The REAL Reason Your Child Falls Apart With You and Not Them

Welcome back to the parallel lines podcast, and in this episode we're talking about how I deal with my children's separation anxiety, being a single mom now of four and a half years. You might think that it all will die down at some stage, but I'm here to tell you that if your children are not feeling quite right and are getting dysregulated between the two homes, then separation anxiety will be something that you will constantly have to contend with, and we need to now implement some kind of strategy to help support them. So what will separation anxiety look like? It could look like anger, tears, heightened sensitivity, clingingness, hyperactivity, withdrawal, tummy aches, headaches, bed wetting, regression, and the need for constant reassurance and potential sleep disturbances. That's only scratching the surface, the list could go on and on, and I'm sure, and I'm sure a lot of you listening will resonate with a lot of those types of behaviours. Basically, separation anxiety can be described as anything that is abnormal for your child or your children. So what contributes to separation anxiety? It could just be the simple moving to different houses in a nutshell, but when we break it down, we're also needed to take into account that inside each house is a different set of rules, is a different set of expectations, is a different set of rituals, is a different load of food that they're going to be eating, it's a different atmosphere, it's the accumulation of these stresses that really does lead them into feeling like they constantly have to be in a state of adapting to different environments. And I need you to know that a child's nervous system doesn't just respond to obvious danger, it's also unpredictability, emotional tension, and feeling like they have to please all the adults around them. These are really big things that they are constantly having to navigate at school and in each house and with every single dynamic that they are interacting with on a day-to-day basis. Quite a lot of the time, I will hear parents say to me, but they fall apart with me. Why do they seem to be absolutely fine with the other parent and then when I get them back, they just fall apart. And I need you to know that this is a sign that that's because your child finally feels safe enough with you to stop holding it in and holding it all together. Because when they are potentially in a state of feeling emotionally unsafe, that could be feeling like they have to walk on eggshells, apologising lots, they may feel like they need to be perfect all the time, they may feel like they need to people please, be extra good, they might have a fear of making any mistakes, they might feel overly responsible for other people's emotions, they might mask a lot and they might even have big episodes of aggression. And this is where it's a real dichotomy because love and fear can exist together with children. Children can love a parent, fear a parent, miss a parent, a feeling safe around a parent but still want contact and then at the same time dread the upcoming contact. Can you imagine being such a little person having all of these feelings going on inside of you and with no emotional maturity to really comprehend and work your way through it? That's what leads to all of this dysregulation in their nervous system. So how do we regulate them? We need predictability, consistency, good routines, boundaries, we need calm adults so there is an onus on you to make sure that you are regulating yourself because our children borrow our nervous system, they borrow our calm. So we need to make sure that not only are we exhibiting that for them and being a role model but we are also living it. It's actually a real part of our day to day life. I need you to think about validating them, showing them that you understand how they might be feeling, meeting them at their level, giving them that physical connection if they really want it, giving them lots of instances to play and have some big, gross physical movements, getting them some good sleep, some good nutrition and decompression time and most importantly permission to talk or not to talk if they want to. Another really great thing that you could start doing is introduce these meditative habits to them. Deep breathing is going to be something that will help you out no end because I don't know about you but I can guarantee that if I was to sit with you during an episode where you feel really dysregulated and really anxious, if I asked you to do some box breaths for 10 breaths, you would feel better afterwards and I need you to start doing that with your children. So a really fun exercise if you've got really young children is holding your hands up like this and doing the, what I call the candles. So you want to pretend that your fingers are birthday candles and they've got to blow out the candles because in doing so they are then doing that deep breath in, deep blow out and each time that they blow on a finger you're going to put it down as if they blow out the candles. And one really good thing that I tend to do with my gills is I will like pop an extra candle back up as if it's one of those candles that just never goes out. That always leads to us laughing and making a joke and then all of a sudden they're feeling a lot, lot better and it doesn't negate the fact that there is still an issue there that we need to talk about but it means they're coming from a lot calmer place and a more regulated place to be able to hear me and talk it through with me. Thus then feeling more regulated, more validated and more understood. On top of this I want you to really think about instilling in your everyday parenting about how your child or your children are not responsible for other people's feelings. This is a really crucial thing that I need all of you now to put into your everyday parenting. Anytime that organic moment comes up, say if they're having a disagreement with a friend at school, you need to let them know that it's not their job to make someone else feel better. There's things that we can do that we want to bring fun and enjoyment and love and connection to our relationships but there needs to be a line drawn where we realise that actually their feelings are not our responsibility and why this is so important is because when they are dealing with a potentially abusive co-parent at the other house, that co-parent will often put the responsibility of their feelings on the child's shoulders. Now this is going into deep psychology here. I need you guys to start learning about the drama triangle as well. If you don't know what this is and you want me to do more content on it, please put it in the show notes because I'm more than happy to talk about this but essentially what it is is that your co-parent will place a lot of the responsibility of their feelings and their emotions and their actions on other people. Predominantly the child, I'm going to go further with this to say nine times out of ten, not all the time but predominantly they will put the responsibility of their feelings on the eldest child in the house. Now there is a lot of caveats to this. This is not absolutely black and white. There are instances where the eldest child may have some SEM needs. That means that they will probably default to the next child and it will be the younger child that will actually take the hit psychologically and they will place the responsibility of their feelings on that child's shoulders. So you know your co-parent best. This is something I say to my clients all the time in my single memory academy that actually we unfortunately know these people better than they know themselves. We know how they operate. So if you feel like your co-parent is of that kind of character that they would actually really put the responsibility of their feelings on their children's shoulders then this absolutely has to be a crucial part of your parenting to instill in your children that they're not actually responsible for other people's feelings. And a really great thing that I do with my children is sometimes if I'm in a funk because we're human and it happens to all of us and they see me being in a funk. I don't want them to think that it's their fault because this is another thing that children do. If anything's wrong they instantly internalise it and they instantly think it's their fault. They had to have done something wrong. So what I will do is I will just say, you know what, Mama is in a really grumpy mood at the minute. I'm going to make myself feel better by going and making myself a nice cup of tea or a cup of coffee and I'm going to go sit in the garden, I'm going to listen to the birds for five minutes. That always cheers me up. So one, just in that sentence, I'm letting them know you're not the problem. I'm just not feeling great today. Something's happening. Two, I'm going to take some steps that I know will help to regulate me and I'm going to remove myself as well by doing it. That's not creating this awful environment where they have to step on eggshells and where they feel like they have to try and please me and they have to try and cheer me up. I'm removing myself. So that in essence is such a great example of regulating yourself and demonstrating that for your child or your children. And remember, even if they don't action things like this, it still goes in. You're still planting that seed in the back of their minds and you are absolutely being a role model for how you regulate yourself and then they can use those skills if they need to at a later day because it will all be going in. But remember, with tools like this, you have to be consistent. It's constant reminders, constant grasping of any organic moments where they might see something on telly. People arguing on telly or having a disagreement. The teacher being upset with them, the teacher may be having a bad day. Their grandma may be having a bad day. Whoever it may be, just take any and every opportunity to remind them that they're not responsible for other people's feelings and emotions. and especially not their choices. Okay? So leading into that at the same time as how we think about regulating them, what I absolutely do not want you to do at all is interrogate them. I don't want you to try and prove things to them. I don't want you to ask leading questions. I don't want you to expect any disclosure from them because like I said before, they have to feel like they can talk or they cannot talk if they want permission for both is absolutely fine. And I also don't want you to think that every bad behaviour has one cause and it is the other parent because it might not be, it might be other things. This leads me into a caveat that we were just talking about in my single mum or academy the other day and it was the childhood come back from contact and they were so dysregulated and they were doing some really bad behaviour, there was biting and hitting and damaging of things. Now the parent was quite rightly just taking a step back because the child was clearly so dysregulated but there does have to be a line drawn where blatant bad behaviour needs to actually be corrected. Okay? We need to find that balance of understanding that they're coming from a place of feeling really dysregulated and they are trying to regulate. But also we have rules, we have house rules, we have boundaries, we have expectations of behaviour and you know in your house what will fly and what won't fly so don't be afraid to remind your child or your children of that. We can help guide them and nurse them through these feelings and through these times but when it crosses a line in terms of house rules then you have full permission, here's a permission slip to actually correct them on it because that is still not acceptable. So one thing that I'm going to finish this podcast with is the most important part of the entire episode, it's that you have to learn to regulate yourself. So you need to take a good hard look at yourself and be reflective. Now this is a skill that I really want to praise you for now because this is something that the other parents can't do, they can't self-reflect, they can't actually look at something and think yeah actually I messed up there that wasn't great, I need to do better and then make the changes. Normally 9 times out of 10 they are steadfast in that their way was the right way and that's it and everyone has to just conform. So I need you to take a look at yourself, if you're someone who is still feeling quite triggered, quite explosive, text really get to you, instances at handover really get under your skin then that tells me that you need a lot more nervous system regulation because that will then help you to show up as the calm parent that your child, your children need you to be and the byproduct of that is that you're only going to end up being more calm yourself, feeling more at peace and feeling more content and who doesn't want that, we all want that because that just means that not only am I being a better parent for my children but I'm actually happier in myself in my everyday life. So if that's not a reason to get regulated, I don't know what is. So let me know in the comments what kind of things you like to do to regulate yourself and let's help each other out, let's give each other some inspo on things that we can do and if you wanted me to elaborate on anything else that you've heard in this podcast, let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you in the next episode.