Raising securely attached children is a beautiful thing and will protect them in innumerable ways.
But there is one thing that it does render them vulnerable to. That is people who are manipulative enough to pray upon their loyalty and love.
Securely attached people are remarkably compassionate and caring and don't want anyone to suffer.
So as parents we need to equip them with the knowledge of how to identify abuse in their lives AND what healthy mutual commitment is and isn't.
Especially for our girls who are targeted in tremendous ways by partners who seek control, make sure your kids know that leaving a bad situation is not abandoning someone.
I wanna tell you all why I am teaching all my children, but especially my daughters, that there is only one scenario in which an adult can abandon another adult. And that is if one of the adults is in the throes of death, they are hanging up a cliff or drowning in a river and the other adult is like, Oh crap.
Dancing with the stars is on, and they just bounce. Divorce, not abandonment. Quit a job not abandonment. Breaking up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, not a abandonment, why am I teaching them this? One of the primary tools people with controlling and abusive mindsets have is they play upon our human instinct to attach and to feel responsible for caring for one another.
And they manipulate you into staying in an abusive dynamic by making you feel like if you leave, you've abandoned them. This often happens in the form of threatening suicide. Teach them that if anyone is trying to hurt themselves or threatening suicide, you call 9 8 8, It's the non-police suicide hotline.
You get an ambulance there and you get help. Even if that makes that person upset, you're still not abandoning them. In fact, you're helping them. Sometimes you do that and they still hurt themselves, but you didn't abandon them to that self. In fact, if you were to stay in a relationship where someone is deeply harming you physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, you would be in that exact one scenario because you would be leaving yourself in the hands of an unsafe situation and not getting help.
I wanna tell you all why I am teaching all my children, but especially my daughters, that there is only one scenario in which an adult can abandon another adult. And that is if one of the adults is in the throes of death, they are hanging up a cliff or drowning in a river and the other adult is like, Oh crap.
Dancing with the stars is on, and they just bounce. Divorce, not abandonment. Quit a job not abandonment. Breaking up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, not a abandonment, why am I teaching them this? One of the primary tools people with controlling and abusive mindsets have is they play upon our human instinct to attach and to feel responsible for caring for one another.
And they manipulate you into staying in an abusive dynamic by making you feel like if you leave, you've abandoned them. This often happens in the form of threatening suicide. Teach them that if anyone is trying to hurt themselves or threatening suicide, you call 9 8 8, It's the non-police suicide hotline.
You get an ambulance there and you get help. Even if that makes that person upset, you're still not abandoning them. In fact, you're helping them. Sometimes you do that and they still hurt themselves, but you didn't abandon them to that self. In fact, if you were to stay in a relationship where someone is deeply harming you physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, you would be in that exact one scenario because you would be leaving yourself in the hands of an unsafe situation and not getting help.
.webp){kind=avatar}
Learn how to set compassionate limits with your child in a way that benefits their brain development and reduces reactive responses to emotions, with the timing varying depending on factors such as age, hunger, and consistency.
.webp){kind=avatar}
Learn how to motivate your children without resorting to harshness and punishment by turning up the volume on playfulness and engaging your child's whole brain in this insightful video.
.webp){kind=avatar}
In this Q&A video, Alicia Malnati shares three tips to help your children love learning for the sake of learning, including setting challenging but attainable goals, emphasizing effort over innate ability, and praising specific tactics rather than traits.
%402x.svg){kind=icon}