Our children today are facing more separation than they have probably ever had to in the history of our species.
What does Separation mean?
Dr Gordan Neufeld talks about facing separation as more complex than actual physical proximity itself. It could mean lots of things. For example, it could be emotional in its nature; If there is no space for a child’s anger in your relationship then there is a part of them that they must separate from you to save the relationship. It could be psychological; if one of your parents is depressed then there is a separation from who they are without the depression. It might be that a child simply does not experience an invitation to exist in another’s presence. In fact, research has shown that when there is no experience of being enjoyed or being invited to exist our neutrons actually go into a shame response themselves.
Common Separation Experiences
Here are some examples of common separation experiences that our children experience:
bedtime
school
divorce
death
unloved
hospitalisation/illness
arrival of a sibling
facing rejection, exclusion, being ignored or not belonging
moving home
parents working
internet/mobile phone
Some of these things have not always been a time when separation was experienced. For instance, it was very common for families to sleep in the same place, schools used to be more community based where staff already had relationships with the children and as parents we are working more hours than ever before. Some of these things are just inevitable: when you are asleep you lose consciousness, death is a part of life etc.
Facing Separation
So separation is inevitable in many ways, but we are also thrusting our children’s faces into separation more and more. In fact, we are even advised to do this by many parenting experts. Many of the behavioural techniques in parenting that we are sold uses what children value most about us (to have a sense of closeness) against them.
We are told to socialise children as early as possible to get them used to others, to get them ready for school, to prepare them for more separation. Within this drive to get children ready for society, we give children the message that how they act and behave in the outside world is more important to us than what is going on for them in the inside world. In other words, FORM is more important than SPIRIT. One example of this is, it’s more important for many of us that our children say sorry to someone then it is for us to find out that he actually has a sorry inside him to say. Most the time all our energy goes into seeing how this apology would look like externally.
We very often show children that they are responsible for our own emotions and behaviour. If you do x, y z then I will have to do this. You make me sad when you do that, that makes me angry etc. So in order to keep the connection with a parent a child has to take on these responsibilities. We make the immature responsible for our emotions very early on.
Isolation, love withdrawal, silent treatment, feigning separation, ultimatums, conditional approval and affection are all common practices in parenting. Here is an example which I notice myself doing, if we are at a park with my daughter and it is time to go I might start walking away or pretending to leave. What happens when I do this is her attachment instincts take over and she is moved to closing that gap. I create an environment where she is facing separation in order for her to do what I want. It works very well, but at what cost. What happens within our children when they face separation like this over and over again?
Facing Connection
This is a complex topic, which I am really only just starting to get my teeth into. But if there is a link between facing separation and many of the problems that our children are experiencing today and that are on the rise. Attention problems, agitation problems, anxiety problems, neuroses, fixes and fictions, aggressive, self harm, violence, depression and many many more. In most cases when these types of problems are experienced long term then they might be classified as a disorder e.g. ADHD, OCD, GAD etc.
But what if these are perfectly natural and normal responses to as Dr. Gordan Neufeld would refer to a Separation Complex that is common amongst all of these. Our very natural and instinctual responses to separation are: pursuit of closeness to close the physical gap, frustration to enable change and alarm to bring us to caution.
In my example before at the park I stirred up an intensified pursuit of closeness in my daughter to get her to leave the park with me. That is just a small example, but if this gets stirred up again and again and again and there is no attachment figure that can hold a space for these instincts to play out then they might get stuck and once stuck it’s easy to get lost. Especially when you consider that many of our go to parenting techniques actually involve using separation against children.
I’ll go over facing connection in more detail in the next blog post, but if you agree that separation could be at the root to many of the problems that our children face today then the answer to these problems also becomes simple (simple to understand but maybe not so simple to action in our society). The answer would be to have our children facing connections instead.
Dr Neufeld - ‘Can you become and agent of attachment in a world coming undone’
So I invite you to consider all the times that you have your child or the children you work with facing a connection with you rather then facing separation. Are they facing connection in the smaller things in life? What about when there are problems or trouble? What about when they aren’t fitting in or the behaviour is not up to the standards of where they at? How do you make sure they are facing connection.
If you want to find out my work with children and families and how I use compassionate Inquiry to work with parents and adults in what would be my own way of being an agent of attachment in a world that is coming undone then please get in touch with me mail@joeatkinson.co.uk or check out my website at www.joeatkinson.co.uk