Author Archive: ACE Aware

Professionals and ACE-awareness; Episode 4 – This week: Beatrijs Smulders; Part 2

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Last week we finished with the importance of building a physical, non-verbal foundation for managing stress and emotions. We also discuss the role of breastfeeding in this.
Beatrijs says that two things are important to her when it comes to breastfeeding: ‘I think sex education starts at birth. The baby’s brain is saturated with oxytocin in an important phase, which is good for your stress coping system. And all the so-called nutritional benefits…’ She hesitates, challenges the lactation consultant in me and says: ‘… Fine, sure, whatever!’ Now she is bursting with laughter. She then continues on the value she sees in the breastfeeding relationship between mother and child for later sexual development. “I see sucking the nipple as the first form of kissing, of really close physical intimacy. Following the biological blueprint, a child can enjoy that for two years or even longer. All the while, the child may delight in that breast, the smell and the mother’s body, while its brain is drenched in oxytocin, endorphins, and prolactin. That total delight… and the surrender, the self-regulation, the drinking and meanwhile just stroking it with that little hand… and reaching for the mother’s face and mouth… fantastic! In my opinion, that is the foundation of a sexual education.”

She sees an important learning process for both boys and girls there. “Boys who are breastfed for a long time develop an enormous admiration and familiarity with the female body and its limits. They get abundant amounts of oxytocin and endorphins through the milk and through suckling, which supports a favorable wiring in their brain. Through their mothers , girls can learn to give the same non-verbal oxytocin showers to their own child. Oxytocin is the word – I’m from the Oxytocin Church!” We laugh about it together, because I too am a passionate admirer of this important hormone.

I ask if there are things she found difficult in her job.
“Because of the foundation that I have been given, there is a lot of confidence in my body and I could always use that in my profession. That has always helped me in my work and because of that there are no big things that I found difficult. I did most of it on my intuition and it worked great!”
Yet this question brings her to her own childhood, in which she grew up in a large Catholic family in the province of Brabant. She was the fourth of eight, with a mother who was actually constantly overworked in caring for the children and the family doctor’s practice of her husband, Beatrijs’s father. “The summer I was born, my mother happened to have a very good assistant in the practice and three good maids in the house, which made her feel relaxed and I breastfed longer than the others. So I’ve been lucky enough to have a good base, I think. My mother was a very sweet woman, but she was always overworked and too busy with everything. My father was a real patriarch, who was afraid of intimacy. Although I have enjoyed his intellectual inspiration and my mother’s gentleness and pursuit of personal growth, as children we have sometimes been lacking in personal attention. As a result, self-doubt can sometimes strike enormously under high voltage.”

Another major traumatic event in her young life comes to her mind that has affected how she handles things. As a four-year-old girl, she got viral meningitis and not just herself, but all the children in the family. At first they were all isolated, but when some of the kids were allowed to go home and she was left with her little brother, she didn’t see her parents for weeks. She and her brother thought their parents had forgotten them; they felt utterly abandoned, were unable to walk in the end, and only had the comfort of each other’s closeness. When they were picked up and brought home after six weeks, everyone seemed very happy and that didn’t match at all with how she felt. “I think that was my first depression. I imploded to survive and in difficult situations in my life I still find it hard to deal with those emotions. I can hold on for a very long time, but if everything goes wrong and it really doesn’t work out… then I have to be careful that I don’t implode.”

She says she got a nasty knock from it at the time, but was still able to develop well because she already had the strong foundation of the years before. In this context, we talk about how she views the importance that is attached in the Netherlands to those early years of life. Beatrijs: “I think this is not seen enough. This is evident from the duration of women’s maternity leave. Some feminists often call me out on this: ‘There you have Beatrijs Smulders again with her sow leave!’ They make a swear word of it! I think the lack of continuity of care in childcare for small babies is harmful.”

This topic touches on the idea of ​​safety or lack thereof and I ask her if she knows the concept of ‘toxic stress’.
“Most certainly, yes! What I understand by this is that a child goes through drastic things and experiences severe stress and does not have the tools to absorb that stress and cannot turn to their parents for this. We need a certain amount of adversity to grow. That is inevitable; that’s how evolution works. Children are born as fragile gold nuggets and you should try to keep them intact for as long as possible. The development of our stress coping system through the protection of our parents is of vital importance. However, parents can’t keep protecting you, so you also need to develop a healthy ego that fills that function later in life. And when there is a setback, you hope that your stress coping system is strong enough on a fundamental level to allow you to grow through it. Sometimes you don’t succeed. Then people break. Women who were abused by their father as children… that is something a child can hardly cope with. Then you close and break and it takes a lot of effort to become whole again. The insecurity you experience as a result will affect the rest of your life.”

I explain that trauma is also described as a deep wound in the mind, a broken connection with the self, and loss of authenticity. When a wound can heal properly, there is less scar tissue. This is important, because the properties of scar tissue are that it is not so flexible, that it does not grow like the rest, that it puts things under tension when everything else does grow, and that it has few nerve endings and therefore lacks sensitivity. These are characteristics that can also become visible in the personality through trauma. Beatrijs sees her trauma from the hospital as a scar: “Fortunately, the rest is so healthy that I can live with it! But people are vulnerable and sometimes you only have to hear three times in a very vicious way that you are worth nothing and then you are already traumarised somehow, because your sense of security is damaged, which can have major consequences. Then it comes down to the strength of the early foundation to get you through.”

Finally, we discuss briefly what Beatrijs considers important for the policy for a good start in life.
“I think the autonomy of midwives in primary care is very important, so that they can continue to practice their wonderful profession and continue to support pregnant women and women in labour. Across the board, I think it’s time that women get to play a bigger role in society and work towards change. Unfortunately, women do not always have access to that power; they are sometimes put up against each other in unsolidary ways with the wrong means of power,  and are not raised and socialised into supporting other women in making a head start and rising in the speed of nations. But things are getting better; luckily there are hordes of women ready to take on a role as change agent in society, women who can make a world of difference for newborn children!”

We wrap up; I thank Beatrijs for her time and the fun we had together. It is wonderful to see that in so many disciplines, there are champions who advocate for the importance of a healthy, safe first 1000 days in a human life. Through her book ‘Blood’ people can get an insight into the start of her life as a midwife. In time, the second and third parts of the trilogy will appear, parts that Beatrijs is now working on daily.

Professionals and ACE-awareness; Episode 4 – This week: Beatrijs Smulders; Part 1

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The sun is shining when I arrive at Amsterdam Central. I open my folding bike and ride across the busy station square on the center side towards the Prins Hendrikkade. Just after the Odebrug, I turn right towards the canal house of today’s interviewee. With my now folded bicycle I climb the eight steps of the stairs to the front door. From behind the wrought-iron gate around the platform at the top, you can look out over the ships moored in the canal and the buildings on the other side of the water. I ring the bell at the left of two identical mirrored doors with beautiful wood carvings, both of which have brass letterboxes a third from below. The top two thirds consist of an opaque relief glass window decorated with a cast iron artwork with flowers and circular curls. To the left of the door on the wall, which is covered with white glazed tiles with flowers in two shades of blue, hangs a small glass case altar with prayer candles and a statue of the Virgin Mary. After I ring the bell, I hear firm footsteps on the floor in the hall. Then the front door opens with a swing and a broadly smiling Beatrijs Smulders stands in front of me. She welcomes me warmly and after I have parked my bike in a corner, we walk across the white marble floor through the long corridor to the back, to the spacious kitchen where we already talked to each other before. We chat for a while, while Beatrijs makes tea and then we get started.

I would like to hear from her how she got into this profession. That is currently a much discussed and widely read story, because the first part of the autobiographical trilogy she is writing has recently been released and is entitled ‘Bloed’ (‘Blood’). She describes in detail her fascination for the profession. “It took me a while to realize this was my destiny and actually I got into it through sexuality. As a girl, I already took a quite cheerful stance regarding that subject; I always carried with me a positive idea about sexual energy. Years later, once I was a midwife, I realised that I actually see a child as the materialised result of sexual energy. You make love together, which leads to conception, and essentially that is a form of love that is being materialised through sex – the most precious thing you can have, the connection between two people who love each other and from which a gold nugget emerges. I sometimes have a discussion in my head with Rutger Bregman, who says in his book ‘De meeste mensen deugen’ (‘Most people are virtuous’) that most people are good, but I say that all people are virtuous at birth. After that, unfortunately, much of this inner goodness can be damaged and many people become traumatised. At the moment, I still see a lot of oppression and too much lust for power in society. These are the themes that I have been working on in my profession all my life.

What I see is, among other things, that we are increasingly medicalising childbirth in western healthcare. For many women, this makes giving birth a disempowering experience. That is very unfortunate, because if you guide women in a positive way during childbirth, then birthing a baby is an empowering event, something that makes you experience a positive energy. Then the pregnancy and childbirth work love-unleashing, definitely also when that child comes out of your body. This affects you throughout your life, both you yourself and your child. The hormones during an unmedicated birth help with this: oxytocin, prolactin, endorphins… they help in the development of feelings of love and the ‘love gaze’, the first glance that mother and child exchange when they are both completely intoxicated by that beautiful mix of hormones. The breastfeeding relationship is a continuation of this. For months after the birth, a breastfed baby’s brain and body are marinated in oxytocin and endorphins, the hormones of happiness, connection and empathy. I am convinced that breastfeeding promotes future feelings of empathy in a child. A child who is allowed to breastfeed for a long time, thus receives a gift for life. Such a child is given the opportunity to optimally develop body awareness in the non-verbal stage of life. That helps to enjoy directly what is there, without the intervention of the compulsion of words and thoughts. No mindfulness training can compete with a start like that!”

I ask her how she views that good start, what period she associates with it.
“That first year is crucial. That we, as a society, still inflict upon women and children this routine of taking these little ones to a daycare setting after three months… that is something I consider a big digression. It is important to invest in a child’s first 1000 days. This means that both partners should be able to work less, not only mothers, but also their partners, so that partners can support the mothers in caring for the baby. This is important for bonding and for the development of the brain, which grows so incredibly fast in the early years. During the entire pregnancy, the child was in the womb and a sensitive hormonal adjustment has developed, which continues during the delivery and afterwards through the breastfeeding relationship. No one can take over that role; no one can replace that breast. Human children are all evolutionarily born premature; a baby is, as it were, still a larva, which, like the great apes, should simply be stuck to the breast for at least another nine months. Our intellectual, rational, feminist frames say: ‘No! After three months, the child can go to daycare!’ I experience that as the contemporary alienation that women are forced into by the law. I am happy to see that in addition to the mothers, there are also many fathers in the Netherlands who start working part-time when their children are small. That’s great and working from home during the corona crisis has made it clear that much more is possible there than we thought.”

Beatrijs pays tribute to women such as Hedy d’Ancona and Sigrid Kaag, who, once their children were older, plunged into politics and built wonderful careers. She believes that women should have the courage to plan their careers together with their partner and to ensure that both of them devote time to taking care of the children. She realises that not everyone sees it that way, but “breastfeeding is crucial for the human foundation, not only for nutrition, antibodies and bonding, but above all for healthy brain development and a healthy stress coping system. For a long time, that was a statement that could be harshly criticised for, but by now, science has clearly shown how important stress regulation is in the early years, so I’d like to make that point anyway!” She laughs out loud and resolutely bangs her fist on the table.

We talk about what Beatrijs sees as the essence of her work as a midwife.
“Well, I see two things… I think it’s important to support and promote women’s autonomy so that giving birth is a sexual, liberating and empowering experience. In addition, I see such a birth also as a way to heal old pain, to become whole, as a woman and as a mother. Becoming a mother is an important process in a woman’s life and when you can do it in an empowering way, it is love-unleashing and a reinforcing factor in your harmony with yourself. And that, in turn, helps in bonding with the child and with the harmony between you and your child. This nurtures the non-verbal bond of trust. You fall in love with your child and that infatuation, that unleashing of love, forms the basis, whatever terrible things can happen afterwards. If a child is allowed to discover the world in safety and security during the first few years and can learn from the parents how to deal with stress and emotions in a good way, then you lay a wordless, non-verbal physical foundation. That is then in your body. You can always fall back on it when you are under stress; you radiate that. It is in the wiring of your brain and that supports a strong stress coping system.”

Next week we will further discuss the role of breastfeeding and oxytocin, the importance of a good foundation for overcoming traumatic experiences, and the importance of security.

The ACE Aware NL-presentation for GOLD Early Years

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Last week, I had the privilege and pleasure to be one of the speakers at the GOLD Learning Early Years Online Symposium 2021 on behalf of ACE Aware NL!
The early years… that is quite a topic! There is so much we can say about that period and there are so many perspectives one could choose to draw attention to their importance for lifelong health and wellbeing. Therefore, it felt like quite a challenge to decide about what to include and share with the audience. Of course, I did make choices eventually and I would like to explain a bit about my presentation. You can still watch it, just as the other presentations in the series, that are also really worthwhile. This is the page where you can read more and register. Here you can get a first impression through a short interview I gave.

Seeing I am an anthropologist and sociologist, I considered it appropriate to include that perspective, so my first poll question was: “How would we act as a community in case of upheaval ‘back in the day’?” What does that make you think of? How would we respond to adversity when we were still small-band hunter-gatherers? What is an important part of keeping a tribe or a community together, also in more recent times?

This is a theme that brought me to the concept of salutogenesis, coined by Aaron Antonovsky in the late 70s of the 20th century. He felt that the origins (‘genesis’) of health (‘saluto’) deserved more attention, instead of living in fear about all that we should avoid in order to not get ill. He said that the deterioration of the human organism is not the exception, but the rule! We all are vulnerable; we all will get ill and die someday. We are all in ‘the river of life’ and although a life vest can be helpful at times, most important is that we learn how to swim in the turbulent streams we may have to navigate. It is worth, Antonovsky said, figuring out how we can slow down the entropy, the process of decline, and how we can promote practices and behaviours that support our health. Another important aspect of his view is that he saw health and disease as a continuum, not as a dichotomy. You’re not either ill or healthy; it is not black and white. Health is a dynamic balance and depending on a lot of social, psychological and biological factors, you can feel less or more healthy. Therefore, he also considered people’s personal views important: what makes us happy, what calms us down after times of stress, what helps us to regain our balance after impactful experiences? This is, in fact, an invitation to listen to people’s stories: ‘What happened to you?’ That question, the question considered crucial in trauma-informed practice, is the same question that Antonovsky saw as very important for a salutogenic approach, because when we see people as the experts of their own lives, we listen to what their needs and their fears are and we can proactively work on those.

Antonovsky saw a specific ‘measuring tool’ for an estimate of our health and wellbeing: the Sense of Coherence. We discussed this before in a blog; it is the feeling that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. If these three are well balanced, most people will feel happy, even if there are chronic conditions that they have to face daily (either healthwise or socially).
There may be all kinds of factors, however, that complicate people’s ability to handle their tasks, to tackle life’s circumstances, to have a ‘response-ability’. The more threatened our existence feels, the harder it becomes to function well. The more pain we experience, the more likely it is that we look for things or behaviours that can soothe or numb that pain. To put it differently: a life filled with pain increases the likelihood of falling prey to addictions, whether they are substances or habits such as spending too many hours behind a screen, eating or drinking too much, or always working and not spending enough restorative time.

And then, if we become aware that some of our practices may have a negative influence on our health and wellbeing, this can be very ‘uncomfortable knowledge’, knowledge we have a hard time dealing with for two main reasons, that are flipsides of the same coin. On the one side, this knowledge may disrupt our worldview, our way of approaching life, our view on what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and what to do and what to avoid. We are creatures of habit and changing habits can make us feel uncomfortable. On the other side, unhealthy practices are usually part of our coping mechanisms that we cannot do without. If we need to get rid of a practice that offers soothing and an escape from pain, who or what else is there to help us feel comfortable again? The aspect that combines the two sides of the coin, is our deep need for a sense of security and belonging. As humans, we can feel the need for change, yet we may simultaneously find it difficult to take the steps to achieve that change, either personally or professionally, if we fear losing connections and attachment relationships.

With regard to salutogenesis and resilience, however, it is important to become aware of the things that promote learning processes and processes of change. What are the ‘Awesome (Childhood) Experiences’ that strengthen and challenge us in a positive way? What is it between us and other people that really feels like ‘buffering support’, like an invitation to bring out the best in us? This is where the seven pillars of ACE Aware NL come in, concepts that have a prominent place in all trauma-informed settings: connection, compassion, courage, curiosity, confidence, kindness and resilience. When we experience these, we feel strong and vigorous. And when we can show them towards others, we help create healthy environments. What better start could we wish for the ‘Early Years’?!

You are most welcome to register for the symposium for much more information on these themes in my presentation (and for another five beautiful lectures)!

A dialogue about connective parenting; Part 2

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Last week we shared Part 1 of a dialogue that ACE Aware NL had with Anky De Frangh of ‘Connective Parenting’ in response to an Instagram post. Today you read Part 2.

⁠The accompanying text of the Instagram post continued:
”That [lack of certain skills in children] means that not all tantrums can be prevented, but as a parent you can do a lot to prevent tantrums as much as possible and to support your child in his or her development. Your approach during a tantrum is also very important!”

Marianne: Exactly! This sound like a strikingly apt statement. The role of the parents is crucial in how the child responds to a situation in which the perception of safety is under pressure or in which the child does not feel heard or seen. The mood of the parents also influences how frequently such situations occur.

Anky: And that’s what the entire masterclass and also the emotion coaching course are about. I just don’t tell parents that right at the start. By gently taking parents into the story, they understand the crucial role they play and they are naturally willing to change and tackle things within themselves.

“When children become more emotionally competent and thus learn to recognise, name, articulate, understand and regulate their emotions better, the frequency, intensity and duration of tantrums decrease.⁠⁠ And these are all things that you as a parent can support. ”

Marianne: On the one hand, completely true! On the other hand… children are often much more emotionally competent than adults: they sense flawlessly that something is wrong and then they call for help. However, to clarify what is going on, they use instruments that adults find difficult to handle. The core of this is actually that adults often lack the competencies to understand what the child is saying and of which problem the behaviour or expression is a signal or a symptom. Saying that the child is not yet sufficiently competent, could easily lead to framing the child as an incomplete individual.

Anky: I can agree with that. The cause of many frustrations, however, often lies in the fact that they do not always have the words to express themselves (and of course this is always in combination with a care figure who does not seem to understand). That is why we also see more tantrums in children who, for example, have a language development disorder. I completely agree that children are better able to sense, feel and allow emotions to be there. It is only in interaction with others that we as human beings ‘unlearn’ or suppress this. There is also a lot of attention for this in the course and I also make room for that on social media.

Marianne: That’s great, because if the child is portrayed as deficient, the role of parental incompetence remains unaddressed. This is ethically difficult, because those who are bigger and stronger bear a responsibility to protect the small and vulnerable. The Convention on the Rights of the Child describes this responsibility in many ways. As an adult, ‘leaning back’ until the child has become ‘more competent’ therefore does not seem appropriate. Adults can explore how they themselves can become more competent in understanding, speaking and connecting with the language of the child. In this way, the parent can indeed support (the development of) the child enormously and offer the child a sense of security that remains of great value for the rest of their life. Thus, parents and other adults can help build a powerful neurophysiological and stress regulation system.

Anky: Sure; in the masterclass we also discuss this in detail!

“Afterwards, you will also receive the slides and some practical handouts with tips about learning alternative behaviour and how you can stay calm as a parent.”

Marianne: The text seems to aim at the child by saying ‘teaching alternative behaviour’. In light of the previous, the question is probably justified whether it is not the parent who has to learn new skills. If flora does not thrive, you do not blame the flower or plant, but the environment (soil, light, water, nutrients). This principle also deserves much more social attention with regard to children.

Anky: I definitely agree that this principle should be in the foreground. That is also the reason that as a child psychologist I work less and less with children individually and focus on the parents instead. However, I also think it’s important to provide a balance for parents who are very strict with themselves or who eventually can’t see the forest for the trees, because there are so many things they ‘have to’ do to make it ‘right’ or that they think they should change about themselves.

Marianne: That’s great to hear that you focus on the parents! Important questions are then: ‘What does the child need? Why isn’t it thriving? What can we offer?’

Anky: The majority of the emotion coaching course and the masterclass is indeed about teaching alternative skills and behaviour for parents themselves. A mini-piece is about which alternative you could teach your child (by modelling this as a parent yourself and therefore also changing your behaviour) to deal with big emotions. I very consciously pay attention to this, because parents often have questions about this and that is what the masterclass is intended for.

Marianne: How great! By continuously asking the question of what the child needs, we can prevent Adult Supremacy, a concept that has already been discussed in some of our previous blogs, the position of power in which the interests of the adult trump the well-being of the child.’

Anky: Interesting! If I have time, I’ll read about it; I am really looking forward to it!

We completed the dialogue via e-mail. And with regard to the original post… it contained this text:

“Reminder: Your child’s tantrums say nothing about you as a parent, but say something about the developmental stage your child is in.”

Some brainstorming about this led to a suggestion for an alternative formulation, which Anky was also enthusiastic about:

“Impulsive anger (a ‘tantrum’) says something about your child’s state of mind; the extent to which you can offer your child safety in the face of such stress says something about your development as a parent.”

We exchanged a few more things and this was Anky’s conclusion:

I think we are indeed very much on the same page. I think I am a bit less aware or a bit more casual in my use of language. However, I am convinced that we deal with this in a very nuanced way in the masterclass on tantrums and the emotion coaching course, much more carefully than is possible on a medium such as Instagram. At the same time, I think it’s really nice that the text gave you so much to think about! This way I also get your ideas about it and this way we can both broaden our view and use our language even more consciously for our goals!

All in all, it was a nice exchange with ‘Verbindend Opvoeden’ and the next day Anky pointed us to the new Insta post: “Helping your kid to manage their emotions requires you to learn to manage yours first” with a beautiful caption. How wonderful and encouraging to keep getting to know accounts and the people behind them who are committed to treating our youngest citizens with more gentleness through the healing of the adults! Who knows, maybe we should also join Anky’s masterclass…?

A dialogue about connective parenting; Part 1

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ACE Aware NL recently got into a conversation with Anky De Frangh, child psychologist and behavioral therapist from ‘Verbindend Opvoeden’ (‘Connective Parenting’) following a message on Instagram. In her post she shared the following text:
“Reminder: Your child’s tantrums say nothing about you as a parent, but say something about the developmental stage your child is in.”
That statement got us thinking. Can we safely say that a child’s tantrums say ‘nothing’ about you as a parent? Could the tantrums also speak about something other than the developmental stage? And whose stage of development is it – indeed the child’s?
We decided to get in touch with Anky and that resulted in a captivating exchange about the image and the accompanying text. After mutual consultation, we would like to share the dialogue with you! We think that it is very valuable to question each other about shared insights and use of language and thus get to know each other better. In this way, professionals can learn from one another, and can use and pass on each other’s work for the greater purpose of offering children the safest possible start.

 

Hi Anky,

As promised, I’m sending you my thoughts on the image and text.
I look forward to getting to know each other and talking further to see if we can support each other’s goals, because my impression is that we are essentially on the same page!
With kind regards!

Hi Marianne,
Thanks for your feedback! I also think we are on the same page. Your approach as a parent during a tantrum is indeed extremely important. I have supplemented and explained a number of things in your comments to the text. I think it would be fun to do a video call some time!
Sincerely!

The accompanying text of the Instagram post was what the exchange was mainly about.
“On average, a child between the ages of 18 months and 5 years has 1 tantrum a day, with an average length of 3 minutes. (These are averages, of course! Kids can have more than 1 tantrum a day and they can last longer than 3 minutes. And not all kids have tantrums every day.)”

Marianne: It frightened me, Anky; if true, those are staggering numbers. Do you know what those numbers are based on? I am curious about how and with which definitions the research was conducted, because that can have a lot of influence on the conclusions.

Anky: I base the figures on this overview article. All references can be found there: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK544286/
When I do a poll in a workshop about the frequency and duration of tantrums, it appears that the answers of the participants are very close to this!

Marianne: Actually, the word ‘tantrum’ made me quite sad right away. As adults (and certainly as health care providers, policy makers, writers and influencers), we might consider taking a closer look at our language use. We can seriously ask ourselves whether we really want to label what we are referring to with the word ‘tantrum’.

Anky: Good question! Although I don’t experience that negative connotation myself, I realise that this is of course subjective and can therefore be different for everyone. I also think it is important to match the language already used by parents. I think that way it might also be easier for them to change their view of what ‘tantrums’ are. By the way, that is also very specifically the goal of our masterclass on tantrums (but people gradually discover that 😉).

Marianne: Yes, that may be right. My pain is in this… there is a kind of judgment about the child involved, a negative qualification of undesirable behaviour. It remains unclear whether the child’s anger is perhaps justified. Tantrums are often seen as unreasonable and unacceptable behaviour, but that is reasoned from the adult perspective, not the child perspective.

Anky: I think that anger is always justified, because that is a feeling and what a child feels is just his reality at that moment and has a right to be there. The behaviour is indeed seen as unreasonable, or especially not in proportion to the trigger, but here, too, it is of course important to know that the trigger of a tantrum is usually not the cause. It is very important, in my view, to pass that idea on to parents. And in addition, it is good to also make the translation to ourselves as adults, because we also sometimes react not in proportion to the reason.

Marianne: Sure, very good point! I think it is important to look from the point of view of the child, because that difference in perspective makes a lot of communication and advice around parenting problematic. The child and its behavioural, social and emotional expressions are often looked at from an adult perspective. I think by doing so, we can easily overlook a lot. What emotion is underlying the behaviour or the way the child expresses itself? And of what unmet need is that behaviour a logical and justified signal or symptom?
Recently we heard about this little dialogue:
Child (almost 4): “Mommy, is the tidying up fiiiiinally done?”
Mommy moments later: “Look, honey, that’s why it’s taking so long: because you’re all making a new mess even while you’re cleaning up.”
Child: “Yes, that’s right!”
Mom: “Well, not in my world.”
Child: “But that’s your world!”

Anky: I definitely agree with that. My mission with ‘Connective Parenting’ is therefore very much to help parents to make the translation and to look at it from the perspective of the child. It is important to look just a little further than the behaviour and find out which emotions and (unmet) needs are underneath it. This does not only apply to the child, but also to the parents themselves. I constantly try to translate from child to parents and also help parents to better understand their own reactions. That’s what it’s about: connection with your child and with yourself!

The caption continued as follows (see the italicised passages):
“So tantrums in young children are very normal! Toddlers and preschoolerspre-schoolers want to be independent, but at the same time they also have a great need for the attention of their parents. That makes it difficult to know exactly what they want. They want to try new things but not everything goes the way they want it because they are still learning everything. They also do not yet have the necessary skills to deal with or speak about their emotions in a good way… the ideal recipe, therefore, for frustration and tantrums.”

Marianne: Here, I noticed the word ‘normal’, a word that I think deserves caution. There is a distinction between ‘normal’ (in accordance with the standard) and ‘common’ (a fairly high frequency).

Anky: I can certainly agree with that. I’ve never thought about it that consciously, but that’s definitely something to do more in the future. I think I want to refer to both meanings in a certain way, including the ‘common’ aspect anyway. I notice that parents are often very concerned, while that is not always necessary. I also notice that parents who do a lot of things very well, still feel like they are failing when their child still throws tantrums from time to time. In addition to informing parents about the development of children and what you can expect as a parent, how you can look at behaviour differently, I also really want to reassure parents and give them confidence where possible. That is sometimes a thin line… In the masterclass, there is also conscious attention for this: when are tantrums worrying and no longer ‘normal’?

Marianne: In western societies, many behaviours, like many pathologies, are common, but in fact not normal, not in line with the biological norm or blueprint. Many behavioural and health problems are socially constructed; they are related to and based on socio-cultural conventions and customs, beliefs and ideologies, institutions and practices, laws and rules… you name it.
The fact that children are not yet able to say something about their emotions in words does not necessarily mean that they cannot deal with them well. They probably can do that… as long as the prerequisites inherent in the human biological blueprint are met. At its core is adequate co-regulation by parents who are able to properly regulate their own emotions. It is important that they face up to and overcome any trauma. If parents understand what their child is going through and respond patiently, a child’s anger is usually not too bad. And of course this is quite a task for many parents and a child can nevertheless sometimes be very angry and unreasonable (who wouldn’t? 😉). It is also good to talk about it with each other, without guilt and shame, so that parents can increase their skills and heal their pain. However, putting the problem on the child’s plate (or any other person’s) does not solve the problem of the underlying pain.

Angie: Sure! I totally agree with that!

 

Meanwhile, the video call took place and we had a beautiful conversation!
Next week you will read Part 2 of this dialogue.