Today on the Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy shares a different perspective on attachment parenting from author, editor, poet and researcher, Bethany Saltman. Today’s conversation with Bethany helps families to understand attachment and what that really means, and see ourselves—and our relationships with those we love—in an entirely new way.
Today’s episode takeaways are:
- Attachment is not what you think it is.
- Experiencing ALL our feelings is good for our kids.
- We don’t have to be perfect, but learning how to delight in ourselves and our lives is good for our kids.
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Episode Highlights:
- Misconception of attachment
- Attachment Parenting from a New Perspective
- Natural desire to be close to a caregiver
- Organized attachment
- Perfection is not the goal
- Learning to delight in ourselves and our life
Resources Mentioned:
Strange Situation by Bethany Saltman
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
This episode of the Fresh Start Family Show is brought to you by our free one hour workshop, how to respond versus react to misbehavior with calm confidence, AKA, how to keep your cool and not lose your marbles. When your kids push your buttons or make mistakes, you can save your seat over at freshstartfamilyonline.com/freeclass.
Wendy:
Well, hello listeners. I am so happy that you are here for a new episode. I am your host when you Snyder positive parenting educator and family life coach. And today on the show, we have Bethany Saltman, who is the author of a book called strange situation on mother’s journey into the science of attachment.
And we’re just going to be talking about what true attachment looks like in parenting. And I’m excited to bring this episode to you guys today because you know, when I’m planning episodes and looking for guests to my team, and I, we always just want to find people that we can have really just great, interesting conversations with. And when I found Bethany’s work, I was really intrigued at first I thought, oh my goodness, attachment parenting. That feels like it has similar, you know, maybe I dunno, similar threads to it as positive parenting, but I’ve always just thought attachment parent is very, very different. And, you know, as I talk about in this episode with Bethany, not an expert at all on attachment parenting, definitely my, you know, root of expertise is in the positive parenting and family life coaching world.
But I just always thought that it was parenting. That was like, your kid is with you 24 7. You never put them down. They breastfeed 24 7 whenever they want they sleep with you until they’re like 16. I don’t know. Of course that’s an exaggeration, but that’s just what I always thought of when I thought of attachment parenting. Now I’m sure some of you are listening and you’re like, wait a second. I do attachment parenting. It’s amazing. And of course, like we all do what works best for us. You know, as, as moms, as parents like that is the beauty of the messaging that we love to give here at fresh short family. Like you do what works well for you, right? We just like to have great conversations. We like to encourage families to really learn and grow and expand their hearts and strengthen their family.
And if things are feeling out of line, then find a way to create change in your home. So it’s not feeling out of line. We all deserve to parent in a way that feels truly in line with our moral compass in line with our heart. That brings us joy and peace and confidence and connection each day in our home. So, so when I found Bethany’s work, I was like, wow, that’s interesting. It’d be cool to really have a conversation about attachment parenting. And so then when I got to know her work a little bit more, I realized, oh, okay, she’s definitely, you know, differences and just everything, right? So I’m like, oh, this is going to be a great conversation. So I just found it very intriguing to learn from her.
You know what she’s done. She’s done a lot of research over the years. I’ll kind of read to you about what her book was Spire inspired by. She says my book was inspired by the birth of my daughter in 2006, who I loved dearly, but feared I was failing. Why? Because I was still me and not the kind of mother I’d hope to become. So I spent 10 years teaching myself the science of attachment, traveling to labs, trainings, and archives, trying to discover what kind of mother I really was. And if I was not good enough or, and, and if I was good enough for her, what I learned changed everything about how I felt of myself, my childhood and the nature of love.
So I think you’re just going to enjoy this conversation. Like I said, Bethany just has some really unique angles, some unique thought processes. And I just think her book looks really fascinating. I haven’t been able to read it yet, but it’s definitely on my list to check out. So anyways, guys, thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Let me know what you think about this episode. And as always, if you haven’t pushed the little follow button on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcast, thank you in advance for doing that. Once you hit subscribe or follow, it really helps us get seen in the iTunes world, iTunes world, just like reviews. Do reviews are a really big deal guys.
So if you are one of the many, many guests that sends me the nicest emails, thank you to everyone who takes time to send me emails of gratitude. I just got one the other day from a mom who said, I just want to let you know that I’ve been listening for a long time. Just even your podcast episodes. I don’t even know if she’s in any of my paid programs, but she said your podcast episodes just have changed my life. And the recent episode that you did with Alicia Grogan around the sensory topic, like it just absolutely opened my eyes to all these things that could be going on with my kid. In addition to just the parenting stuff that I’m working on, cleaning up in my home. And she said, just thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
And so those notes of gratitude means so much to me. Thank you guys. And if you have notes of gratitude and you feel like the show has really helped you, if you could put that into her review, it would mean so much for me so much to me, it’s just the best way to say thank you. And then you can screenshot it and send it to me. You know, like that’s a great way. If you want to send me a personal note of gratitude to put it into a re a review first, and then just screenshot it before you send it, then you can email me and we’ll be able to have a really nice exchange via email, because I do love hearing from you guys. I love having personal conversations. Yes, we are a, you know, pretty large organization and the amount that we reach nowadays, we have a small team.
We are a small family run business with a small but mighty team. And we do have big numbers that we’re reaching in the world now. And I always love connecting personally to you guys. So leaving a review, emailing me, Wendy at frustrate family, online.com is a great way to connect with me personally. Also another great way is to connect with me on Instagram. You guys, I do a lot of teaching over on Instagram, free tips, inspiration, motivation, fun reels to get you just, just excited about practicing positive parenting, about learning and growing. And I love it when you send me DMs over there, I like to actually exchange personal voice memos whenever I can.
So yeah, lots of, lots of different ways to kind of engage with me and have great conversations. I always love to hear from you, okay, by the way, if you’re not on the email list yet, make sure that you are on there. You guys, the easiest way, head to the fresh start family homepage freshstartfamilyonline.com. We always have something free there for you to grab. Sometimes it’s a free challenge. Sometimes it’s a free workshop. Sometimes it’s a free learning guide. I think right now it’s our free guide to raising strong-willed kids with integrity without losing your mind. And so when you grab that free learning guide or hop into a free class of ours, then you automatically hop on our email list. And then I get to communicate with you on a weekly basis.
I’ll let you know when new podcast episodes are airing when we have promotions or when we have free classes or events coming up, it’s just a great way to stay updated on what we’re doing here at frustrated family. All right, you guys well, help me welcome Bethany Saltman to the show. Enjoy.
Stella:
Well, Hey there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dad’s podcast. The fresh start family show. We’re so happy. You’re here. We’re inspired by the ocean Jesus and rock and roll and believe deeply in the true power of loving kindness together. We hope to inspire you to expand your heart, learn new tools and strengthen your family. Enjoy the show.
Wendy:
Well, Hey there, families and welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family show. I am so excited to be here today with Bethany Saltman. Welcome Bethany.
Bethany:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Wendy:
Yes. We are going to be talking today, listeners about attachment and about how it is not what you think it is. And Bethany is going to be just the most wonderful person to fill us with encouragement and support and wisdom in this area because she is the author of a book called strange situation, a mother’s journey into the science of attachment. And you’re just a wealth of knowledge. And I can’t wait to learn more about your story and everything about you, Bethany. So will you take a moment just to tell us a little bit more about yourself?
Bethany:
Absolutely, absolutely. So I am a writer and a mom of a beautiful teenage daughter named she is she’ll be 15 in January and I’m also a longtime Zen practitioner. I met my husband in a Zen monastery. We, we considered becoming monastics and we decided there was a lot, there is a very rigorous life being in a Zen monastery is the exact opposite of what people think of when they think of Zen. It’s a lot of really hard work. You’re dealing with a lot of inner turmoil. You’re really dealing with your stuff. And it was very difficult for me and I had some health stuff and so we decided to leave and we thought we would try to have a baby instead.
That was our idea of like, how can we really go deeply into what this life is about? And so we left the monastery and I became pregnant and had Azalea. And then when she was born, I was really confused by my own reactions with were I discovered that I was still myself, you know, to put it plainly I had this fantasy that I was going to become this super patient, very tolerant. And I was going to sort of be bathed in maternal sensitivity for myself. You know, I think I thought I’m just now starting to think about this.
More that the experience of becoming a mother would somehow mother myself, I would become my own, you know, warm and luscious maternal blankets. And back the opposite happened. I was stressed to the max. I was exhausted. I was what I’d like to call under-stimulated. And you know, it was really, really hard. And I was shocked that I, that becoming a mother and I had really wanted to have Azalea. And I thought, what a terrible person I am to bring this child into the world and not be able to be the mother I want to be.
So that was excruciating. And, and as a writer, I, I got an assignment to do a weekly or a monthly column on being a Buddhist mother. And so I started to do all of this research and, and I’d loved reading the column. It was such a great opportunity. And I started to learn about attachment, which was distinct from Dr. Sears attachment parenting, which I had heard about when Israel was young, of course, and rejected pretty wholeheartedly. I felt like, you know, a checklist of behaviors just cannot be the way human beings are supposed to be raised. So I knew there was something wrong with that. And then I’d started to learn about attachment the science of attachment, and this woman named Mary Ainsworth and her strange situation, the laboratory procedure that reveals a child’s attachment patterns by the age of one.
And I became very intrigued and, and I actually have an MFA in poetry. I’m a poet by training. And So the strange situation was like a poem to me, it was this tight little 20 minute comings and goings that revealed something so profound that I, I wanted to know everything there was to know about that. And Mary ends with the woman who created it. And so that’s when I went on this 10 year journey into the science of attachment, into labs and archives and trainings to understand for myself what kind of mother I really am.
Wendy:
Wow. Amazing. Well, first off I love your daughter’s name. Azalea. That’s so beautiful.
Bethany:
Yeah, she wears it. Wow.
Wendy:
Oh my gosh. So cool. And yeah, what a journey. I think so many listeners can, can probably relate to that. Right. And of that, just that feeling of like, oh my gosh, this is, is this really like, it’s just so unexpected. And it brings up all of these emotions and this inner turmoil turmoil. And I mean, I suppose when you look at it, you’re like, of course, raising a young human soul birthing and raising a human soul would do that. But then when it really happens, you’re like, oh my goodness. So I love that it sent you in this direction of just, you know, just personal development and, and growth and, and beautiful. So tell us more. So let’s just kick it right off Bethany with, you know, I love as we were kind of chatting before we started pushing record, we talked about how so many people kind of get the wrong idea about what attachment is.
So, and that’s definitely that’s I’m in that camp. Like when people have asked me before, because as a positive parenting educator, they’ll say, you know, what do you teach? And is it attachment? And honestly, I’ve always gotten a little bit of like, oh no, no, no, no, no. And really I’m not highly educated in attachment parenting. So I don’t even know, but I’ve always just thought of it as like, it’s just, it’s feels like a hard life of never having a separation between you and your child. And so I loved, loved hearing about your work and this idea that it’s not what we think it is. So tell us more, you know, and, and tell us more about your book and everything as far as this goes.
Bethany:
Absolutely. So Dr. Sears, who wrote the baby book and his wife, Martha, and their whole huge family of attachment parenting experts to be totally blunt, they really ruined the, the hijacked, the word attachment, and they’ve ruined it for people. So attachment is a behavioral system. We are all born with an attachment system like digestion, like respiration. It’s just part of who we are. We attach to a caregiver to keep us safe from harm to keep us, you know, th the reasons we, what, what attachment science discovered in the 1940s, fifties, sixties, and, and, you know, today is that from an evolutionary point of view, babies born with feelings of desire and a longing to be close to a, to a caregiver and caregivers have a longing and a desire to be in proximity to their charges, because we need to be close to a loving caregiver to keep us protected.
Yeah. So our, our feelings of love have a great purpose, which is to keep us alive. So if we take that in that’s, that’s big, that’s big news right there. We love our babies because we are charged with keeping them in keeping the human race going. You know, so attachment is something that’s big and broad and beautiful and resilient as heck because, you know, if you think about like all the ways that we breathe or, or digest, and, you know, every person’s digestion is so different and every person’s breathing, you know, if you get tense, you breathe up here. If you relax, you breathe down there. We have different home respiration rates when you’re sick, it goes this way.
When you’re tired, it goes this way. When you’re young, when you’re old, when you’re overweight, when you’re underweight, when you’re on drugs, when you’re not on drugs, that the, the opportunity, the, you know, it’s endless, the ways that we can be the same is true for our attachment systems. So when, when Dr. Sears and his crew talk about attachment as something that happens or doesn’t happen, he is not only wrong, but he is scaring, vulnerable new parents. And it really makes me mad because shame and fear is the exact opposite of what every parent needs and deserves.
We need support. We need to be educated about the big world of attachment. That is our birthright. You’re all going to attach to someone. It may be an optimal attachment. It may be what’s called a secure attachment where we feel comfortable that this person is going to show up for us when we need them. Most of the time, that’s great situation. If you’ve got that you’re lucky, or maybe an insecure attachment, where you get a little anxious. If someone isn’t giving you what you think you need right away, or you tend to avoid your relationships because you’re afraid of being disappointed, but these are still organized patterns of attachment.
There’s nothing wrong with it. And we can always move ourselves more in a direction of security by becoming more present to ourselves in the present moment. And we can talk more about that. There is a kind of organized attachment that can happen in when children are around parents who are really under an enormous amount of stress and are truly neglecting that child and, and abusing the child like disorganization absolutely happens. But in, except for, in cases of, you know, institutional neglect, where a child is in an orphanage, staring at a ceiling for days on end out, weeks on end, we’re all attached.
So Dr. Sears needs to stop saying that wearing slings nursing on demand, co-sleeping attuning to cries is what creates attachment.
Wendy:
Right?
Bethany:
That’s like saying, you know, you know, I can’t think of a good example right now, but it’s, you know, it’s like saying eating is going to create your digestive system,
Wendy:
Right? Yeah. Yes.
Bethany:
Designed for attachment. And we’re going to do it in a whole bunch of different ways, but we’re, our bodies are forgiving our attachment figure. Our attachment systems are forgiving. We want to move toward resilience. That’s what we do. So if everybody could take a re a big old breath and relax around this, then we’d all be more securely attached, frankly. And so, you know, the science is a hundred percent certain that nursing has absolutely nothing to do with attachment. It’s lovely in many ways, but it’s not about attachment co-sleeping has absolutely nothing to do with attachment wearing your child has absolutely nothing to do with attachment.
Furthermore, if you are a parent who hates the sling and needs eight hours of sleep, a night needs to sleep, train needs their child in a different room. Doesn’t like to nurse, you know, all the things puts your kids in front of a screen, you know, eats McDonald’s French. This goes on. If you are able to delight in your child. And if that child is the apple of your eye, and that kid knows it, your kid has a very good chance of being securely attached. Now they may not have the best health if they’re eating McDonald’s every day, have a big screen, but those are different issues.
Wendy:
That’s so fascinating. Yeah. I Def I, so it’s so cool to, to learn all this and hear more about it. Cause I just look back at, you know, the first few years with my daughter and, and we have the, oh, we had, she’s 12
Bethany:
14
Wendy: 14 Okay, cool. So, yeah, she’s amazing. And, and just as such, such a blessing, like is, is amazing. The reason why I’m a positive parenting educator is because she is such a gift and invited me into this world of personal development and just learning, learning a new way. So, but back, you know, when I look at like how we, our first few years of life, we had a very traumatic birth. Both of us, it’s like a miracle we’re alive. You did too.
Bethany:
Yeah.
Wendy:
That’s crazy. Yeah. I never realized what a big deal it was until a little bit later when I was like, dang, that was straight up trauma, like absent tr torn placenta and yeah, I didn’t, yeah. I didn’t see her for hours. And then she had colic really bad the first few months of her life. And then she was under like, we called it the tanning booth, but she was under the chin shot. Yep. She had jaundice the first four days. Yeah. And, and I was like, whoa, I, I never, I never thought to myself, oh, I’m not attached and not like super stoked on this whole thing. But I struggled like those first few years I struggled and it was, it wasn’t until I found this work of like everything, right.
When we have so much in common, everything we’re all about. But it’s that I really started to understand how I can connect with my child. And it was on a very deep, vulnerable way of seeing her in an unconditional love light. It was actually slowing down to find empathy for her and change my paradigm around what she was all about and why she was misbehaving and all these things. But all I know is like it, we struggled with it. It was, it was not, it was not a smooth, seamless thing. So
Bethany:
I feel, yeah.
Wendy:
Yeah. That’s so interesting that we have, we have some similarities there. So yeah. I like how, you know, I’ve heard you talk about how, you know, experiencing all of our feelings as good. And that can, even when we talk about feelings in the home, as far as attachment goes, I mean, that is something that can really keep us attached, right. If we are actually all securely attached. Yeah.
Bethany:
I’m very much on this mission to help people’s vocabulary because it really matters. It really, really matters. We’re all attached to we’re all attached.
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Wendy:
Yes. But securely attached to such a cool
Bethany:
And we’re and we’re different levels of secure, you know, like some people are like, what I call foot soldiers for the secure, just like, oh my God, give me a break. You know, they grew up in like the Brady bunch, which is actually a really interesting show from an attachment point of view because they are so secure with each other. They’re really open with their feelings. They talk about when they’re upset, they rupture and repair. It’s the best show. I mean, I grew up on it, so I’d love it. But anyway, you know, it’s really important to remember that like we’re swimming in good enough minus like we’re all attached. And, and if we’re not happy, if we’re anxious, if we’re, you know, preoccupied, if we’re dismissive, if we’re, if there’s something that doesn’t feel right in our attachment field, we can work to become more securely attached as adults, anytime along the life in the, in the lifespan.
But this language of attached or not attached, it’s like, it feels so biblical to me, you know, you’re kind of eaten and then you’re expelled,
Wendy:
Right?
Bethany:
Not like that. I just wanted to share that with you and your readers. I mean, your listeners, it is so hopeful. It is. So, you know, it’s such a tale of redemption, this whole thing. So I’m really, I want to recast that for your listeners.
Wendy:
Cool. I love that clarification and I love that term swimming and good. Enoughness so good. That’s so good. And yes, that, so that’s a really cool point about the Brady bunch show. Cause they’re not going to go back and watch it. I never like was a big watcher, but that makes sense to me.
Bethany:
It’s amazing.
Wendy:
Yeah. And everything you just said, how that, that is what really allows us to be securely attached to the ability to do all those things, to have open feelings, to feel them, to express them, to communicate them, to rupture and repair, to feel like we’re good enough. Even on our days where we make mistakes or, you know, unconditionally loved how that is securely attached to. It’s a really cool, awesome
Bethany:
Together. We can be a mess together. You know, like that’s just last night we had a kerfuffle at the dinner table and I was just so you know, COVID is driving me freaking crazy.
Wendy:
It’s fricking nuts right now. I know it’s, it’s a weird time.
Bethany:
So miserable. I’m used to being on all day long and everything’s in the house and I’m cranky. And so we had a thing last night at dinner was, you know, my husband and daughter were like getting into it and I was just like, stop. Like I cannot tolerate this anymore. It, it kept going. And so I actually said, you know what, I’m kidding up. Like I made this beautiful dinner for everybody and y’all are being annoying. So I’m leaving. And I got into my study and I was just like, I’m going to do some work. And Azalea came in and she was like, please like, this is hell for me. Can you please not do this? And I was like, honey, it’s okay. You know, families, our families go through difficult moments and I’m sorry, this is difficult for you.
I know you’ll be okay. And I’m going to take a moment because I don’t want to say something that I don’t mean, and that will hurt. And so I’m going to just take some space and it’s okay. And you get to take space too. But I thought it was so interesting that she said this is held for me because what she was saying was that this feeling of not knowing Is, and, and, and, and to feel like, okay, my, my parent, this person who is really she’s 14 and a half, I mean, she’s almost, you know, she’s really quite grown, but she’s still a child. And she is very dependent on, on her parent to kind of frame her world, you know?
And so, so if I had said, everything’s cool, don’t worry about it. That would have been like gas lady. And that’s the kind of stuff that creates major anxiety and attachment insecurity. But if we within ourselves, as parents can, you know, tolerate our own discomfort, you know, and our own fear and, and, you know, discomfort, I said discomfort, but you know, like our anxiety, you know, like I wasn’t really anxious at the dinner table last night. And I thought the best thing for me to do right now is to move away so that I don’t, you know, say something mean. And, and that was the best I could do at that time.
And I told her that too. I said, I’m doing the best that I can right now. And I’m sorry that you’re not happy, but, you know, I think we’ll make it through this. And, and so wherever we are, and that’s a pretty benign example, you know, but I’ve when she was young, I was not always able to walk away. And that was what inspired this, you know, it’s a sit there in that hormonal wash of, oh my God, what am I doing? Yelling at a little kid? Like, that’s just like, oh my God. You know, and the terrible stress of that and my system. And then it just, oh, it was so hard.
Wendy:
It was, yeah, it is. And it was so many people are in there right now. Right? Yeah.
Bethany:
And I feel for them, oh my gosh, they have them little kids right now. I do not know how people are managing it.
Wendy:
Yeah. And this idea of just knowing that it’s okay to be messy and that you can still be connected is so important because we, we talk about that so much in our membership, it’s called the bonfire and we meet twice a week. And so much of the time everyone comes to the table and especially during COVID and it’s like, Hey, who’s a mess this week. And that’s okay. It’s not this, this idea that like family life or raising children is going to be, you’re going to arrive. And you get to this point where there’s like, cool, everything’s easy peasy. It’s like, it’s just not the way it is. Right. And so I love this idea of you can kind of regulate, you can move through emotions and you can even do it in separate rooms.
And it’s interesting that you tell that story Bethany, because my daughter has a similar response. Cause she’s, we, she, you know, probably similar to your daughter she’s been in and entrenched in this kind of world of like everything we’re all about for the last 10 years. But at the same time, she’s still learning. She’s, she’s a kid and she gets really stressed out if I do what you did. Right. And she almost we’ll use the same exact words of, of this as a hell for me. She’s never used those words, but
Bethany:
It is amazing. You can experience their inner state and report it.
Wendy:
Yes.
Bethany:
That’s huge.
Wendy:
Yes. And she she’s on this big path and it’s cool. Cause so as, so as her dad about letting mom be super, not, not even messy, but like, let’s just say let’s mom be messy, let mom be angry. Let mom like, you know, be pissed for a little bit and know that everything’s going to be okay. Like that was something that I didn’t necessarily have growing up. And I didn’t, I, I, there was just always like, is everything okay? I don’t know, because this is a fricking mess, you know, whereas where, when you can do it in a way where it’s like, yeah, this is going to be messy and I’m going to walk away from the dinner table and I’m not quite ready to like, you know, like hold hands and skip to like overdo the rainbow and collect like butterflies with you.
Bethany:
Okay.
Wendy:
And I love you more than life itself. And I just need some space, but like, it’s so beautiful to, to, to be able to do that and then stay somehow have the goal to be stay connected. Right. Like, so I think we’re a
Bethany:
Family practice.
Wendy:
Yes. Yes. But I think where we can get in trouble is if we’re like, you go over there, I go over here, which is kind of the classic timeout. Right. But I mean, it’s like, you, you do, you do. And it’s like, well, we can be on opposite sides of the house and still be connected. And that was a clarification I recently kind of realized that was probably happening between her and I, where I was like, Hey, I just need some space, but we weren’t connected. And so there’s just been some small little tweaks that I’ve made in my, in my own heart too, that have made a difference lately. Right.
Bethany:
It’s all in your own heart, you know, for me to be able to that last night, I think, you know, and there was this, all this topic, well, mommy’s really sensitive right now. And you know, I was talking,
Wendy:
Yeah.
Bethany:
Oh my gosh. You know, but I think for me to be able to actually go to the other room and actually still feel connected. Yeah. That’s the thing, because I’m working on my own, you know, spectrum of dysregulation, where when I get upset, I actually do disconnect. And so it makes sense that the people in my family will feel frightened of that. Yeah. Because that’s, that’s, that is hell when someone is someone you need and love is disconnecting from you. And she’s correct about that. Thank God she can express that. And you know, and the other thing is that sometimes, you know, that that question of is everything okay, well, what the hell is that supposed to even mean right now?
No, actually things are not okay. You know, we won’t get into politics, but lightly, and, and I’m not okay. I mean, I’ll be the first to admit it. Do I still love my daughter? Like crazy. Yes. And at the end of the day, you know, I went upstairs, we talked for a long time about tennis schedules. That’s always a resource for us. Let’s just get into it. And so we really got dug deep about like, Mondays are this and there’s this or this. And, you know, we got totally into that. And then at the end of the thing, I said, you know, I love you more than life itself or something to that effect. And she said, I know.
Wendy:
Right.
Bethany:
And it’s like, we kind of went full circle through the whole thing, you know? And, and that’s, and, and so, you know, I think about, you know, if I found someone with a baby and listening to this conversation, or two year old or five year old or seven year old, like, what the hell does that mean? If you like out of control, you know, it’s easy to do as a teenager. A well-regulated delightful teenager. When you, when you’re dealing with a baby or a child, who’s just not able to engage in that way. What do you do then? Then you have to really pray, man, for guidance and support. However you understand that because it’s, it is grace and grace alone that can help us feel like, find that regulation.
Because if we can’t regulate, we cannot regulate our children. And that’s at the center of what science of attachment is. And by the way, that’s at the center of every mystical tradition on earth. You know, as my Zen teacher used to say, you and I are the same thing, but I am not you. And you are not me. So this is also true from an attachment perspective. Like we, we’re, we’re engaged in, what’s called social releasing, you know, like, I smile, you smile, you frown. I frown and Azalea cries, my breasts fill with milk. You know, she, you know, and then you get into like some narcissistic extension stuff, you know, she does well in school.
I feel good. That’s different. I’ve talked about like physiological. We are interdependent. You know, when our babies are in our bodies, they are surviving off of our viscera and this just the way it is. And so, you know, for us to be able to regulate or help them find themselves, we have to find ourselves. And this is one of those kind of new agey sounds good, good little sticks. But, you know, I actually know from the science and from the spiritual practice angle, that there is no other way, you cannot give your child what you do not have.
And, and, and I’m talking emotionally, you can give them money that you didn’t grow up with. You can give them a different experience that you didn’t grow up with. You know, they’re all just be easier. You can put them in a sling because you felt like your parents ignored you. And that can be great, you know, and I have carried as dailiness linked. So she was like five years old. But if someone doesn’t like it and they’re trying to do it, they’re going to be rageful and resentful. And that’s the last thing any child needs.
Wendy:
Yes. It’s. So it’s so fascinating for you too, to hear you talk about the, kind of the self-regulation and the like mirroring each other, is this the same kind of idea of like the mirror neurons of like, if okay. And so I’ve been thinking about this lately and I’d love for your gut, your guidance on this, but, you know, when we, when, so like what, what, when I teach my crew about the idea of detachment and being kind of this from kind leader of where you want to reset the mirroring, right? Like how does, what does the science show us behind that? As far as like someone say you, like you were saying, there’s a baby, there’s a toddler.
There’s a, the wild, five-year old, who’s a mess. And can’t self-regulate. And instead of just popping in and matching that and being on how do you come out and do your own thing? So they can then mirror you is basically what I’m trying to say, because this idea that self-regulation is at the kind of the center of it all is so true.
Well, Hey there families, I am pausing this episode to invite you to a free class that I teaching all about how to not lose your marbles with your kids. When they misbehave pushback or make big mistakes during this free one hour workshop, I will teach you three steps to responding to misbehavior and messes with firm kindness.
You’ll learn about positive parenting psychology and the root causes of misbehavior, the needs that drive our kids’ behaviors. And so you can effectively redirect your kids towards the light. You’ll also learn about self calming, how to use pause buttons, to create a space between stimulus and response. So you can act with cool calm competence when misbehavior needs to be direct redirected, you’ll learn about the power of humility and how it unlocks massive creativity in us all as parents that we need to be able to problem solve challenging situations well with our kids. And then we’ll also talk all about effective modeling ways to practice what we preach.
So our kids learn by us showing them not just by us telling them so we don’t end up living life as the procrast. Can I get a heck? Yes. You can head on over to freshstartfamilyonline.com/responsiveparenting to check out the dates and times that I’ll be teaching, save your seat now. And I will see you at class.
Bethany:
No, I just posted on Instagram today, a picture of my husband and I at the monastery where we lived and the caption, because I was just interviewed from the monastery and it was a great conversation. Everyone should listen to it. Zen mountain monastery.org or com I forget, but the, the caption was, how can you let go of yourself? What was it? Something like, how can you let go of thoughts and be securely attached at the same time? And, and, and what I wrote was you actually actually, it’s the same exact thing. So, so what I mean is that, you know, your question, what can a parent do when they’re facing the demon right.
Of their child’s anger, their child’s, you know, discomfort as much as possible in that moment is the, the attempt to actually, you know, try to see that that anger is you and that, and that, and that’s an intellectual kind of a thing you can tell yourself, you know, that like our children are our Europe’s. And I don’t mean that in some kind of a beat yourself up way, you know, it doesn’t mean like if your kid sucks at soccer, that means you’re a terrible person.
It’s so, so much more fundamental than all of the kind of social society kind of in the world. Things that, that people often worry about. It’s very foundational to who we are. So one of the things that’s really helpful, isn’t actually looking around the room. My husband is as a somatic experience in therapist, so he can, yeah. And so looking around the room oriented, moving your neck, you know, just doing that, gives you some space and a deep breath. So this is going crazy. Wow. That’s me. That’s like the craziness inside of me.
Let me look around, take a breath, put myself in space. And then, you know, I have not, I never know how to ask people to do things in really like checklisty kind of ways, right? Because it’s going to be in their own experience. And so I would, I almost always invite people to certain noticing their experience, notice what it feels like. And I know that that’s really freaking hard when your kid is going crazy, but like, you know, notice how your shoulders hunch and your jaw SATs and, and your eyes squint. And you start to feel like a monster yourself and, and give, be patient with yourself over time we will start to notice more and by noticing that’s how we regulate.
Wendy:
Oh, that’s such a cool point. Yes. Notice more is what leads to regulation.
Bethany:
Exactly. So that’s why a meditation practice is incredibly useful. You know, setting aside even five, 10 minutes every day to sit somewhere and do a, some kind of meditation practice, any kind of meditation practice, because it builds that muscle of awareness. And the thing that happens when we lose it with our kids is that we literally lose it. We lose ourselves. And that’s because we haven’t developed the muscle of attention, you know, so develop a muscle, you know, and another thing that’s really wonderful. Mary Ainsworth, the woman who came up with the strange situation and the, my book is part mem biography of her.
She found that one of the most common, one of the things that almost all of the securely attached pairs that she studied in her life was that there was a feeling of mutual delight now, not all the time, but this incredible, I mean, to her, it was a scientific term. She like studied this in people like, which I just think is so cool. What does, what does it mean to delight in someone? And I always give people the example of what is it? They turned 14. I said, oh, you’re old enough to start watching real Housewives with me. Cause I’m a real household addict. Yes. And so, and I just love it. And I’m a big New York fan.
We started watching Beverly Hills together and it’s so trashy, but it’s such a wonderful way to have these conversations about relationships, about friendships, about body image, about aging, about, you know, close by and all that stuff. And, and we delight in it. We it’s so delightful, but it breaks a lot of rules, right. It’s like the wholesome kind of like feminists, you know, that I actually would disagree, but that’s another conversation. It’s not what people would imagine as a wholesome thing to do with your teenager. But the fact of the matter is we in it together and it really creates this thing that we can always do. So when we’re in like a funk or when things just aren’t going right, or she’s in a bad placement, I’m about to get disregulated.
And we inject a little delight and it’s like, Hey, do you have time for 45 minutes? We can watch a housewife. And then it’s like, yes, let’s do it. You know? And it’s so basic. It’s so foundational. And so everybody delights in something.
Wendy:
Yes,
Bethany:
We do that with our children. It doesn’t have to be delighting in them.
Wendy:
Right.
Bethany:
Light in our kids.
Wendy:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. That’s so funny that you just bring that up because Stella, who is turning a teenager this year, she’s recently been like, she likes to watch dance moms and I’ve always been like, oh, I’m
Bethany:
Scared.
Wendy:
I’m like, it’s so trashy. And I’m like, so worried, but then lately she’s like, mom, we should watch Kardashians. And I’m like, no Stella, no, no, no. And then finally one day, just this last week and I was like, okay, let’s just see, you know, I’ve watched it before, but I was like, let’s just see how bad it is. And it was trashy and gnarly, but we’d both delighted. And then it did open up the doors to have conversations and I would pause it. And I would just say, you know, just want to make sure you understand what’s going on here. Talk to me about, and so we did it in our own way, but it’s so funny because it was this like very bonding, wonderful thing. And when I look back to my own childhood and I love my parents so much, but they’re, there just feels like they’re, we weren’t, like I said, we weren’t securely attached to, like, it was very like, we just live distance distant lives and, and I just didn’t have any I know.
Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I can’t wait to read your book because I definitely have so much to learn and this area, so, but just the way I just, didn’t the idea of doing something with my mom that I just delighted in together is just sounds so dreamy. And I just didn’t know.
Bethany:
And guess what? You can do that with Stella every day. Yeah. Every day I see the calendar behind you is the other has been re I told you, we were like, we geek out on scheduling. She got, you know, we went to target, we got this stupid calendar, we hung it up. And she loves writing in all of her little things and then crossing the days off. And it’s so simple, but, you know, I just, and then I asked her about it, like, what’s on the schedule for today, you know? And like you could ask Stella, like, what are kids at school say about the Kardashians, like educated, right. If it’s sincere for you, yes.
You know, if you don’t actually like it, then find something else. You know, Azalea turned me on to yummy mummies. Oh my God. It is hilarious. It’s this Australian show about young moms and their babies. And they’re all really rich and they get these walk-in closets and this AB stuff. And it’s so ridiculous, but Azealia loves it. And she thinks it’s so funny. And she is so good with their accents and she cracks me up,
Wendy:
Oh, I cannot wait to check this one out,
Bethany:
But it’s delight. And so I think we are so type a about like, identity and about, you know, do goodness that we worry so much. And, and, and, and I just would, I encourage people to worry less delight more and you know, it’s going to be okay. It’s not going to be okay. The big things aren’t going to be okay. There’s, we’re in big, big trouble, but, but we can have amazing delightful times with our kids at home.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Bethany:
Sometimes
Wendy:
That’s so awesome. That’s like the perfect ender bender faculty. That’s so awesome. Well, thank you so much. I can’t thank you enough for spending time with us today. Tell listeners where they can find you, where they can, where they can get your book, where they can learn more about everything that you’re doing in the world. That’d be great.
Bethany:
Sure. So my book is found anywhere books are sold, go to your independent bookseller and, and ask for it and order it if they don’t have any more copies. I, my website is www.Bethanysaltman.com. So you can find all my press there, all my podcasts, all the book stuff, I am doing a blog now once a week. So people can come and be on my mailing list and get my, my weekly blogs. I also do book coaching for people who are interested in writing books. And, and a lot of therapists are coming to me recently. And I’m thinking of starting two classes, one for moms and one for therapists.
So that’s, that’s perhaps in the works and I’m on Instagram. I’m new to Instagram, really enjoying it and yeah, follow me. And let’s, let’s engage. I’d love to hear from people.
Wendy:
I love it. And listeners, we will make sure we put all of Bethany’s information in the show notes page so you can find her easily. Thanks again, Bethany. I hope you have a wonderful day For links and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/120. And if you haven’t yet be sure to grab our free learning guide, how to raise strong-willed kids with integrity without losing your mind over at freshstartfamilyonline.com
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening. Families have a great day.
Wendy:
Alright, families, that’s a wrap. I hope you love today’s episode. As much as I loved recording it for you. If you want to learn more from me, one of the best ways to do that is to hop into one of my free workshops this month. I’m teaching all about responsive parenting and you can join me by saving your seat over at freshstartfamilyonline.com/freeclass.
