Welcome to Attachment Matters.
A series of conversations between two moms who love to nerd out on the subject of attachment. We’ll dive into what it is, what it isn’t, what it relates to, what it can mean for parenting, and how it can help us explain the current state of things.
Rose was introduced to Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s attachment-based developmental model when her two sons were very young, and it has significantly shaped her life. She brings a depth of knowledge from the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, having taken a number of courses at the Neufeld Institute. This series offers her the opportunity to share insights from this model with parents who are trying to make sense of their trans-identified children.
As a mom of two teens and a former classroom educator, StoicMom has an intense interest in attachment and development. She’s done some serious dabbling into the Neufeld bank of knowledge but also has a knack for scanning the environment for frameworks to discover where they overlap and where they diverge. In her work supporting parents of trans-identified kids, she’s committed to making sense of how we find ourselves grappling with things like gender identity and the other ways that our kids are struggling to find their place in this world.
Both of us found ourselves entangled in the world of gender ideology, following very different routes to get here. We share a passion for the attachment framework as a way to understand and fulfill our roles and responsibilities as mothers in these oh-so-strange times.
You can discover more detail about Rose’s story by reading her (viral) PITT submission: True Believer or listen to her interviewed on Gender: A Wider Lens and on Triggernometry.
In this episode, Rose and I tackle SMP community member questions and we end up exploring how adaptation and maturity are related, describing what that painful process looks and feels like so you can recognize it when it’s happening. We also discuss the role of raising children and “the dark night of the soul” in developing our own maturity and in keeping our hearts soft enough to hold on to our kids.
Resources to deepen understanding of the concepts discussed:
Roots of Attachment: Six Stages of Relationship (This is the video by Dr. Gordon Neufeld that we have focused on during the first four episodes of this series.)
Neufeld’s Traffic Circle Model of Frustration (This 23 minute video introduces Dr. Neufeld’s model of frustration, and connects directly to many of the concepts we discuss in this Q&A)
Additional resources mentioned in the episode:
The Invincible Vulnerability of the Mature Heart (an article written by Chris White that describes Neufeld’s traffic circle model and the importance of experiencing futility to developing the soft hearts that come with maturation)
Road Trip (Stoicmom mentions this article as a personal example of grappling with frustration and how things shift if we exit the traffic circle once experiencing futility.)
Question for reflection:
Can you recall a time that you experienced the shift from frustration to acceptance? What was it that wasn’t working for you to cause the frustration? How were you able to make the shift and let go of the thing you couldn’t have? How did you feel once you “exited the traffic circle?”
Ep 5 of Attachment Matters: Q&A part 1, What does maturity look like?