Transcript
0:00 my name is dr. Vanessa Lapointe I'm a registered psychologist parenting educator and mom - - crying boys and this is ask dr. V this week's question comes to us from Australia from a dad who is working to do the right thing for his three-year-old daughter whom he shares Anika parenting kind of relationship with his daughter's mother the question goes like this I have a three-year-old daughter from a previous
0:30 marriage and now a four week old we've been very conscious about reconnecting and providing a safe and boundaries house the three-year-old however has started to melt down when I pick her up the light bulb was when you were talking at your previous seminar about how the child always wants to stay at Mom's house and talks about my mummy and he thought that the child was just trying to be kind of challenging but it's now realizing that she might actually be
0:58 insecure and seeking belonging I am wondering if the meltdown at pickup is related to that so my question is what is the best way to handle so as to make sure my daughter feels like she belongs at our home and to minimize the anxiety generated when she stays with us three nights a fortnight and the month the afternoon at the Monday in between this is a really excellent question and I've actually received a lot of messages I'm
1:25 filming this during the covett 19 pandemic and so there's lots of parents out there wondering how to handle different situations and duco parents have been sending through lots of messages about how kind of challenging it is to be managing this and especially isolating or as I like to call it physically distancing during the midst of all of this particularly when you're sharing children across to home environments where those two environments may not always be lined up in other kinds of
1:52 things with respect to this particular question there's actually two things going on here the first is that for a three-year-old child and indeed for any child who's probably under the age of about 6 or 7 and or very emotionally activated as can happen either during the situation's of families becoming redefined through separation and divorce and or during a you know global pandemic it can be really hard for kids to be settled and so when kids are emotionally activated
2:24 or when they are young what happens is that their brain can only land on one attachment figure at a time and so the brain just has sort of um one channel or one track when it comes to being aligned with and identified alongside an attachment figure and then what happens is when you introduce another attachment figure in either in the form of another parent or caregiver whoever that brain of the child that can be only alerted to
2:52 one attachment figure right now have to pick up and pivot and then come down onto the next attachment figure and in the picking up in the pivoting you can see sort of this this grey zone of attachment play out in acting out and resistance and that kind of thing and so that's very normal developmentally and/or very normal for kids who are in a time of alarm or angst and struggling the other piece is that sometimes in all
3:18 of that we can become especially across two homes where a child is going back and forth with care pick a co-parenting we can become very polarized the child can become very polarized in the direction that their attachment energy is flowing and a lot of parents mistake this and call it alienation and it is not alienation so be very very careful about jumping to that conclusion it's just a really normal bright byproduct of
3:49 development where the brain because of that propensity to be locked on to one attachment figure gets locked on and then just can't disengage from that and so it becomes really really challenging for the child to shift over and usually the attachment figure that the brain will become locked on to is the one that was the primary care provider to the child so the parent that spent the most time at home engaged in primary care routines with the child that'll be the
4:14 one that they lock on to and that's just called polarization and it's gotten that to do with alienation so there are a few things that you can do to support your kids through this first of all you want to make sure that you welcome a lot of room and space and invitation for whatever meltdowns in acting out and all of that kind of stuff for happening as the brain is doing that wrong or to the new attachment figure that's just normal
4:36 and you want to just sort of be like the sports commentator you're having a hard time and this is really tricky I know that you miss mommy those kinds of things and so the child really feels seen and heard by you the other thing that's really important if your child's brain has become sort of polarized in the attachment dynamic to this parent you want to pull that parent into the dynamic in your home and that doesn't
5:02 mean that that parent has to physically be present in your home but has to be invited mentally to exist in your home and so you can do this in a variety of ways you can have a picture up on your chest but it's a table of them with their other parent you can talk about the other parent you can tell funny stories about the other parent you can chat about how they have you know their their other parents smile and laugh and
5:26 that reminds them you have this funny thing that happened once with all of you guys and so you just kind of pulled the idea of the other parent into your home are really welcome and existence of their energetic presence in your home and so those things you want to honor the communication and the emotions and the behavior on this and you also want to make sure that you are doing your part to beyond the the mental image same
5:52 page as the other parent so that your child feels a sense of cohesion in your family and doesn't have to go the way of polarizing or splitting the intensity of that attachment relationship stay safe and healthy up there you guys it's really important right now that with our children and with our co parents and with everybody in our lives even if it's only energetically we are very very connected
Summary
- Children under age six often focus on one attachment figure at a time, leading to emotional challenges during transitions.
- Meltdowns can signal insecurity and a need for belonging rather than defiance.
- Polarization occurs when a child becomes emotionally locked onto one parent, which is a normal developmental response, not alienation.
- Parents should create a welcoming environment for children’s emotions and acknowledge their feelings during transitions.
- Inviting the other parent into the child's home mentally (e.g., through pictures or stories) can help maintain a sense of cohesion and security.
- Open communication and collaboration between co-parents are crucial for the child's emotional well-being.
- It's essential to remain connected with children and co-parents, even if only energetically, to foster a supportive environment.