I remember the days of having an infant. I had read that mothers are supposed to know the difference between their babies cries. Supposedly one cry meant hunger, and one meant tired, and one meant something else….this left me feeling hopeless and inferior. I could never differentiate between the cries. As hard as I tried I never was able to differentiate between a cry of hunger and a cry of exhaustion or frustration or loneliness. Nope, I felt like dismal failure at that. When I could get past that feeling of failure, I was able to notice other cues that I learned which helped me to understand what my babies needed, so that we were able to create a wordless communication.
Later I discovered that recent infant-parent studies found in the BEST CASE SCENARIO mothers were able to understand their infants needs only 30% of the time on the first go. Let me repeat that 30% of the time the BEST parents were getting it right. That. Blew. My. Mind. 30% is the best you can shoot for? Seriously? I can do that!
This is so important to remember because it means that the bond is not created by instinctively knowing what your child needs. Nope. Importantly, the bond is created in the space between the mistake and the repair. Mistakes and missteps are inevitable. And actually, the attachment bond is strengthened each time the parent realizes that they haven’t fixed what ails and tries again….and again…and again. The bond is created in the behavior that says: I’m here. I hear your pain. I’m not going away. I will try to help you.
As a parent we don’t have to know what we are doing all the time. We just have to be able to communicate that we are willing to try to help them figure out a solution.
Dear Rachel,
I am having a book ‘’Understanding, Nurturing and Working Effectively with Vulnerable Children in School’ published by Routledge in 2019 and I would like to include a short quote from you which I found on the Internet.
‘‘Recent infant-parent studies have found that in the BEST CASE SCENARIO mothers were able to understand their infants needs only 30% of the time on the first go’.
This is good enough because, as Barbel Fried continues:
…. ‘the bond is created in the space between the mistake and the repair’.
I would like your permission to do this please.
If you would like a proper permission letter I can supply that, but I think it will be OK anyway because it is less than 300 words.
I really appreciate your quote because it fits in very well with my thinking about attunement and the value of breaks and repair.This is so relevant to school staff working with vulnerable children.
Thank you,
Angela Greenwood
Educational Psychotherapist (UKCP reg.)