In my parenting teens support group yesterday we had an important discussion about the difference between taking something away from your child or teen as a punishment and setting a limit for your child’s or teen’s safety. This is such an important distinction...
Dr. Gordon Neufeld created a model of attachment that provides us with so much more insight and direction than Bowlby’s secure/insecure/avoidant attachment model. In the Neufeld model, we see how attachment can unfold in the first six years of life, with each...
Parents often ask me for help in getting their kids to “self regulate.” These parents report that their eight year-old tells them he hates them, that their eleven year-old slammed the door after a rough day at school or that their five year-old has tantrums that last...
Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s model of the six attachment roots provides us with a rich understanding of how attachment is meant to unfold. If all is going well, this can unfold in the first six years of life with each year opening up the capacity to attach at a deeper level,...
Thank goodness for defenses. While we sometimes view defenses in an adversarial way (“We’ve got to tear down those defenses!”), they actually exist for very good reasons. Their job is to protect us from vulnerability that would be too much for us to bear (in general,...
