It's incredible to me that even after reading so much about parenting, emotion regulation, attachment...I STILL have moments when Dr becky says "you didn't make the team. That stinks." ie let's feel this feeling TOGETHER, I think "won't that make our kids wimps! Dwelling in soft feelings?" I know the answer is that we can only regulate feelings we've had help learning to tolerate. We've got to learn to go down if we ever want to learn to come back up. Like Winnicott said, there is no child, only child and parent. We were all raised to believe that only the "tough" survive (patriarchy), but we defined tough as essentially being a bully, when in reality truly being tough is to be cooperative (MGI). So sad that behaviorism and punishment is so entrenched in our culture. On some level, I guess it needs to be (ie speeding tickets?). But one of my fav quotes is from the first parenting book I read "how to talk so kids will listen..." and it says basically "the world is scary...let our homes be different". Amen.
It's incredible to me that even after reading so much about parenting, emotion regulation, attachment...I STILL have moments when Dr becky says "you didn't make the team. That stinks." ie let's feel this feeling TOGETHER, I think "won't that make our kids wimps! Dwelling in soft feelings?" I know the answer is that we can only regulate feelings we've had help learning to tolerate. We've got to learn to go down if we ever want to learn to come back up. Like Winnicott said, there is no child, only child and parent. We were all raised to believe that only the "tough" survive (patriarchy), but we defined tough as essentially being a bully, when in reality truly being tough is to be cooperative (MGI). So sad that behaviorism and punishment is so entrenched in our culture. On some level, I guess it needs to be (ie speeding tickets?). But one of my fav quotes is from the first parenting book I read "how to talk so kids will listen..." and it says basically "the world is scary...let our homes be different". Amen.
Hello Rebecca, it's your husband .