When do children feel secure
Attachment is, in essence, feeling connected rather than bound or disconnected. It gives you the freedom to be who you are, and you allow the other person to do the same. Attachment says something about your ability to connect with others. Your ability to connect ensures that you are truly available for, or in, a relationship. It does not necessarily have to be a romantic relationship. It can also be about relationships with a parent, sibling, friend, colleague, teammate, or club member. When you are connected, you understand that giving and receiving is a continuous process of give and take. Relationships always involve finding a balance. This goes beyond a practical exchange in the form of attention, enjoyment, care & protection, sharing a household, or raising children. These are ways of connecting on a concrete, perceptible level. Attachment goes a level deeper: it involves surrendering to the way things are instead of how you would like them to be. You say yes to the whole “package deal.” You allow someone their place instead of being demanding or “making yourself small.” In my opinion, relationships (and love) are never unconditional, even when secure attachment is present. I believe that only the connection between parents and children (regardless of the age of the child) can be unconditional, although it may feel as if it is not.
CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT WHAT THE CONCEPT OF “ATTACHMENT” MEANS IN RELATIONSHIPS?
Attachment is, in essence, feeling connected rather than bound or disconnected. It gives you the freedom to be who you are, and you allow the other person to do the same. Attachment says something about your ability to connect with others. Your ability to connect ensures that you are truly available for, or in, a relationship. It does not necessarily have to be a romantic relationship. It can also be about relationships with a parent, sibling, friend, colleague, teammate, or club member. When you are connected, you understand that giving and receiving is a continuous process of give and take. Relationships always involve finding a balance. This goes beyond a practical exchange in the form of attention, enjoyment, care & protection, sharing a household, or raising children. These are ways of connecting on a concrete, perceptible level. Attachment goes a level deeper: it involves surrendering to the way things are instead of how you would like them to be. You say yes to the whole “package deal.” You allow someone their place instead of being demanding or “making yourself small.” In my opinion, relationships (and love) are never unconditional, even when secure attachment is present. I believe that only the connection between parents and children (regardless of the age of the child) can be unconditional, although it may feel as if it is not.
WHAT DOES HEALTHY ATTACHMENT-FORMING AS AN ADULT HAVE TO DO WITH EXPERIENCING A SENSE OF SECURITY AS A CHILD?
When you have healthy attachments, you gain the ability to connect to others. Your connection with your mother determines your maximum capacity to connect to others. And when your attachment to your father is good, you gain natural decisiveness and the ability to set boundaries. When you are able to set boundaries, you can (more) safely explore and possibly expand your world. You do this from a place of positive motivation rather than negative motivation (learning by doing). You need both abilities in life: the ability to connect and the ability to set boundaries. Relationships become unsafe when you cannot set boundaries. You then keep losing yourself because you surrender yourself completely. That may sound romantic and wonderful, but I see it as unhealthy, and it makes you too dependent on the other person’s state of mind. Now back to your question. When you have secure attachments in childhood, you have a built-in advantage in life because you are able to build healthy relationships from an early age and not stick around too long in circumstances that are unhealthy for you. If you were insecurely attached in that time in your life, you can always repair things by inwardly standing in your place in “the fountain.” When I refer to “the fountain,” I am referring to your place in the family system. How you do that, I describe in my book The Fountain: Find Your Place and in previous articles.
WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON SITUATIONS IN WHICH CHILDREN DO NOT EXPERIENCE SAFETY WITHIN THE FAMILY (BESIDES CLEAR-CUT CIRCUMSTANCES SUCH AS PHYSICAL OR SEXUAL ABUSE)?
A lack of security can manifest itself in any number of ways. It could be that you had to grow up too early: you had to take care of your parents for whatever reason, you mediated between them, or you assumed the role of an absent father or mother. Or you kept yourself invisible because your parents were already having such a hard time with a sibling. These are just a few examples of assuming undue responsibility. As a result, your connection with your parents is off-kilter, and that makes any other attachments you form less healthy. You may also be passing serious judgment on your parents. Perhaps you see them as negligent, demanding, weird, or stupid, or you think they do not see you in essence. The tricky thing here is that while you may be right and your friends may confirm this, you have gone out of connection with them because of your judgment. And that means you are not doing well, which always affects your other attachments. See my book The Fountain: Find Your Place for further explanation.
Another kind of situation in which a lack of security is experienced is called “interrupted reaching-out.” Imagine if you were hospitalized as a small child (in an incubator or due to illness). A small child cannot conceive of why their parent is suddenly gone. The absence of the parent is agonizing for a young child, for a child is totally dependent on the parent’s presence for their sense of survival. Children naturally “reach out.” They extend their arms to be picked up and hugged. Because of temporary absences due to hospitalization, the parent being unavailable for some reason, scary sleepovers, or, in earlier times, being sent to boarding school, the child loses confidence that they can get what they so deeply need from their parent. The child decides “Fine, I will do it on my own.” The child stops reaching out. Even if the parent is available again afterward, the child will no longer accept that love or only accept it in a limited way. This behavior repeats itself later in life.
HOW CAN PARENTS PROVIDE A SENSE OF SECURITY FOR THEIR CHILDREN?
One could write volumes on the answer to that question. The first essential condition is that parents have to allow their children to love both parents equally. Especially when it comes to divorce, it is a sheer necessity that both parents say to the children “You may love mommy/daddy as much as you love me” and “You may always go to daddy/mommy.” When children do not feel free to do this, a huge loyalty conflict arises. After all, children are 50% their father and 50% their mother. When one parent rejects the other, children feel “cramped” inside, for they know that an essential part of themselves is being rejected. Such children always have difficulty finding their place in life. They then often care for one parent (by not inwardly moving toward the other parent) and reject the other parent because loving that parent is not accepted. In doing so, children do themselves a great disservice because they then feel incomplete.
Furthermore, it is important that parents ensure that they are standing firmly in their own place in the fountain. When parents are needy because they are unwilling (or unable) to face what is theirs to face, their children carry that burden. Children can sense at birth whether their parents are needy or not. Children, especially when they are young, will do anything for their parents and will make sure that this neediness is “solved.” Yet they will never succeed, nor is it the job of children to do this, and doing so affects attachment in turn. For example, there are parents who claim they have loads of love to give but then complain that their child is very dependent and constantly seeks reassurance through hugs and what-not. These parents blame their neediness on their child. As a result, the child becomes extra affectionate. Only when parents have really looked at their own issues do children feel free to live their own lives.
BUT SURELY YOU SHOULD NOT ACCEPT EVERYTHING—THINGS SUCH AS AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, ADDICTION, AND INSULTS?
It often happens that the child is the main focus in the parents’ relationship. Then the child comes “before” the parents’ relationship. This is an insecure position for the child. The child gets too big a place in the parents’ lives, and that is stressful for the child. It would seem nice that the child is so much the center of attention, but deep down the child knows that is not right. Nor is it good for the child if they receive too little attention. Children feel secure and at ease when they know that the relationship between the parents is going well and that they respect each other. So above all, remember to keep paying sincere attention to each other as partners and do fun things together as a couple on a regular basis (and do not just talk about the children). Not setting boundaries is also disastrous for a child’s sense of security. Boundaries allow children to get their bearings. Parents therefore also have to be consistent. Clarity provides security. As a result, children develop a conscience. They experience what is right and wrong. As a result, their personal conscience becomes their frame of reference. Children who are allowed to do and have everything do not build a conscience, so they never have a good nor a bad conscience. This is very unsafe, also for the outside world. Limits allow for growth. Sometimes, things can be taken too far. A well-developed conscience allows space for the balance of giving and taking/receiving to be restored.
Furthermore, it is important not to play favorites. This causes strife among your children. It can put the fourth child, for example, in the place of the first-born child, which then knocks all the children out of place. It also often ends up causing all kinds of trouble when it comes to dividing up inheritances. One more final piece of advice. As a parent, be open to your children about miscarriages, abortions, half-siblings, and children who died young. The living children feel incomplete when a sibling is internally missing, that sibling being an inseparable part of the family system. This always causes unrest in children. It is not uncommon for the surviving children to then start living according to the principle “I won’t fare better than you,” which causes them to become loyal to those “invisible” children.
IF YOU GREW UP IN AN INSECURE SITUATION, HOW CAN YOU, AS AN ADULT, STILL PROVIDE YOURSELF WITH THAT SECURITY THAT YOU SO DEARLY MISSED?
You can always assume your rightful place in the fountain. It does not matter whether your parents are still alive or what they did or left behind. What matters is your inner stance. Your place is the place in the child tier, under your parents, in the fountain. Imagine a fountain with several tiers. At the top is your ancestors’ tier, below that come your grandparents, then your biological parents, then you in the order of birth of all your full and half-siblings. Below that are your children, and the tier below that is for their little ones and so on. Everyone has their own, unique place. When you take that inner stance, you create your own security. You then no longer have to look for security through external validation, through relationships that are so fused that you lose yourself, or by avoiding relationships because of your fear of intimacy and your decision: “Fine, I will do it on my own.” When you assume your rightful place in the fountain, you overcome your own neediness because you pick up the flow of the fountain that is so essential to feeling fulfilled and whole. You can learn more about how to do that in my book The Fountain: Find Your Place.
WHAT AREAS OF YOUR LIFE CAN HEALING OCCUR IN WHEN YOU START WORKING WITH YOUR INNER CHILD?
Your inner child is, simply said, that part of yourself you have walled off because a situation was too intense and unsafe. You once “parked,” or “split off,” that part of yourself in order to deal with the situation. It can be said that you have thus lost a part of yourself, and therefore, also a part of your potential. For example, you may have put your ability to feel into that child component, making you less able to feel deep emotions, or your ability to trust others and ask for help. You may also have lost access to your playfulness or the capacity to take risks.
If you manage to integrate back into yourself that piece of yourself you have lost, you will no longer feel empty. You will also find that you have less of a need to compensate for what you have lacked. Looking for compensation is a way to avoid your own unpleasant feelings when you have lost a piece of yourself. Less of a need for compensation means less of a need for copious food, drink, shopping, gambling, gaming, Netflix, etc. I share how you can do that in my book The Fountain: Find Your Place. Professional guidance is generally needed for this. By reintegrating your inner child, you reconnect with your full self. And only when you are in connection with yourself can you be in connection with others. Connection gives strength, and with strength, you can achieve valuable goals in life. There is a quote I find beautiful (but unfortunately, I do not know who said it): If you talk with your head, you reach the other person’s head. If you act from your heart, you reach the other person’s heart, and if you live from your soul, you reach the other person’s soul. That connection between head, heart, and soul creates healing and makes you “more whole” as a person in all your relationships. And the more whole you are, the more impact you will have.