Sublime

The children with the more defended, detached style (self-sufficient) had the hardest time reconnecting when Mother came back. Often they ignored her.

Because of this inherited attachment system, our brains still freak out whenever we can’t get hold of our partner, or our kid has swan-dived into a ginormous ballpool and we can no longer see them. This results in ‘protest behaviour’. Cue crying, panicking, repetitive calling, diving into ballpools ourselves despite advanced age. It’s built into

A child has a mood—he or she wants to play, or stay in the room, or be loony. The grownups have bigger moods. The abusive, or depressed, or alcoholic, or workaholic, or crazy parent has an enormous mood, and it is the only mood that counts. The children and the other parent have to adapt to that big mood, serve it, cater to it, sacrifice their mood

If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment.

In my work with people in the helping professions, I have often been confronted with a childhood history that seems significant to me. • There was a mother* who at the core was emotionally insecure and who depended for her equilibrium on her child’s behaving in a particular way. This mother was able to hide her insecurity from her child and from

Attachment research indicates that when a child defies the instinctive urge to want to attach to his or her mother, it is because the mother has been perceived in some important way as unavailable. My basic thesis is that children turn away from Mother out of disappointment and hurt and in self-defense. They turn away because it hurts too much to

It’s worth repeating that this sense of security provided by the relationship, this secure base, is what makes it safe for the child to explore the world. When we have a safe place to come back to, we can leave, just as when we are securely held, we don’t need to cling. Research shows that secure babies explore when they feel safe and seek

Kids in search of a secure base may appear to push the teacher away through defiance or refusal to complete tasks. They may battle for control. They are, in fact, not pushing away, but pulling toward.