My experiences of living with and working through Anxiety

Most people will experience a level of anxiety at some point. Most of us know this to be 'stress'. Whether you have an anxiety disorder or whether life has gotten the better of you and you are struggling with the feelings of stress and anxiety, it can be very hard to deal with.

I could come at this from a more clinical perspective and tell you that Anxiety is a fear based disorder classified as 'excessive worry' by the DSM-V (Diagnostic and statistical Manual used to categorize and label mental health illnesses). Instead I would like to talk about this in a more real, experiential way, sharing my experiences and how I have worked through and with my own anxiety. As with all illnesses, there are some common symptoms but every person is unique and will have their own experiences. I am no different. Hopefully this will help you to view anxiety a bit differently and approach your own stress in a slightly different frame of mind.

I have experienced 'stress' for as long as I can remember. I feel my anxiety in my body more than anything. Anxiety is a very physical disorder for many people due to the inability to relax and the high levels of worry that you may experience. Your body starts to react which I found increased my worry and made me feel trapped in this state of hypersensitivity. When I am anxious I tend to feel a great deal of pressure. The feelings of anxiety will latch on to relevant issues in my life that deserve a bit of stress but my reactions far outweigh the problem. Much of the time I manage this without people being aware. One of the worst mental pitfalls of anxiety that I experience is rumination. Thoughts that go round and round. Playing conversations in my head over and over. Having imaginary fights with people, even strangers, often based on me lashing out in defence to perceived threats or insults. None of this is warranted, none of it worthy of the amount of energy I expend. I end up mentally exhausted and angry. I become frustrated and angry with myself and often feel ashamed at my inability to control this. The negative, judgemental self talk starts. I feel defeated and want to escape, run away and start again. The light at the end of the anxiety attack seems very distant and at times I can't imagine it being there.

For me, mental exercises such as stopping thoughts and re-framing thoughts is difficult. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy works well for some people but for me, it added to my mental exhaustion and didn't fit. I never went to a CBT therapist, I did a group when in the UK and found the whole process to be a great learning opportunity (budding psychotherapist that I am) but in no way helpful or applicable. In fact one of the members was clearly grieving and had been lumped in this group without being fully assessed. The mental health system can be like this at times. We are so hell bent on finding a quick fix, evidence based solution that the government will fund that individual experiences and the acknowledgement of people having complex life experiences falls by the wayside.

Anxiety is often a product of emotional neglect in childhood. I have learnt a great deal in my own healing journey and would very much like to share this with you all. Emotional neglect is a bit different from emotional abuse, which we associate with emotionally manipulating people in order to control them or put them down. Childhood emotional neglect is a bit different and possibly one of the most damaging forms of abuse. It is often not deliberate at all and I hesitated calling it abuse. It occurs when parents or carers fail to effectively meet their child's emotional needs. Children are not attended to emotionally and they are not taught how to manage their emotions. Often this is because parents have not had their own emotional needs met. It is generational. Fear stems from instability and a lack of safety in the world. When needs are consistently not met in childhood this creates anxiety from an early age. Anxiety is a tough one to identify though as stress is such a common state. I remember being in a pharmacy looking for a vitamins and chose one that was good for stress. The pharmacist asked me if I was stressed and I replied 'Who isn't?' She said to me that she wasn't and looked taken aback by my response. I started to wonder if my stress was unusual.

I learn't in therapy and through my own personal growth and professional knowledge that instead of trying to change my thinking patterns, I needed to understand my emotions. I needed to understand what my child self went through on a feeling level. I had become so cut off from my felt sense, from how I experience things in my body. I was unable to connect to many of my feelings, I stayed in the realm of thinking and intellectualising. I inherently had to learn how to do this again. Meditation was key for me. I struggled a great deal at first. I find doing this whilst being open to exploring your true feelings and experiences in a safe and guided manner is the most helpful. I needed to work on some deep set beliefs I had been holding for most of my life. I have had a lot of shame and am still muddling through this aspect of myself.

The release for me has been confronting my anxiety and the reasons for it head on. I do not believe some people 'just develop it'. This is a myth and centred around our denial and resistance to looking at how we have been parented. This is not a criticism at all. I know first hand how guilty you can feel seeing the people who gave you so much as being the people who hurt you emotionally. Let me tell you though, once I worked through my attachment issues with my mother, I realised one day that my memories of her had changed for the better. The very memories that induced so much pain have been re-framed in my mind and I was seeing them more fondly. I understood her, I saw her for who she was and loved her more deeply than I was ever able to. In working on my childhood pain with a therapist that I trusted I was able to release the intense emotions attached to my trauma. I learnt how to be the parent to myself and identify my own needs and meet them for myself. This process is tough and so much comes to the surface before it can be released. This means the intensity heightens and you have to be aware of the process or you may just want to retreat back into your shell (believe me, that's normal). Should you persist, you WILL overcome it and come out so much stronger. Each challenge becomes that little bit easier. You find strength to work on yourself in ways which you never thought possible. You look at patterns in your life that no longer serve you. You start feeling a sense of self love you never thought was possible. This takes time but something I always felt was that although there is pain, it's NEW pain. It sure beats the same old ruminations and stress.

Not all therapist's believe in this. Working on your childhood attachment trauma when suffering from anxiety or any mental illness is the key. It allows you to release and purge this unwanted baggage and change in a way that you can't possibly go backwards from. You learn HOW to work on yourself and WHY you are feeling the way you do. You learn how to feel and trust your feelings. You learn about who you are. I no longer struggle in the same way. I get triggered at times but I allow those triggers to surface and I observe them, my behaviour and work through my emotions. Like I said, you learn how to work on yourself, on your shadow self.

Anxiety is not a life sentence and you don't need to stop your thoughts or change anything. On the contrary you need to observe them, accept them and reflect on them. Let them guide you. Focus on your feelings, really work hard at being in the present and with whatever you are experiencing. Be kind to yourself and hang in there!

Take care,
Paula X

Shame on me, shame on you

Hi folks,

This was always going to be a tricky blog to write because of the vast impact the emotion SHAME has on pretty much all cultures and groups of people. And to be the bearer of bad news, the links to the negative impact of this emotion stem from childhood and how this emotion is misunderstood, under regulated or even inflicted by parents and/or guardians of the child. This topic can be triggering for people who have experienced trauma in the form of shame and I urge you to notice how you feel and pay attention to any resistances that emerge for you. Treat yourself with love and compassion when tackling shame.

Let me start off by explaining shame a bit as it can often be confused with 'guilt'. Guilt is when you feel you have done something wrong. Shame is when you feel that your being or who you are is fundamentally wrong. Still confused?
Shame basically makes you feel inadequate or lacking in some way (or all ways) on a deep, personality/character, fundamental level. People who feel this way spend their lives attempting to hide this from the world. It becomes so ingrained that you begin to hide your shame from yourself unconsciously. Like me, many of you will be completely unaware of your shame but well aware of your insecurities and fears. So many of us have insecurities it actually becomes unusual not to have them. Some cultures, like mine, celebrate a level of humility and look down on over confidence and high self esteem. A certain level of shame is almost expected and considered normal in some Western cultures.
Have a think about yourself and your levels of self esteem, I have described a few,what I call 'shame bombs' below:
Perhaps you hate getting in a swimming costume in front of others or have issues with you body or the way you look. Perhaps you get intimidated really easily and feel your opinion will be laughed at or put down. Perhaps you struggle to trust your significant other or friends. Perhaps you have a fiery temper and are unable to control it and your reactions. Perhaps you have an addiction of some sort or battle with substance abuse (Some of you may be familiar with the term 'Dutch courage',which is fondly used to describe how alcohol frees your inhibitions and makes you brave). Perhaps you have a phobia or suffer from a mental illness (eg depression, anxiety, bi-polar, borderline personality disorder, narcissism etc). Perhaps you are either the perpetrator or victim of domestic violence. Think of the impact of low self - esteem, what kinds of feelings associate with this way of being.What does shame FEEL like?

I have discovered my own shame in my journey of self discovery. Perhaps to ease the blow of your own shame being identified, it may help you to hear about mine.

I had no idea I was sitting on a bed of shame. What I knew is that I had something big inside that was unprocessed and frightened me. If you start to study psychology and counselling, you develop a theoretical knowledge about things like shame. You know that to work with shame therapeutically you work in a similar way to trauma, carefully and gently. Despite having a real interest in this emotion, I did not make the links to my own experiences and reactions. Those who have read my previous blog will know I lost my mother when I was 17. I always attributed my unexplored pain or what I called my 'vault' to unprocessed grief and some issues I had with my mother as a teenager that were not resolved when she was killed. I am a person who reflects and is not afraid to work on herself. I believe in this process and feel it is vital to understand my way of being and experiences in order to help other's understand theirs. I never ask anyone to go anywhere I wouldn't go myself.

The problem was, I had no idea what I was up against and despite numerous efforts to resolve my grief I was struggling with anxiety and feeling like I was losing myself more and more, the closer I moved into my profession. This was actually quite the opposite. I was starting to grow frustrated with how I was reacting to things. The more I worked with children and families, the more I started to burn out. It was my eventual burn out at the end of the year that pushed me into therapy with someone I chose specifically. My therapist is also my mentor and I absolutely love how he works and thinks. This is important.The relationship between you and your therapist is fundamental. Why you may ask, because this process requires trust and vulnerability. You need to work up to a level of trust to allow yourself to revisit your childhood or perhaps a better way of looking at this is 'inner child work'.

My mum was empathic, loving and warm. Not a day went by that she didn't tell me she loved me when she was alive. Anyone who knew her would be shocked to hear me speaking like this. I did not accept any of this easily either. Week after week I tried to resist this concept, this shame. In terms of attachment (relationship bond, critical to healthy childhood development) I am not secure. To be specific, I have an 'insecure preoccupied' attachment style from an 'anxious ambivalent attachment' [John Bowlby's attachment theory - for those wanting to know more]. What this means in non clinical terms is that my mum was inconsistent at times and I lacked boundaries. My mum struggled to say no and despite very early childhood discipline such as spanking and enforcing rules, I was often given far too much control and say in my upbringing as my childhood progressed. If my mum was unhappy about something, she placed the decision on my shoulders but made me feel guilty for 'wrong' decisions. I lacked guidance in the form of structure and routine. My mum lacked conviction and confidence in her rules. I ruled the roost. My attachment style means that my mum and I were very expressive and close but our emotions were far too entangled and volatile. I was always mature for my age, due to being given too much responsibility too early on, which encouraged the belief that I was able to hear things that were not always appropriate for my age. This was not limited to my mother, most adults forget my age and still do. The role of child and parent was often confused and not clearly defined. I have always been pretty good with my brain and learnt how to manipulate situations into my favour from very early on. We all create defence mechanisms and these are dependent on many things, namely our personality and family culture I believe.

Unfortunately this did not all begin in childhood. It started earlier than that. And this is difficult to convey because I do not have clear memories. My shame started as a baby. Shame may occur when needs are neglected. I want to stress that none of this was intentional in my case although I am aware that this is not true for everyone. I have discovered that I wasn't consistently attended to. I had to piece bits of memories together like a puzzle. I wont go into detail but will share a few. I remember my mother saying things like she was lucky if I slept 20 minutes at a time. I remember her suggesting to a young mum to leave her baby to'cry it out' at night. I have seen a photo of my extreme distress when having a bath. I have temperature issues now which suggest I was not attended to in terms of being too hot or too cold. My mother believed that babies don't feel the cold like adults do. So as you can see, there are little things, often based on beliefs from that era, that show neglect but not intentionally. I also needed to take into account the fact that my mum was a single parent, we struggled financially, my mum had her own past trauma's and had health issues (osteoporosis). I have a suspicion she may have suffered from Post Natal Depression, but not much was known back then and support certainly wouldn't have been free in South Africa.

I want to highlight the most important part in this - inconsistency. As a little baby, without thoughts or brain development outside of instincts and drives, I was completely dependent on my single mother to keep me alive. If I needed something, I would have cried or cooed and attempted to get attention. As a baby, my instinct would have been one of extreme fear and anxiety if my needs were not met. This is because on an instinctual level I knew I would literally die if not attended to or left alone in the world. Thus if you leave a baby to cry and cry and ignore them, this creates fear and anxiety due to survival needs. This can be true for children in their formative years too (under 4 or 5 years old). When the child is hungry but does not get fed, or feeling pain but does not get comforted and looked after, or is cold but does not get given something to keep them warm etc, the child becomes insecure. The world does not feel like a safe place. They are not able to understand the complex reasons for why the parent is not attending to them. When a baby is unable to see or sense their parent or an adult, they do not have the brain development to understand that the parent still exists and will come back. They learn that they are not worthy of this attention or the attention is conditional if parents are continuously inconsistent in meeting needs and this creates 'shame'. Even babies will start adapting their behaviour to attempt to get their needs met, thus learning they have to be something else in order to receive love. They live with a fundamental fear and as the years go on this fear and belief that they are unworthy becomes completely embedded and internalised. They learn that being who they are and acting on how they feel is not acceptable.

Each individual person will react differently to this and develop their own ways of coping. These coping mechanisms are often valuable in childhood but become maladaptive later on. For instance I developed a temper. If I felt someone was attacking me in some way, I fought back. I developed structures and things in my life to 'prove myself' and I like control.In fact I need control and even as a child I was extremely bossy and battled to share. I don't take to authority well. I become overly familiar with people quickly and my close friends are like family to me, yet I always feel this is conditional. Underneath I often feel like I have to give something in order to receive. I question people who love me for me and for years accepted that people like me for certain parts of me but would not like me if I expressed what I really felt or what I really needed. I wasn't dishonest, I just showed people parts of myself depending on what I thought they would respect and like. I am lucky because I am extremely good at reading people and have made this way of life something almost innate- but not quite. This, I believe, is the reason people say that you can feel lonely even though you have so many people in your life that love you. This sentence is another shame bomb. You feel lonely because you are alone. No one is seeing you. No one is hearing you. No one truly knows or understands you. You don't even know or understand yourself.

People with shame often feel an emptiness inside that cannot seem to be filled. It's that feeling of lacking, of not belonging. This is shame. Many of us have learnt to repress certain emotions such as anger or sadness. A good example is gender stereotypes where men are discouraged from the more 'feminine' emotions such as sadness and fear. Thus my culture is full of men who suffer in silence and are unable to even talk to their friends about their pain. Shame is a powerful emotion and is bigger that most people know. We use every trick in the book to avoid feeling it and often these include destructive or harmful behaviours.

Understanding what shame is and how it operates is extremely important for all people. Punishment is often our first port of call for pretty much most 'bad' behaviours. Punishment, without understanding and help for the person, exacerbates problems. Look at the prison system or issues with substance abuse for a good example of this. We need to be tackling shame and helping people find ways of healing this. Teaching people why they feel the way they do and helping them to find healthier ways to react. Bringing shame out to the surface releases it's power on you. Punishment creates more shame. This is why I am completely against spanking. This is one of the most shaming strategies a parent can use. If you have already done this, it is important to spend some time building on your child's self esteem and teaching them about emotions and how to better react to them. I know this is hard to hear, but spanking a child for a bad behaviour is like punishing them for your lack of ability to teach them the correct behaviour. I always find it ironic that parents will spank their child in order to teach them not to hit, or bite, or push etc. You are not modelling the correct behaviour when you do this, rather they can see that you hit, so the problem must not be the hitting,it must be them, they are the problem...shame bomb! Children are resilient, you can completely turn this around! Teach your children about emotions and give them appropriate ways to cope with how they are feeling.

All is not lost for adults too. The trick is to re-parent, soothe and nurture yourself. For those who struggle, my best suggestion is to make use of a therapist that understands and works with attachment trauma (most experienced practitioners do). Always be kind to yourself and notice when you are being your own abuser. Actively aim to stop this. Cut yourself some slack and start honestly asking yourself what you really need.

I wish you all luck and love XX
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Tackling my feelings before my Behaviour

Wow, it's been a while since I took finger to keypad and typed out a blog! Where do I begin...

It has been a journey, I'll tell you that. The kind of journey where you thought you had most big things figured out. Then BAM you learn the harsh reality of the term 'false belief system'. I was running blind, swallowed up by my own rules and nonsense. Riddled in defence mechanisms and holding on for dear life to people and things that made me feel some semblance of safe. I mean, where the hell did all this anxiety in the big wide world come from?

I remember thinking certain things when in my early teens and struggling my way through hormones and heartache. I remember noticing that some days I felt on top of the world and others I felt as if no one liked me and the world was against me. I managed though. I more than managed, I wore the biggest mask around. So big was my mask that even those closest to me had no idea what I really went through. The shame, humiliation, embarrassment, fear, insecurity and anger that stewed inside me and had no healthy outlet. I am a loud, extroverted presence and I was never invisible physically (I made sure of that). Love me or hate me, you notice me. This mask bit me in the ass because people were so busy seeing the loud, falsely confident Paula, they had no idea that a scared, insecure little girl was crying out for help.

This damn defence mechanism got misread to my disadvantage again and again. I was seen as a bully because I was always the spokesperson for the group, or I was acting out. To me it was a get them or they will get me thing. I was seen as strong. I was seen as someone who didn't feel very much. I was seen as happy and cheerful. I was seen as whatever mask I chose to wear really. Most teenagers go through this in some way, it's a time when difference is feared more than anything else. It got so bad that I didn't know any other way to be.I desperately wanted to be liked, desperately wanted to be helped and blocked the very things I needed with my behaviour.  I became a people pleaser. I suppressed my needs and found it easier to do the things my friends enjoyed. This got out of hand too and I found myself in crowds I didn't fit into, at places I couldn't afford, wearing clothes I had had to borrow. I gave in to peer pressure and had so much freedom and zero structure. I got drunk, walked the streets at night, smoked cigarettes, hooked up with boys, got into verbal fights etc. During the day I captained the tennis team, sang in choir, visited my grandparents, turned pages for my piano teacher at charity concerts, spent time with friends, worked hard in school etc. I changed like the tides, trying to find myself, trying to fit in, trying to be accepted and feel loved. My shame was growing. Shame in myself, in my mum and her lack of control in the situation (I have learnt that she did it really tough and there were so many reasons for this). The real shame though, is the shame I turned inward. The shame I had in myself. To be honest this is still a work in progress.

I was never a stranger to emotions. I am highly empathic and understand emotional experiencing better than I do any other sense or system. I am able to read shifts in people, the mood and atmosphere, people's deeper pain. Other people have always been easy, what I could never master was my own emotional experiencing. I felt like my control over my emotions was paper thin and the hard ones were deeper than I could conceive. As I delved into psychology and counselling I developed a name for this part of myself that held all my deeper emotions and pain. I called this my vault or squishy middle. I spent a lot of energy and time fearing this unknown entity inside me. So much went into the vault that I lost sight of what had gone in there. It became overwhelming. But I ploughed on.

I ploughed through incredible adversity, grief and trauma. I have always recognized my teenage years as difficult. My mother struggled and I became more of a parent then a child. I had no idea what my mother was growing through, I had no words, no support and no one to talk to. I was programmed to hide things from my grandmother and the world. I think my mum always wanted my Granny to be proud of her. My lovely Granny loved us more then anything but love was not expressed verbally. She was very critical but meant it in love. Needless to say I kept my mums secret, it became my secret, we were drowning. Financial, physical, emotional...you name it, we were in strife. I started to resent my mum and rebel in a way. At the time I would never have seen it as rebellion. Awful part of my rebellion, I was always guilt ridden and overly sensitive to my mum's feelings. I could never bare to hurt her, or worry her. I confessed almost all sins. I soon learnt that I was unguided. I was so convincing that I was in control that my own mother did not see how out of my depth I was. How much I needed her to take over and let me be a child. This way of life may have been what saved me in years to come...or the very thing that undid me.

On 3 December, 2002, I went off to celebrate the end of the school year with an old friend. I said my goodbyes to my mother and said our usual 'I love you'. That was the last time I saw my mum. That night some adolescent boys broke in and gagged her too tightly. They never meant to kill her, only to rob us blind. They came through my bedroom window. It was a blur. I learnt this from my friend the next morning, her mum got a call. My whole world stopped turning. It was like a dream, a horrible,sick dream. No one seemed to be able to comprehend my level of loss. On the second or third night after she died I was still staying at my friend's house (I wasn't ready to face my Gran's pain). I was crying in the middle of the night once again. Every time I shut my eyes I saw my mum's face and my heart broke again. I was terrified. I had no idea what would happen to me,where I belonged, where I wanted to be outside of my own home. I had all this emotion and no where to put it. My tears were gut wrenching, my soul was shattered. It was as if someone had severed off a limb. My friend, who had her own grief, cracked under the pressure and blurted out a conversation she and her mother had planned to have with me the following day. At midnight she told me that she thought I needed to find somewhere else to stay, it was too much for her. My pain was too much for her.

I didn't think I could sink any lower. I was wrong. I learnt some very hard lessons that night. I learnt that I had been 'right', people wont want to be around you if you are yourself. Even if you lose your mother, people will not cut you slack, allow you to sob, allow you to grieve. If only I had known then what I know now. These childhood masks, defences, they keep coming back to bite you. Long after they have been rendered useless. People cant be there for you because they don't know how to be there for themselves. So many of us are running blind.

I put a lot of emphasis on my grief. I thought it was the reason for pretty much most of my problems. My anxiety namely. I was well known for being stressed. I suffered from bad back pain my whole life which was never diagnosed or treated adequately. I was used to chronic pain and tension (I still am). My energy levels are often a struggle. I couldn't tell where my back began and the anxiety ended. As the years went on my struggles with anxiety, esp the physical tension side of anxiety increased. It started to effect my work. Working with children became my thing but it kept bringing up memories and emotions I had no idea how to process. I moved to Australia and studied Masters in Counselling. This level of training forces you to unpack yourself quite heavily and confront how you tick. I confronted the edge of my inner vault time and time again. After uni I started to work with families. My clients had an array of issues with high levels of risk and trauma. Slowly but surely I became more and more impacted. It was becoming clear, families and child abuse were more than upsetting to me, this was traumatic for me and triggering a trauma I had no idea I had. I burnt out.

It didn't make sense. The theories didn't fit me. My mum and I were so close. She never ever forgot to tell me she loved me. She would have taken a bullet for me. She did so much for me, encouraged me, watched my tennis games, talked to me about school, always listened. Why, oh why are the signs pointing to neglect? EMOTIONAL NEGLECT!!! It didn't make sense. I started seeing a therapist who was my teacher. I would trust no-one else (I have been through many therapists, I am a tough cookie to counsel). I admire my therapist so much, professionally and personally, and listen when he talks. He identified attachment trauma. I wont go into that here if attachment is a bit foreign (I urge everyone to look it up though). My issues stem from my early childhood - my formative years. My mum, my beautiful childhood, my entire world view...aaahhhh! It was a very very difficult pill to swallow and took many sessions of revisiting this to get my head around it. I finally made peace with it when I allowed myself to start looking back at well known memories. These memories were often the fond ones. That is why I could never see this. My happy memories were still happy, they just held some vital clues to opening my vault. They helped me to finally see the roots of my problems.

It was never what she did to me. What she did to me was nothing but loving. Everything she did was intended to give me love and life lessons. The problems were in what she didn't do. Dr Jonice Webb identifies this as C.E.N - Childhood Emotional Neglect. She feels all abuse has CEN with it but not all CEN accompanies abuse. In fact most families have some degree of this because it is a generational problem. It travels from generation to generation unknown and powerful. We couple this with so many passed down and outdated parenting beliefs and systems and have become so far removed from the reasons why we do things and if they are in line with our intentions.

My mother believed with all her heart that the best way to parent was to give strong discipline like spanking etc in the early years. I remember her telling me that she hit me very early and this is why I am a good girl now. She saw my incessant guilt and obligation that was way beyond what a child my age should have felt as me being special, good and with a good head on my shoulders. I saw it the same way too. I didn't see this as being a problem. I didn't know any other way to be. Hitting me early would have translated to me that I am being punished for trying to communicate my needs. I have had these patterns with people in my life again and again because I gravitate to what I know, mistaking that for what is safe. I have recently discovered that it is not my feelings that are the problem, it is my behaviour. I am so busy trying to be a certain way, to feel in a certain way, I have lost sight of how I actually feel. I have started a new relationship with the real me and have had to confront many demons and unhealthy dynamics in the process. This has been so painful but so necessary.

I realised that I have a gift. I have a deeper understanding of emotional experience through personality, academia and life experience. I am passionate about parenting and helping children through helping parents. I believe that parents are the very best people to help their children. Trauma, attachment, emotional regulation and strength based work should not be elitist knowledge for the educated and professional. It is not as fancy and complicated as it sounds. It is a way of seeing the world. It is about understanding emotions and how powerful they are. It is about understanding the role parents need to play to tackle these growing societal problems, mental health issues, bullying, youth substance abuse, suicide, crime etc. It is ridiculous that this is something only certain people have access to for various reasons. I want to give this gift out for free. I want to create awareness and empower parents. Break the cycles, end the bad patterns and give people something better and healthier to try. I want the world to 'Tackle the feelings before the Behaviour'. Stop blaming children as if they are not a part of a system. No child is born evil. Some have challenges and disabilities. Some struggle with biological challenges. This does not make them evil. Lets take control back. Have the courage to see your own parents and grandparents as human. Love them through their faults so that you may see them as real and learn how to be real with your own kids.

I hope there is something in my story that is helpful :) I am proposing a parenting approach but I am not a mother. My challenge was always a tricky one. I am not coming from the side of a parent though. I am giving your children a voice because I have built a very strong relationship with and deeper understanding of my own inner child. I am also pretty trained up in this area and am not the type to stop learning. This is me, warts and all. Thank you for reading XXX

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Raising Happy Children

With so many of my peers entering the world of parenthood, I have been pondering a blog around 'children and attachment' for quite some time now. To attempt to move away from fancy words and theory's I want to try and explain and discuss 'raising happy and well adjusted children'. I have been working with children in various settings for about 5 years or so now and have worked with a range of cultures and ages. My current job as a family worker unfortunately exposes me to the 'not so happy' children in the community and it is from this growing knowledge that I felt it may be helpful to a few people out there to explore this very broad topic with me. For those who are not parents, perhaps you may start to look at your own childhoods...

No child is born 'evil' or 'bad'. Despite many people out their believing otherwise, the very tough home truth is that children are a product of learning or circumstance. This is something I believe with my whole heart and if no other message goes through, let it be this one! If you were told something awful like that as a child...it is not true. Simple. What isn't simple, however, is understanding why children develop behavioural problems, or behave in ways that are associated with our idea's of 'bad'. I thought the best way to go about this would be to explain some of those fancy phrases or terms such as 'attachment', 'emotional regulation' and 'development' in a way that is easy to comprehend and apply to your own lives.

DEVELOPMENT

I will start with development as most people know about this to some degree - if for no other reason but because we have all progressed through early development ourselves and continue to develop throughout our lives. When development is mentioned in relation to children, it is about how a child is growing, learning and reaching milestones specific to a rough age group. Theorists such as Freud and Erikson (the 2 that spring to mind the most for me) and many others have attempted to create comprehensive 'stages of development'. I wont go into what their theories are in this forum but I will discuss this concept of developmental stages a bit as it can become a great source of stress for parents, particularly if your child is said to be 'delayed' or 'immature' for their age.  

There are many theories but none of them are absolute and rigid. These milestones are meant to act as a guide. Children should start to teethe, walk, talk, make associations etc around certain ages. Some children advance in some areas and take longer to develop in others. This is normal. Your child is unique and special and should be assessed as an individual, the same as adults. Some areas require more effort and support than others on the part of parents and educators. Children are often put through assessments at school in their early years in order to assess for readiness to move up to the next grade or level. Ideally this is done in order to support the child, not to criticise and pass judgement. That said, many people do feel judged and finding out your child is behind can be quite confronting for parents. For the most part,delays in development are not an indicator of disability, slowness, lack of intelligence or underlying issues. Often it is about being flexible and understanding that your little nipper is constantly learning and their brains are still developing. Children are each exposed to different stimuli, experiences and learning opportunities and the rate at which this learning takes place is going to differ slightly for each child.

When to be concerned:

With everything, it is always good to consult with a professional if you notice areas of struggle or delay that are worrying or substantially different from other children their age. Keep talking to your Doctor and keep yourself informed about what milestones to expect from what ages so that you are able to align your expectations with your child's capability. When professionals assess a child for abuse, often these developmental stages act as a guide for abnormal behaviour. An example would be a child who is being abused may regress or halt development in certain areas like speech. Teachers should hopefully pay attention when children who are, for example, 3 years old and have not started forming words or sentences yet.

EMOTIONAL REGULATION

This is something that you may actually know about on a basic level. We need to teach children about emotions and appropriate ways of expressing them. This is something most parents do naturally. Emotions are learnt through modelling (children watching you and your emotions) as well as through validation, which is when you reinforce their emotional experiencing by acknowledging their feelings. If you try and hide emotions from children it can actually be more harmful than protective because young children are more in tune with their intuition and senses than with thoughts and reasoning. They will pick up on your emotions and react to them. Being appropriately transparent is a great way to teach your children about different emotions and take away the fear surrounding the more negative emotions such as anger and sadness, I want to stress that you do not need to be transparent about your problems and the reasons you are feeling a certain way, adult problems should not burden children. What you should do, however, is explain that you have an adult problem and it is making you feel sad or angry or frustrated. If you are crying, explain to the child that you are crying because you are feeling sad etc. It is a parents job to familiarise and support children through their emotional experiencing so that they can feel comfortable in their reactions and do not feel guilty or ashamed of 'how they feel'. I find it is easier to teach children about emotions like you would shapes, colours, the alphabet and other common lessons. Associate emotions with colour and ask children to match different emotions to the colours they think represent the emotion. There are many lovely activities to help you with this but the best way is to lead by example.

What happens when a child's emotions are not regulated?

Due to the sheer enormity of child abuse and mental illness, this is an area that is strongly backed up by research although the negative effects of insufficient emotional regulation have been known to many frameworks of psychotherapy and psychology for years. Within child abuse literature and laws, neglect has been proven to be just as harmful, if not more harmful in some cases, than physical abuse. The reason is due to this regulation of emotions and attachment (which I will chat about shortly). Neglect is not simply about not playing with your children or not giving your children constant attention. It is about failure to help them develop and learn, failure to build up their strengths, failure to validate them as human beings and failure to normalise their experiences and teach them that feeling emotions is normal and not to be ashamed of. Safety is not only about a physical environment. Children need to feel like they can make mistakes and will still be loved and accepted. They need to be able to have trust in the people caring for them and they need to be able to ask questions and learn how to manage their feelings appropriately so as not to harm themselves or others in any way.
Going back to my initial statement of children not being born bad or evil, this is a prime example. Children do not have the mental capacity and ability to process their feelings and articulate their needs like adults can. That does not mean they do not feel the same emotions, it means they often are unable to understand them. Children who behave in challenging ways are often acting out their emotions due to a lack of a better outlet or guidance. They are attempting to get their needs met. Discipline and structure are important here, not in terms of punishment, but in terms of safety and boundaries. When you punish a child for expressing their emotions inappropriately, it is important to spend some time teaching the child more appropriate and healthy ways to react without shunning the emotion itself. ALL EMOTIONS ARE IMPORTANT and serve a purpose.
If a child has never been taught how to understand their emotions they will struggle in life to various degrees. The child may go on to develop low self-esteem, mental illness such as anxiety, depression and in extreme cases, more serious mental illnesses such as Borderline Personality Disorder. They will most likely struggle to have healthy relationships and may struggle to handle stress in life. As they have not been taught that certain feelings are normal in certain situations, they will have to work all of this out for themselves along the way. This will mean that they will struggle to feel confident in their reactions and may feel out of control and easily overwhelmed. A good example of a child not having their emotions regulated is when the primary caregiver has mental illness, lets say depression, and struggle to feel their own positive emotions such as joy and excitement and thus are unable to model these to their child. The child may race home with a gold star only to be met with a half hearted smile. The child may become confused and mistake this reaction for a mistake in their own feelings 'this gold star is not something to be excited about'. That lesson will be learnt and the child will be left with confusion. Later in life the child may go on to find that they are unable to recognise joy and excitement.

ATTACHMENT

This ties into both development and emotional regulation and stems from 'Bowlby's Theory of Attachment'. It is about the relationships and emotional bonds
that are formed  between people. Children will form an attachment to their primary care giver, usually the mother figure. This is different to other relationships of friendship and romantic attraction/love. It is a deep relationship requiring trust and a sense of belonging where the person creates a bond that is extremely influential to their sense of being in the world. The earliest attachments in childhood are the most important and impact behaviour, self-esteem and self reliance and have a lasting impact throughout the child's life. To have a secure attachment, your child will learn that you love them unconditionally and will be dependable and reliable. Again, many parents do this naturally by meeting the infant's needs, accepting the child's mistakes, spending quality time with the child, creating structure and safety and routine in the child's life, teaching the child continuously, being patient, showing and expressing love and guiding the child through challenges.

When the attachment is not secure: 

This can happen for a number of reasons, namely, it happens when a primary care-giver is not consistent or does not create this bond effectively with the child. Inherently, it happens when the child's needs do not get met (physical, emotional and other). If the child continuously receives mixed messages, they will become confused and will not feel secure. This happens when a parent is abusive and the child is never sure how the parent will react. It can also happen when a child is neglected or left to fend for themselves in some way. It also happens when the child's emotions are not regulated. Not having this security can lead to a range of issues down the track for example they may be unable to form healthy relationships, either becoming too dependent or too avoidant, unable to feel secure in a range of areas within their life. Thus this impacts self-esteem and confidence. Some people may go on to suffer from various forms of mental illness, similar to a lack of emotional regulation.

Some final words:

As a parent it is your job to teach your child how to believe in their own ability and experiencing. It is important to take care of yourself so that you may take care of your child. The best way to teach a child is to lead by example. I hope this has not created fear in new parents, it is not meant to frighten and scare, rather to inform. Love your children, treat children like children and don't expect children to deal with adult issues. Children learn best through play and through modelling so remember, live by example and do not use your children to meet your needs, it should be the other way around. There are no rule books and formula's, you will mess up more than once and that's ok. It is how you handle the mistakes that count in the end. Dr Phil always says 'it takes a hundred atta boy's to make up for one criticism. Never call your child names like stupid, useless, bad, hopeless etc, they will believe you and take this on board. Always punish the behaviour not the person. Your behaviour is naughty not you are naughty. Take time to explain why you are angry or upset with them, let's get rid of the 'because I said so' and replace it with a solid response 'mummy wants to keep you safe and so the answer is no'. Encourage questioning and exploration and encourage tolerance and love!

Those are my thoughts and I encourage you all to keep learning about this and find ways that work for you and your family.

XXX
Paula