Welcome to Conscious Curiosity - a monthly email that offers useful tidbits from the experts on relationships, faith & psychology. Basically cliff notes for grown-ups!
Attachment styles, tiny sinners, and how mirror neurons can calm tantrums
Conscious Curiosity: Edition No. 1
{relationships}
What is Attachment Theory, and how does knowing your attachment style help your relationships?
Attachment theory is based on the idea that the emotional bond between infant & caregiver significantly shapes the child’s development & future relational patterns.
Psychologist John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, believed that the quality of the initial attachment bond impacts emotional development & how future relationships will form throughout life.
After John Bowlby, psychologist Mary Ainsworth expanded upon this theory through her “Strange Situation” experiment, ultimately identifying primary attachment styles: Secure attachment, Anxious (or Ambivalent) attachment and Avoidant attachment.
A fourth style called Disorganized attachment was later added.
Because our closest relationships, especially our romantic partners, subconsciously activate our attachment patterns, it can be incredibly helpful to identify your attachment style & understand how it can show up in your relationships:
- Secure Attachment: Securely attached people tend to have a strong sense of self-worth and can balance both dependence & independence in a relationship. When there is conflict, they trust that the relationship is secure & repair will occur.
- Anxious Attachment: Those with an anxious attachment style tend to have a deep fear of abandonment & strongly desire relational security. People with this attachment style seek frequent reassurance & can be perceived as overly dependent or demanding.
- Avoidant Attachment: Those with an avoidant attachment are highly self-sufficient & generally avoid emotional intimacy. They deeply value their independence & tend to suppress or mask their emotions.
- Disorganized Attachment: The least common attachment style, disorganized attachment, is typically the result of abuse. This style develops when the internal attachment system is thrown into chaos as the child simultaneously wants to be close with their caregiver & is also fearful of them. People with disorganized attachment tend to vacillate between traits of both avoidant & anxious attachment.
***Note from Ansley:*** speaking from personal experience, it is possible to change/heal your attachment style! At the age of 28 after yet another terrible breakup, I found myself in a therapist’s office ready to figure out what was going on with me. That wonderful therapist was my guide through the wilderness of learning how to heal my anxious attachment. I don’t think I’d be happily married to my incredible husband now without the work I did with her during that crucial season of my life, 10+ years ago!
Curious to learn more? Recommended resources below:
{faith}
Are kids just tiny sinners?
With Easter just around the corner, pastor, parent, & author Meredith Miller raises this thought-provoking question – the answer to which, as it turns out, significantly shapes how we view our kids, their actions & how we introduce them to God.
Imagine your baby, hours old. You stare at them in wonder & amazement, in awe that they’re here & they’re yours to care for.
Now, imagine two name tags in front of you that you have to choose from to put on your baby {borrowing straight from Meredith Miller here}:
One says: “Image Bearer (who will participate in sin).”
The other says: “Sinner (fully corrupt & totally depraved).”
Which name tag do you choose to put on your baby? Or even more broadly, which name tag would you put on yourself?
Put another way, do we live out of Genesis 1 (the original creation that God declared “good”) or Genesis 3 (the fall of man) as the core of our identity as God’s creations?
There are several theological schools of thought on this question, and the only purpose here is to challenge us to think intentionally, both as parents & in our own faith. We know we all sin; scripture says the earth & humanity are in “bondage to decay,” (Romans 8:21) and that “all have sinned & fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
But at their deepest core, are kids just tiny sinners?
Or are they tiny image bearers, born into a broken world, who will therefore participate in sin - while not losing their identity as an image bearer of the One who called them good?
Something to get curious about! Read Meredith’s full article here.
***Note from Ansley:*** whether we like it or not, kids project a lot of what we do as parents on to what they imagine God to be like. One core value in our house as parents is for our kids to know down to the bottom of their toes that they are safe, loved & accepted by us even when (especially when!) they make mistakes. We say on repeat in our house “you’re a good kid who made a mistake” or “you’re a good kid having a hard time” so that they can hopefully learn to separate their identity (who they are) from their behavior (what they do). We hope they learn not only that they are safe with us when they make mistakes - they’re safe with God too.
Curious to learn more? Meredith Miller's resources linked below!
{psychology}
What are mirror neurons, and how can they help you calm your child’s tantrums?
“Do you ever get thirsty when you see someone else take a drink? Or yawn when someone else does? These familiar responses can be understood in light of one of the most fascinating recent discoveries about the brain: mirror neurons.” {excerpted from Dan Siegel’s The Whole-Brained Child}.
These neurons “fire” whether we perform an action or when we observe someone else performing the same action.
When you see someone smile or cry or get angry, your mirror neurons fire as if you were experiencing that emotion yourself. According to neuroscientists, this is actually the foundation of empathy.
Scenario: your child is melting down. Level 10, epic, apocalypse-now-type tantrum. We’ve all been there (and we’ve all lost our cool more times than we can count because WE ARE ALL HUMAN & PARENTING IS V HARD!!!).
But! Now you know the magic of mirror neurons. Your child can *quite literally* “borrow your calm.” Your deep breaths & calm presence feel (to their brain at least!) like their deep breaths & calm presence. If you can find it within you to stay steady & grounded, your child will eventually match you – helped along by their mirror neurons.
***Note from Ansley:*** my boys are 4 & 6, so we’re (mostly) out of the epic toddler tantrum stage. But knowing about the power of mirror neurons still helps me so much, especially when one of my boys is trying to learn something new & he’s frustrated that he’s not getting it quite yet. If I get frustrated along with him, we both escalate & it’s game over. Any potential for further practice or pushing through is over. But IF I can stay calm, especially if I can get him to look me in the eyes for a minute & remind him that he is a good problem solver who has what it takes to figure this out, after a few deep breaths, sometimes that calm & confidence can be just the magic that’s needed to keep him pushing forward.
Curious to learn more? Recommended resources below!
That’s all for the first edition of Conscious Curiosity! Hope you found it helpful. Forward to a friend you think might enjoy it!
Stay tuned for the next edition dropping April 15th!
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