going on internally. 

Dr. Sarah says this is so cool because not only does it mean that we’re not doomed to repeat the past, reflective functioning is just a skill. It’s something you can learn and get better at. 

She explains, “that ability to be curious softens us. It allows us to build that safety in our relationship, that ability to make mistakes and come back together…this curiosity is the most impactful thing we can do to create healthy, secure relationships” within our families and beyond.

Here are 3 steps to get you started:

1. Notice when you have a strong reaction to something. 
2. Get curious about what you’re feeling. What are you making this situation mean?
3. Get curious about the other person’s internal experience. What might they have been thinking or feeling? 

Dr. Sarah also advises that we look for the most generous interpretation - for ourselves and our kids. 

Securely Attached Starts With How You Treat Yourself

If you’re coming into this with a blueprint that isn’t very secure, you have to make some edits before you can fix the one you have with your child. 

When you look at why you are doing or feeling a certain thing…

→ How do you talk to yourself?

→ Are you giving yourself the benefit of the doubt?

→ Are you being curious? 

→ Are you being nonjudgmental? 

→ Are you having compassion? 

Dr. Sarah tells us that when we can do these things with ourselves, it makes it a lot easier to do it with our kids. 

The takeaway? It’s never too late to improve your attachment with your child, and it’s not as delicate as you think. 

Take care of yourself, find your calm, connect with your child, and repair when you mess up. Be generous and give yourself and your kid plenty of grace.

Connect with Dr. Sarah:

• Learn more about Dr. Bren and her work at http://drsarahbren.com/ 
• Get the free guide on the Four Pillars of Attachment
• Listen to the Securely Attached Podcast 
• Follow along on Instagram @drsarahbren 

Resources:

• Episode 157: Practicing Attunement to Create Emotional Health
• Episode 158: Guilt & Self-Forgiveness (Repair pt. 1)
• Episode 159: Saying “I’m Sorry” (Repair pt. 2)
• Episode 97: Your Nervous System Explained (including how to strengthen your parasympathetic nervous system)
• Episode 23: When You Lose Your Temper
• Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel J. Siegel M.D. and Mary Hartzell

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn: 

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlyn

Childress, and on the podcast Today, I've invited Dr.

Sarah Bren to talk to us about attachment

and knowing whether or not we have a secure attachment with

our kids and how to maintain that secure attachment through the process

of repair. And we get into some really great details about how

to get actually say sorry and

make amends and talk to your kids when there's been a rupture in your

relationship and the confidence you can feel that

your attachment with your kids is strong. So I think you're going to really love

Dr. Sarah Bren. You're going to love our conversation. And so

before we get into the interview, I just wanted to let you know a little

bit about Dr. Bren. She is a clinical psychologist

and a mom of two. She's the co founder and

clinical director of Upsher Bren Psychology Group in New York.

And she runs a team of therapists that work with parents,

children, and families to help them do what I do

right, support healthy child development and taking good

care of themselves as parents and also helping

to raise this next generation so they are emotionally healthy.

Sarah's also the podcast host of a podcast

called Securely Attached, which I highly recommend. I think it's an

amazing parenting podcast. I love my podcast, but I also

love what she's doing over there and her podcast and just

talking about some of the same things we talk about on our podcast.

And so you can go check her out and learn a

little bit more about attachment and child development and what's

normal and how to take good care of yourself and all of those things.

So without any more delay, I'd like to introduce you to

Dr. Sarah Bren. Hi, Dr. Bren. Hello. How

are you? Good. I'm Darlyn. It's so nice to meet you.

It's very nice to meet you, too. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah,

it's great. Good. Well, welcome to the Become a Calm Mama podcast.

I'm really happy that you're here. We're recording, so I just wanted to

get right into it if you are ready. Yeah, I'm ready.

Yeah. Good. Okay. So I wanted to have you

on the podcast podcast because I'm a parenting

coach and I talk a lot about helping

parents stay emotionally regulated to build emotional literacy with

their kids so they can stay calm, connected, and then also

have boundaries and follow through and those kinds of things

and not doing it. Anger, frustration, overwhelm,

punishment, pain. Right. So the calmer we are, the more we Understand where

behavior comes from. The easier it is to do those things, like,

lovingly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

so some of that work requires understanding a little

bit about attachment. Right. And helping parents kind

of feel. Feel connected to their kids, help their kids feel connected to

them. And I came across your podcast, and I just

loved your work so much because it really focuses on

secure attachment. And so that's what I want to talk to you today

about. And hopefully my goal for the

audience is that they walk away feeling not

like, oh, my God, I've done everything wrong, but more like,

probably I'm on my. I'm on a good track here. And if

they're a little off to give them some strategy, so hopefully it's

uplifting in some way. Yeah. Yeah, I hope so, too. I like when I.

I mean, I find. Personally, I find that when

I talk to parents about attachment, they often

come in with some, like, misconceptions that actually

have led them to feel quite anxious about the attachment

relationship and how, you know, fragile it might be and

how much pressure they feel to, like, get it right.

Cause, like, I get it. There's a lot of information out there, and it

feels like the stakes are very high because we know that attachment health

is predictive of so many good outcomes across

many different domains. But, you know,

after I've kind of talked to people about attachment, I find that

they feel relieved and they're like, oh, okay.

It's not that fragile of a system. It's not,

actually is like, you know, not every single

move I make is going to make or break an attachment relationship. It's a

pretty robust system, which I think helps people feel, like, a lot more

relaxed about it. Yeah, exactly. Because when we

talk about becoming a calm mama, right? It's like part of that is

having some inner trust that I'm okay and I'm doing okay and

my kids are okay, and this is normal and we're resilient.

We can do repair whatever that is. And that does

calm our nervous system because we're not, like you said, anxious and, like, you know,

am I doing it right? Are they okay? You know, that kind of creates that

energy in a family that, you know. And it also pulls us out of the

relationship. Right. It brings us into our head and into our

own stuff. And the

irony is, the more we worry about getting it right and, like,

worry about the attachment relationship, the more we

aren't in attunement with our kid in that moment.

Right? Like, we're actually kind of

exiting the relationship to go be with our worries

or evaluating. Right. Instead of being present, we're like

evaluating almost like a critical judgment of like,

how am I doing? And then you're not actually doing. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, I love that. Okay, so you said attunement. So we're going to get into

concepts and talk about kind of this, you know, the

whole world of attachment and then how to do that.

And attunement is a big part of it, so you'll explain that. But I wanted

to give you a chance just to like, tell us a little bit about yourself.

You know, what do you do exactly. And, you know, how

did you come to this work? Specifically? Attachment. Yeah.

So I'm a clinical psychologist and I spent most

of my early career research. I researched

attachment for my dissertation, but I was

working mostly with adults who

had experienced chronic, like,

childhood trauma. A lot of it was relational and

attachment related traumas. But I was working with adults.

And when I had my first

kid, I sort of separate from being a psychologist, was like,

really kind of entering the world of like, oh, child

development and parenting and all this stuff. And

I, I started to really kind of like, look a little bit

more into like, I was just like, okay, I'm, I'm entering

parenthood. I want to like, learn everything. There is no about parent parenting. And

as I, as I, you know, my son's daycare happened to

be run with this particular

pedagogy. This is called Rye Resources for Infant Educators, which is

like kind of a philosophy of, of parenting that's very,

you know, it's focused on attunement. It's helping parents and

the people who care for the young kids to

really be looking at things through the child's perspective

and creating environments that a child can be really

independent in that, like, you know, at their level.

But also that there's a very, very

strong emphasis on like caregiving and being really attentive and

attuned during caregiving moments. But then outside of caregiving moments,

really not interrupting the child so much and letting them play and

explore their environment without kind of constantly interrupting them.

And I was like, wow. A lot of the philosophies of rai,

they seem very prophylactic to me for like

helping kids develop a healthy attachment system,

helping kids develop resilience, emotional

regulation skills, distress tolerance skills,

inner sense of self that is like competent and competent. All these things that are

really great and would perhaps support

preventing kids needing to go to therapy for

chronic relational trauma. Yeah. I always say my mission

is to heal the next generation in advance. And I Think if we

do a really good job parenting in a

emotionally literate way and a connected way and building resilience,

all those things that, yes, we could have emotionally healthy

adults. And yeah, really, that was for me, I

was like, this sort of light bulb clicked and I was like, if I could

help families understand kind of the building blocks of

attachment health and

child development and how

to kind of create kind of like a family system that is

very balanced. Because I think sometimes we can go either

into like extreme child centric kind of

parents parenting strategies that I think end up creating a lot

of stress for families and kids. And

we can go in the kind of opposite extreme of like a really

parent centric. And that's usually when there's like something really

external driving, like a, like,

you know, when there's some type of personal chaos or like, you know, things

going on in our lives that pull us out of being

attuned to the whole family system, which happens, you know, like if you

have, you look at postpartum depression or you look at,

you know, family crises or you lose a job, or there's like, there's

stressors that happen in our lives that can really interrupt

our ability to give what

our family system might want or need. Right. And that there's

nothing inherently bad about that. Like, what I was saying before is like,

the attachment relationships are really robust.

We're hardwired to create these relational bonds.

And I just, I felt like if I

could help parents understand what really mattered and, and tune out the noise of what

did not matter because they were holding way too much.

Yeah. And still are. You know, I saw you've been doing

this almost ten years and it.

Yeah. I think the prevalence of podcasts like ours

or social media or, you know, the influencers and

TikTok, whatever, it. There's still like so much information and it can be

difficult to weed through what's actually the

most important or the building blocks like you said, or the bare minimums that I

need to make sure I hit as I raise my kids. It can feel

like diet, academics,

like nutrition, they have to eat this way, they have to sleep this way, they

have to have this much social skills, they have this much academics. There's so much

pressure for parents. But yeah, there are some

basic things that you can do to ensure

emotional health for yourself as a family unit. Right. Like you're

saying. Right. That's the thing. Like, I think when we

figure out what helps us feel grounded, connected,

where we are able to say, okay, I'm like, for example, When I was

saying like, you know, if we've really child centric family and I think a lot

of parents fall into this, this sort of like

tricky space where it's like, I really want

everything to go quote right. I want it to be good. I don't,

you know, I'm getting all this information and I'm supposed to do this and I'm

supposed to do that. And a lot of these really genuinely good pieces of advice

contradict each other, but it's also, it's really focused

on meeting the child's needs. And I'm a big proponent of

meeting our kids needs, but not at the expense of our needs.

Because when we have a really depleted parent who chronically

doesn't get their needs met and chronically kind of

attends prioritizes somebody else's

needs over theirs all the time, what ends up happening is we get burnt

out, we can't show up

with a lot of bandwidth and eventually

we kind of will put off our need, put off our need, put off our

need until we kind of snap because we've been running on empty for so long.

And then we go through this whole barrage of self criticism and

guilt and shame for having lost it and it's like,

well, how could we not, right? If we're always on

empty, it's going to be really hard to be

that steady, consistent, reliable parent. And also our

kids do not need us to meet every need that they have. They don't.

Like, I feel like the job of the parent is really much more about like

you are steering the ship. You are like zooming out. Your capacity to

both zoom out and zoom in as needed is like

far more of a predictor of how well things are going to go

than your ability to like get it right all the time. Yeah,

yeah. I think the big picture is really important, like

what are we doing here and what are we trying to

accomplish like as a family? And I talk about

that a lot, like parenting goals and like my goal was emotional health

for my sons and sometimes that was

at the expense of maybe other, like, maybe

socially they weren't accessing all the play dates or

all the, you know, sports or whatever because I was like,

I don't have the capacity to manage club sports

or I don't have the capacity to manage, you know, a really

intense academic environment because I knew that would

require something from me that I didn't have to give. And then I would

have this negative impact on my kids where I'm stressed and

I'm like, you know, hurry up get it done. We gotta go. Like, I just

didn't want to be that way. So choosing emotional health for myself, for my

kids, for my family, so we could be paced in a way that worked for

us. It didn't look like super family,

you know, it didn't look like, as a parenting coach, it's like,

you know, people would think, oh, you have these very high achieving

children or something like that. And it's like, well, if that were my goal, then

sure, I may have achieved that, but that isn't. I

want my kids to have really healthy relationships with

themselves and others and me. The ironic thing, and I say this a lot,

is like, you know, I think it's. We live in a culture that

deeply prioritizes achievement and values achievement. And I don't think there's anything

wrong with, you know, desiring achievement.

But the irony is when we focus solely on

achievement, we can sometimes create

this, this, this barrier to achievement.

Whereas if we focus on sort of,

let's find a really solid foundation, let's build on relational

health, let's build on mental health, let's build on

helping our child develop a really solid sense of who they are and what

they're interested in. And this idea of like kind of

prioritizing self actualization, when we put

that first, almost always like achievement

follows, it's like a byproduct. But when we first hardline

it on achievement, we miss all these foundational building

blocks that actually leads to

that capacity to achieve and find joy and grit

and resilience in pursuing something hard. But

it's like sometimes we're focusing on the

wrong thing. We're focusing on one piece of an outcome versus how do you

build someone who's capable of achieving that by default?

Yeah, yeah. It's so cool that we can have that

influence and get the same results, but in a way that's really

emotionally respectful. Right. And you know,

really building up instead of get here, get here. And I

think academics is one area of achievement that parents feel stressed about, but

also like social achievement. Just like being the kid that's well

liked and being the kid that's, you know,

invited to the things and you know, you're in on the, you

know, all the goss and what's going on and all that. And that can,

it just, it just puts pressure on our kids in a way that doesn't really

serve them because we're like attached to the their

outcome in a way that I think creates

anxiety for you and them. Yeah. So there's like different things

we can focus on as parents. Un. I think

accidentally. Yeah. I also think we're

trained to explicitly and explicitly as parents, I think

we have gotten the message, you are,

you are. Your child's like, resume

is a referendum on how good of a parent you are. And I don't

like, you know, not just their activities and their. Where they're excelling at, but

also these more soft things like, you know, where do

they live in the social hierarchy, where do they live on the sports team,

where do they live in the neighborhood. And with

we. It's. I don't. I mean, I think we all grapple with it

as parents. I have two kids, and even though I'm like,

constantly trying to, like, help parents put their priorities in place,

like, I get sucked up into the oh my God. But like, they really want

to do this thing, and I don't want to, like, not have them do this

thing. So, so now like, oh my gosh, they're over scheduled. My kids are so

over scheduled. And then I'm like, I'm always saying, do less, do less.

But it's so. It's hard. It's hard to not

be in the sauce. Yeah, it really is. And so

I think that's why conversations like this are so valuable, because we want to bring

it back to are we

hitting these points down at the base

foundational level. And then if you are a

little over scheduled or, you know, diet spin off or, you know, sleep

spin off, or, you know, whatever is going on,

you can go, okay, let's actually pause and reset back to

kind of the. I always think of those bare minimums, like, what are we.

What is it? The base level is that we have got to make sure we're

hitting on and resetting our families. And so that's why it's good to have

these conversations. So I want to talk about

attachment. I was going to share with you that

I came to, well, parenting work in general

because I was a very reactive mom. And it was shocking

to me because I'm not like, I wasn't like a reactive

hothead person. And then I had

this very dysregulated. Didn't know the word back then,

but like four year old. And he was

just like a hitter at school throwing sand. I mean, just totally out of bounds

being aggressive with his younger sibling. And I

was just beside myself. And

I started to get support reading parenting books. And I read

parenting from the inside out, which is Dan Siegel, one of

Dan Siegel and Mayor Hartzell's first. Dan Siegel's earlier

Books. And when I read the section on

attachment, I. It

scared me a little bit because I could see that I

was, you know, being

aggressive and, like, scary to my son. And I

was like, okay, this is definitely gonna have an impact

on him. And it may already be having an impact. I started to see a

therapist and get some support, and I went to

therapy and as a little five year

old, but we did attachment therapy, really. And

it was so good for me to realize

that, like, I kind of started to understand my own

trauma and how some of the things that

I was doing to protect myself as an adult

when I became a parent and I felt like he was

attacking me or I was under, you know, in a

fight, flight or survivor mode because he was like, I kind of made him an

enemy in my mind. And I was a victim. But then I didn't want to

be a victim. So I powered over and I just realized, like, oh, I have

so much healing to do in my own

trauma background and attachment disordered,

you know, disorganized attachment with my own family. And, um,

so it just impacted me in such a positive way

eventually. And

I think for parents, it's helpful to talk about

kind of like, what is the goal? Like, what does secure

attachment mean? What is that? And then sort of some of the

pitfalls that, like, could happen if we

parent in certain ways or if we find ourselves parenting in certain ways and then

give some strategies to. To reset that. Yeah. Well,

I wonder if it first would just help to kind of explain, like, what is

attachment? Yeah, it's. It's. It's kind of.

I think people think it's a lot more complex than it is. When we talk

about attachment, we're simply talking about this.

This sort of hard wiring that

human beings are born with that creates this.

This instinct to. To form a bond

that allows for physical and emotional proximity to a

caregiver. And it's really just to increase

our chance of survival. Right. It's kind of like how ducklings

imprint on the mama duck. Right. You don't learn it.

It's just biological. It's biological. We are hardwired

to seek out this proximity to our care provider.

And everybody attaches. Right? We all get. We all are

attached. The question is, and what we look at when we're looking

at attachment science is what is the

quality of that attachment relationship? Right. So we can be

securely attached. There are different types

of insecure attachment. And

the idea is, one,

the more a parent is able to kind of

consistently and reliably. Well, I should

Say, the more the child believes

the parent will consistently and reliably meet their needs most

of the time for safety, for survival. Right.

These are basic needs. Not, they're gonna give me the cookie when I

want the cookie. It's when I'm cold, they will

help me be warm when I'm scared, they will help me feel safe

when I'm tired, they'll help me get cozy and go to

sleep. Right. Like, these are sort of basic, basic

needs. It's like a little

like an animal, right? They need to. They need to eat, they need to

sleep, they need to stay warm. They need to be safe from

predators. It's like kind of this really basic

biological need to survive in a world when I was

to tell remind parents, like, your children know they're not big.

They know they're little. They know they're. They're not

supposed to know everything. They. They know they're young, and

then they know you're old. Like, there's a natural

looking to the adult to lead, to guide, to soothe, to be

safe. Right. All of that. So that is like, yeah, hardwired. I love that.

Yeah. And so a couple things that people kind

of often misunderstand about attachment is one, because this

is a biologically hardwired system, it's pretty robust.

It's, you know, it doesn't need to be

delicately held and

constantly nurtured in this, like, very, very, very careful,

intentional way. Do we want to be intentional about our parenting? Absolutely. Do we

want to be attuned to and connected

to and curious about our kids and attempt to meet their needs as

much as we can? Yes. But at a very basic level, like, we are going

to make mistakes. Like, think about just. Even when a baby is born and

you're holding your baby and they're crying, and you have no idea why they're crying,

and, you know, you give them a bottle, but they were

cold, or you try to burp them, but really

they really wanted their diaper changed. Right. Like, those are

misattunements. That's us missing them, not meeting their need. Right. And

it's totally normal. And part of this

dynamic, in fact, the way I often describe it, is like, so when a

baby's born, their sense of, like, where they end and where their

mother or their primary caregiver begins is completely fused.

There's just. It's blurry. Like, I'm me, you're you. We're just like this

symbiotic blob. Right. And

it's through these very organic and appropriate and natural

misattunements of the parent to the child's needs, that there's like,

this space that starts to build between the two of them

where, like, oh, wait, I'm not. You're not me, and I'm not

you. You don't. You're not feeling these. Like, we're two

distinct human beings. Whoa. And it's this. It's this

misattunement that creates what is

eventually the relationship. Right. I am me, you are you. We are two separate

people, and the space between us is the relationship, and the quality of that

relationship is the attachment relationship. Right.

And so we get in our heads, I think, that we're not supposed to

misattune to our children lest we damage our

attachment relationship with them. And that's not the way it works. Right. Like. Or that

it's always precarious. Like, mm,

I'm. I'm all. I always have to be working to secure

it or something. Yeah. Like, it's. Like, it's not. That's the default mode.

We just don't wanna, like, actively derail it.

But, you know, barring things happening that

make it so that it's really hard for us to regularly

and reliably meet their basic needs and be a source of comfort

and safety. It's like Dan Siegel says with the four S's,

do I help my child to feel safe, to feel seen, and to feel soothed,

and that will lead to a secure relationship, but not all the time. Like,

there are times where we are going to be, like, we're going to lose

it and we're not going to be

feeling very safe. We might even feel scary to them when we're

yelling. We might not see them in this moment. We

really miss them. Like, they're feeling X and

we're totally focused on why, and they're

feeling unseen by us. There's times where

they're going to be in distress and we aren't going to be capable of soothing

them. And that's okay. Right.

What's really important more than anything is that we recognize

that. And in the moment, like, or after the moment, there's a

coming back together and an acknowledging of that. Like, oh,

you are feeling so sad about something that happened at school.

And I kept thinking it was about something going on with your sister,

and I just didn't get it. And you kept trying to tell me, and I

really didn't get it, and I'm sorry I didn't put that together and now I

get it. Or, oh, you know what? Earlier this

morning, when we were having trouble getting out of the house and I just totally

lost it. I was probably really scary

in that moment. Like, ugh, I got loud, I got mean.

That was not my best moment. And I'm sorry. How,

how are you feeling? Like, tell me about your day. You know, so

there's. It's not that we never mess up. It's that we repair when we mess

up because that is actually what creates that

secure relationship. Right. That we can be human,

two human beings together and it's, we're never

gonna, we're gonna mess up and we going to

believe that we'll come back together and be. Feel the good again.

Yeah. Well, I think too for kids, like if you don't come back and talk

about it, they're self centered. Like the way they

see they're pretty sure they did something wrong or that was on them or

like they're not like they kind of take the responsibility on

for themselves. Yeah. They can be egocentric. Right. But not in a bad way.

This is the way they're no, that. It in like if something

happens somehow I am responsible for how it happened. Yes.

Yeah. And so when we go back and we say no, that was on me

or I was, I missed that cue or you know, I

wasn't in my calm body. Whatever. We however explain it

helps the kid go, okay. I'm not like

misunderstanding the world I have. Yeah. My

reality is being understood. That talk about being seen, right? Yes,

yes, yes. Oh, you do see it from my perspective. You don't

always agree with my perspective. Right. Because that's the thing is like,

and I also think it's another misconception about attachment is that for a secure attachment

to really be, you know, established, our kids

need to feel like there's, there's

not a lot of friction in our relationship and that we're always getting along and

that things feel good. And the reality is like that's not

required for a secure attachment. It's

sometimes us holding a limit and being a

really sturdy parent who's very predictable and saying no, I'm not

gonna let you do that. When I say no, that really means no and you

get to be upset, but it's not gonna change my mind about this thing. And

you can be mad at me and actually if you keep screaming

at me, I might even lose it with you because I can't take being screamed

at for oh, so long. And I might just like, I only have so much

bandwidth and like. And then we come back and

say, okay, sorry, I lost It.

We need to figure out a way for this, this, this, and this to work

better. Like, what can we do? We can collaborate, we can come back together, we

can be productive and, you know, we can problem solve together. But

I'm never gonna let you do the thing that I'm not okay with you doing.

Right. Like, I'm, you know, whatever it is. You know,

when our child feels angry with us or upset with us, that doesn't

mean they are insecurely attached, I think is what you really. Yeah. Def.

Not in fact, like, it's more safe throwing their

vilest muck at us is when we really know. Oh, you feel.

You're not worried I'm going anywhere? Yeah, you're so safe that you feel.

Very secure with me. Act this way. Yeah, but we can.

I see this sometimes in like, the repair,

when it's not really an acknowledgment of maybe how people

behaved. It's a little bit more like, I'm sorry, let's get candy.

Or, you know, let's just. And that's not necessarily a.

The behavior isn't wrong to go get something sweet. It's

about kind of pushing it under the rug and trying to soothe

with like, gifts or treats or

pleasure and not really kind of addressing what happened. And that can make the kid

again feel like, okay, so this is how it works.

Like, you get mad at me or something goes wrong, and then I get

ice cream. And that's. Right. Well, it's like, well, what are we repairing?

Right. If you are. If you're thinking about it in terms of like, our

goal is to feel. Have everything feel good, then in theory,

repairing would be getting back on that good train.

But if what we're repairing is the relationship, there was a

rupture. We felt like we weren't seeing each other or we weren't

feeling safe with each other, or, you know, we were. We

were butting heads or we were in a moment of like,

yuck with each other. What we want to

repair is that. Yeah. And so it means we talk about that. We

say like, oh, that was a tough moment. That was not my best. You

weren't your best? We, like, how can we

get back to us? Do you need a hug? Like,

I don't know. I think there are. And it depends also on kids, ages. It's

like, there's a whole spectrum of how you do this depending on how old your

kid is. But, like, if you've got little kids, a lot of it

is just like coming back into that place of Being connected

and soothing and naming it

and moving on with them. Right. Like coming back together

and like using developmentally appropriate language and then

moving on. When you have older kids, a lot of it is

like, stuff gets bigger, stuff gets

messier. A lot of it has to happen in different moments. Like

I often say, like, there's the during, there's the after, and then there's

the before, the next time. And the during

is not a time for repair.

The after can be a time where we do repair work.

And sometimes it could be a long time after.

Like, we both have to really cool off. Yeah. This is a funny thing that

happened to me. We were, I have 19 and 21 year old boys

and we were going on a vacation. So that moment when you get everybody into

the car and like for an airplane flight, you know, there's kind of a lot

of tension going on in the family. Oh, yes. So we get in the car

and my husband was like being really sweet and he's like, does everyone

have their IDs because they're older? Right. So they carry that.

Does everyone have their chargers? And they're like, yeah. Then does everyone have their bathing

suits? And then my younger son was like, no,

we're going on a lake vacation, like to a lake. So

he definitely needs his bathing suit. And for whatever reason

I know now, but like that, him saying, no,

I made it mean a bunch of things. He doesn't care about this

vacation. He's not going to. And I was like,

what? I just, in the car, scream so loud. And

then I was like, how could you not have. It's the most important

thing, you know, while my husband's turning around and going back to the house. And

oh, then. Because then he was like, no, I don't need it. I was like,

you absolutely need it. We're going back. I mean, I just really lost it. And

I'm a calm mama. I've been doing this a long time. And

what I, why I wanted to share it is because then he got his thing,

we're in the car, and then my husband turns to me and he's like, you

know, you need to apologize, otherwise it's going to be tense for like this

whole like travel day, you know.

And I was like, yeah, oh, he's a

calm mama. Calm mama, you know, like, thanks a

lot, you know. And so then I apologized

and I knew I was real hot still. And so

I like wanted to placate my husband, make nice,

I don't know. And I was like, hey, Sarah yelled. And then I immediately

was like, but listen, you really needed to get your baby. I could. I was

still really hot. And he's like, yeah, whatever. He was

also tense and wasn't ready.

And then we were sitting in the airport. He's sitting next to me, kind of,

like, pushes my shoulder a little bit and,

like, you know, kind of nudges me. And I look at him, and it's

Sly. And I was like, I'm sorry, man. I was just in

it. And he's like, it's fine. It was just really

loud. He's like, you shocked me. It was just really loud.

And I was like, I get it. I was like, I just wasn't. I just

didn't think you cared about this trip. I made it mean that. And he's like,

no, I actually just really forgot. And we could have this really great conversation.

It was genuine. And I think that attunement, when

I think of it, is, like, kind of finding that

place where we can go to the repair. I'm ready. You're ready.

We can have a conversation, and it. Requires you to be

paying attention to your own readiness, but also to their

readiness and waiting for it to sync up and not forcing it, right?

Knowing there's that trust piece. Like, we will come

back to a place where we're both ready to

repair. And I don't need to force it because I'm

ready. If he's not ready or if

he's ready and I'm not ready, I have to really say, like, I hear

you. I need a minute still. And do the work on your own to get

ready, like, to really move out of rage and into

that softness and be able to then go

into. Because repair is vulnerable work. You know, you can't be

mad and repair because, like, different systems of the

brain and nervous system have to be on, right? Like, if you're in fight or

flight, you. You're not

gonna have a good, authentic repair. You might be able

to say the words, but it won't. Our brains and bodies are

smarter than that. They don't. Words don't fly with the nervous system,

right? Like, you need to feel it and feel it in your body,

because his body is also scanning your body for cues

of either being in fight or flight or being in sort of

the opposite of fight or flight, which sometimes we call it, like,

rest, digest, but also sometimes we call it safety and connection.

So this is like, our sympathetic nervous system is our fight or flight, and our

parasympathetic nervous system is our rest, digest or safety,

connection. And you really have to be out of fight or flight

fully and in your parasympathetic system

to be able to feel connection with another person

and feel that softness and feel that empathy and feel

that perspective taking of. What was it like for you when I did that?

Oh, that didn't feel good. Okay. And I could share with you what it was

like for me when you said that thing that triggered me and. Okay, here.

But all of that processing has to happen

in that safety of the relationship. Right.

You can't rush it. You can't fake it. You have to just get

there first and then go in. Yeah. And if

I were making that conversation mean I had

screwed up my relationship with my son, like, oh, now it's over, or whatever,

and that would put a lot of pressure on the repair. Yeah. It

wouldn't really be fair to him or to the relationship. But also,

I don't know, I would just be so anxious about,

like, these breaks. And so when you

have, you know, you're new to parenting or you're new to this kind of work,

it's like trust is so important. Like, trust the

strength of the desire for the. Of the child to be in connection

with you. Even teens, they desire to be in relationship with

their parent. They want repair. They want

genuine repair. You want it, too. You want to be close and

just kind of keep working towards that and

not making these ruptures mean it's all over.

I was going to say something about the timing

because I've noticed that sometimes if a parent is really

needy for the feeling of goodness back again,

they want to make repair

fast. Maybe when the child's not ready or maybe when they're not ready. And that

is just so they can feel better. I think that's the ice cream thing, what

I was trying to say. It's like, okay, let's just go get ice cream. It's

like, I don't. This is so uncomfortable. I want to move past it

really fast. That is, if I just did that in the car.

Okay. I'm so sorry. I'm, you know, but not really

getting quiet and letting him get a little quieter and then

connecting for real on repair. Right. Yeah.

Which I think is hard because especially because you were saying

earlier that, you know, you. You came into

parenthood with a sort of an attachment blueprint

that might not have been particularly secure. Right. If you have

experiences. And maybe it will be helpful if I

sort of explain what I mean by an attachment blueprint. But basically this idea is

our initial attachment relationships create sort

of a blueprint that we then use to anticipate how

other people will receive us, respond to us, meet our needs in the

future, right? So if we have a early attachment relationship

that's secure and we

build this secure foundation, this blueprint that we then take with us,

outside of our initial attachment relationships, into other relationships, right?

Maybe it's my kindergarten teacher, maybe it's my peers in elementary school,

then we're gonna. And also, this is a living, breathing sort of blueprint document

that gets edited, right? Like, if I have a really

tricky, challenging peer experience for a couple years,

that's gonna edit my blueprint, right? It's gonna make me maybe a little bit less

secure in thinking people are going to, you know, see

me meet my needs, right? It's like, think about

the world as being, like, out to get us or think about the world

as unsafe or think about people aren't

trustworthy or these kinds of thoughts that kind of get embedded

into the way we view, into. Our relationship, of

our relationships with others. And so, but I

do. So, yes, we know that, like, these early attachment relationships have a big impact

on the blueprint. So. But

that's not the only relationships that will inform that blueprint.

But also that blueprint just like

it's editable by other relationships. You

know, if you have a. Historically had an insecure

pattern to relationships in your life,

a lot of people think, oh, well, I'm definitely going to pass that on to

my kids. And it's like, you know, I'm doomed. It's fixed.

And the reality is this attachment is not fixed. And when we talk about

attachment style, which is really kind of a misnomer because it's not like there's this

one fixed style. Each individual relationship is going

to have its own quality of attachment, right?

It's just that there tends to be patterns because if we have this blueprint that

we're using, it's going to front, like, load that

pattern and we have to override it or we have to be in a relationship

with someone who helps us override it by feeling really

safe. So if you have a history of

attachment patterns that were less secure,

it's something that we can bring into our relationship with our

kids. So, for example, if you're in the car and you yell at your kid

and then you. This, this sort of blueprint you're using,

like, oh, my God, if I, like, if I shake

this boat, we're all gonna. It's never gonna. We're going to

damage, we're gonna capsize or Something, right? Like if I don't expect

repair after rupture, I'm

not gonna expect it now either. Right. Whereas if

I start to practice repair,

I can rewrite my blueprint and say, oh wait, no, we can do this. We

can get through these tough moments and feel safe again with each other. Versus

saying, well, once you go this way, it's over.

Or, you know, like, or

like, if you have more of an avoidant attachment, it's like, no one's gonna meet

my needs. I have to meet them all by myself. And so

going into that safety and connection and intimacy and vulnerability is like

very threatening. Right? It's like, I don't. What, we don't go here. That's not

comfortable. Nothing good happens in that space.

So it's in understanding what are some of the

blueprints that we might have from old early

attachment relationships and how might they be informing the way we're showing up

with our kids? And actually, research really does show that

when parents who have.

There's a very, very famous attachment research

body of attachment research that looked at, so a

parent before they got pregnant or like when they were pregnant, what their

attachment systems, what their patterns of attachment were like, if they were

securely attached or securely attached. And then they looked

at how much that that

attachment style was predictive of what their child's attachment

style was at 1 year and 18 months. And it

was like 70% prediction rate of like what the parent's attachment style would

be, 70% predictive of what the child's attachment style was. But then

they looked at like, okay, so what's happening with the 30%

that aren't matching? Why?

And of the parents who were

insecurely attached and who had secure children

or. Well, the relationship between the parent and child was measurably secure.

They were looking at like, what, what, what was the factors that, that

helped parents to have a different style of attachment with

their child than they carried before they had kids. And one of the

biggest predictors was a parent's capacity to,

they called it, reflect it's capacity for reflective functioning.

Which basically means our ability to like, pay attention to and

be curious about my internal experience and why it's happening

and the internal experience and why it's happening. So

being curious and self reflective and

reflective of another is one of the most

important things that we can do to shift that

blueprint and get out of that autopilot

and not bring all those like, you know, old

patterns into this new relationship. And I think that that

is like the most hopeful and empowering piece of data, because

it's like, we are not doomed to repeat the past.

We can. And the coolest thing is that reflective functioning is just a skill.

It's a mindfulness skill. It's something you can learn and something you can get

better at. It's not like, oh, you've got to be born with it. Like, no

one's born with reflective functioning. There are no reflectively. No, no babies

are reflecting on this stuff. We learn it and we practice it and we

get better at it. And so if you're gonna do

one thing to improve your attachment relationship with your

child and with other people in your life is to build that skill of being

curious. Like, why am I having this reaction? First I have to notice, ooh, I'm

feeling really frustrated. Like, in the car, driving to the airport, you're like,

I. In the moment, you're just hot, right? But then you looked back and you

were like, why did I get so. Why did I have such a strong reaction?

It's like, oh, one. I noticed I had a really strong reaction.

And I was not defensive about that. I just was curious. I gave

myself some grace and I was curious why.

And it was like, oh, because I thought I read into that

statement he made to mean he didn't care about this trip. And I've been

working really hard to get this trip off the ground. And so now I'm. I'm

aware of why I got upset. And then I'm curious about

his internal experience. Oh, what was he thinking? He's.

Maybe he was, like, embarrassed that he forgot, and he. Maybe he,

you know, was scared I was going to get mad at him. And maybe he

was feeling, you know, rushed about something

else going into this trip, and he completely forgot to pack the

bathing suits. And now he's like, oh, I feel a little silly now.

And so that ability to be curious about

softens us. It allows us to build that

safety in our relationship, that ability to make mistakes and

come back together. Like, that's what really, I

think is going to be far more impactful in creating healthy,

secure relationships with people in our family and outside of our family, for that matter,

than any sort of, like, quote,

parenting rules, you know, it's so true.

It's like I always ask,

what did I make that mean? Like, what am I making this behavior mean

about me, about my kid, about what other

parents think? Like, it helps me kind of tap into.

I know that I am in my head about something, which

is why I'm reactive. And so let me Kind of give myself some

guidance, soothing, you know, perspective, taking

about those thoughts and see if I can shift them around.

And sometimes a lot of times, the shifting can come from that

compassion piece of the other person. Like, okay, this is what

I'm making it mean. This is what's going on. Like you said, what

is their reason? What's going on for them? Why are they behaving this way?

What could it be that has nothing to do with me? Or

what could it be that has nothing

to do with my parenting or his personality or whatever, those kind

of factors that I can put in really easily? Yeah. What's the most generous

interpretation? Yeah, for ourselves and for

our kid. Right. And it's interesting because to create a generous

interpretation, you have to go to a blueprint,

right? Where you receive generous interpretations of your behavior.

Right. Where someone said, oh, you did this thing,

but there's got to be a reason. Like, what? Help me understand what's going on

for you. And if we didn't get that as a kid, it's hard to know

how to do that as an adult. And it is definitely

learnable. Right? Like, it's. And it often

starts, like I will often say, like, if you do have

sort of a blueprint that you're working with that's not very

secure, it's the first thing.

Not if you want to fix the one we have with your child, you actually

first have to rewrite your own blueprints. How do you talk to yourself?

Are you giving yourself the benefit of the doubt? Are you being curious? Are you

being nonjudgmental? Are you having compassion? Are you taking

a multifaceted persp. Like, look at why

you are doing or feeling a certain thing? And when you do

that, when you practice doing that with yourself, it makes it a lot easier to

do it with your kids. Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. That's

like, for the listeners that listen to this podcast all the time, we

do calm connect, limit set. Correct. That's this calm mama process. And calm

is all about us. And we really can't get to connect deep, true

connection with our kid. And until we are completely

calm and connected within ourselves. And that

is such a good. Like, the way you described it, it's really

so helpful, that generous interpretation of yourself.

And, you know, I was like, what would your best

friend say or ask, like, can you be as kind as that?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm so grateful for you to be

here. And I'm sure everyone's going to want to listen to your podcast, which

that's great. I love that. So tell us about your podcast. Tell us where people

can meet you, and then you have some really cool free resources on your website

that I wanted to guide people towards. Yeah, thank you. This is lovely

talking with you. So I do have a podcast called Securely Attached

where we talk a lot about the science of attachment and the ways it shows

up in parenting and child development and parental

mental health. And so that can be

anywhere you stream podcasts you can find Securely attached to. And

my website, DrSarabrund.com

also has a lot of resources for parents, and one

of the, like, you know, there's tons of, like, free resources that

people can find on there, and I have some

parenting courses as well. But one that might be particularly relevant

to our conversation is we have, like, this guide called the Four

Pillars of Attachment, and

it's. If you go drsarabrund.com forward/secure,

you can get that. Yeah, we'll link that in the show notes and send it

to everybody. Yeah, it's really a good resource for sure.

Thank you. Well, I'm so happy to know you're doing your work out there and

influencing the parents and. Yeah. Being on the same mission. Right.

Healing the next generation in advance. That's. Yeah, that is so my

goal. I love that way you put it, because it's. It's true. I feel like

we have to start with ourselves, and then we can work on our relationships with

our kids, and then we'll raise a different generation. Yeah,

that's, like, what I'm hoping for. That's why we do what we

do. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Yeah.

So great to meet you.