Why Attunement is Crucial for Children (and Parents too)

As a trauma therapist, I hear some truly awful stories. Very sadly, some of my clients endured the worst kinds of childhoods imaginable – and, as adults, find day-to-day life a real struggle, because the wounds of their childhood are so hard to heal. When we hear the word ‘trauma’, these are the kinds of experiences we think about, but it’s important to understand that much milder, albeit highly painful experiences, also shape children’s personalities in surprisingly powerful ways.

I’m currently writing a book on healing childhood trauma (not due to be published until 2026 I’m afraid, but watch this space for details), so am thinking about these kinds of problems non-stop. What is it that causes childhood trauma? Why are some kids profoundly affected by seemingly quite mild problems in the family? How much of that is nature and how much nurture – meaning, are these vulnerabilities primarily genetic, because of the parenting we receive, or a mixture of the two?

There is obviously a lot to talk about here and the answers to these questions are nuanced and complex – that’s why I’m writing a book about it! But I would like to focus on one key idea for this post, which is the concept of attunement. This refers to the ability of your caregivers to attune to you, from birth onwards. The focus here is often on the mother-baby relationship, because our mother is often our primary caregiver, especially in our early years (if someone else fulfilled this role for you, like a father, older sibling, grandparent or adoptive parent, please adapt the language to fit your experience).

How secure attachment forms

Let’s bring in a related concept, which is that of attachment. Ideally, your attachment bond with your mother would have been secure, helping you form a secure attachment style for the rest of your life. Research consistently shows that around 50 per cent of children are lucky enough to experience this, while the other 50 per cent normally have either an avoidant or anxious attachment style. If you were one of the lucky ones who experienced secure attachment, being in your mother’s arms would have felt like the safest, most delicious place in the world. (There’s a reason researchers call this state attachment bliss, because it feels wonderful for both the little boy or girl and their attachment figure).

She would have fed you, kept you clean and dry, comforted you when you cried and entertained you when you were bored. This is how secure attachment forms, because you would have felt warm, happy and deeply connected to her, with an in-your-bones kind of trust and safety. And attunement is the skill your mother would have needed for that secure attachment to form.

That would have meant attuning to you, on a moment-by-moment basis, to figure out what you needed. Especially in your pre-verbal years, this would have been tricky, because of course you couldn’t let her know whether you were too hot/cold, hungry, wet, bored, needed a nap, scared of the dog, dazzled by those bright lights, overstimulated from too much play, mad at your brother for stealing your favourite toy, or whatever else may have been going on in your little mind and body. As any parents out there know, learning to interpret what your baby’s noises, movements, body posture and facial expression means is no easy task!

But good-enough mums – and dads too, of course – are able to attune to their baby, learning their language before they have the power to express it with words. And when your caregivers were not able to attune in this way, I’m afraid it can be subtly but profoundly hurtful and cause lifelong problems. I call it a subtle ‘missing’, when your mother doesn’t really listen to you, is always a bit distracted or simply lacks this crucial parenting skill, probably because she never received it from her mother when she was little.

The impact of feeling unseen

Think about that: not feeling seen, heard, understood or validated over and over again, thousands of times throughout your childhood and adolescence, into your young adulthood and probably right up to this moment. One of my mentors called this ‘the air we breathe’ as children – not something bad that only happened rarely, but a lack of warmth, kindness, care or attention, happening all the time in your family.

So if you now struggle with low confidence or self-esteem, have negative self-beliefs about not being good enough, likeable or lovable, find intimate relationships baffling and unsatisfying, or feel like there’s a big hole in your chest that can never be filled, no matter how much love you get as an adult, this subtle but repetitive missing could be the reason.

If you are struggling, you might find my Insight Timer practice, Taking in the Good: IFS Meditation, helpful. This guided imagery practice will help you take in positive new feelings and nourishing beliefs that will help ease that feeling of not being enough, in some way. Repeated exercises like this, perhaps alongside the help of a skilled therapist, will start to undo the years of misattunement you experienced as a child, and so help you feel more confident and build a sense of inner peace, warmth and self-compassion, which you so deserve.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Why You May Have Experienced Trauma, Even if You Had a ‘Normal’ Childhood

Image by Jessica Voong

‘He didn’t see his childhood as unusual – it was the only one he had ever had.’ I read this line in a coffee shop earlier and it has really stayed with me. It was in a brilliant book, Why Therapy Works: Using Our Minds to Change Our Brains, by Louis Cozolino. It’s a bit dense, so probably more for the mental-health professionals reading this (or anyone else who enjoys dense psychology books!). But that line is so good – and speaks to something I see with my clients over and over again.

Because it doesn’t matter how bad your childhood was, what kinds of terrible things were happening – to you it’s normal, because that is all you know. Especially when you are young, before you have attended school, your house and family is your whole world. You might go to the park, or to other kids’ houses to play, but basically everything important that ever happens to you happens inside your family.

So even if your dad is drinking heavily, then shouting aggressively at your mum every night, that’s normal. Or if you grow up in poverty, feeling scared and hungry every day, that’s normal. If your parents clearly favour your sister over you and you know, in your bones, that they love her more than you, well that’s normal too.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that any of those things are OK, or right, or even normal by the standards of many other families. But it is normal for you, because that was all you knew then – and may still be normal for you now, until we work to reframe that story and help you realise it was neither good nor normal to grow up in that environment.

What children need to flourish

One of the central ideas in schema therapy is that of core needs. These are the developmental needs that all children have, whatever the culture or country they grow up in. These five needs are:

1. Love and a secure atachment

2. Safety and protection

3. Being valued as a unique human being

4. The ability to be spontaneous, play and express your emotions

5. Having boundaries and being taught right from wrong

It’s easy to see that the kids who are unlucky enough to grow up in traumatic, neglectful or abusive families are not getting these fundamental needs met. They probably don’t feel loved, safe or valued. Their emotions might be seen as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. And – a problem I see in many families today – they might have what we see as too much of a good thing. Meaning they are spoilt, allowed to say and do whatever they like without consequences. This is also a kind of neglect, because it produces unhappy children who will struggle to fit into society when they are older.

So, however ‘normal’ your childhood was, if these basic needs were not being met, it will have caused you problems as you became an adult. And it may well have been traumatic, even if it seemed normal on the outside, because being shouted at, bullied, devalued or ignored can all be traumatic for kids.

If any of this resonates for you, I’m very sorry you had a tough time growing up. But you may find this talk helpful, which I recorded for Insight Timer to help people tell a different, more compassionate story about their lives: The Story of You: How to Build Self-Compassion.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

What Are Core Needs in Schema Therapy – and Why Are They So Important?

Image by Tani Eisenstein

What do you think you needed as a child? Things like food, water, air, of course. A warm, dry house to live in. Clean clothes, the chance to go to school. Good friends to play with, caring teachers to learn from, perhaps a pet. But what else? What were the key developmental ingredients that meant you would thrive as an infant, child, adolescent and then adult?

Well, schema therapy sees these core developmental needs as fundamentally important. Schema therapists like me spend a great deal of time educating our clients about them and finding out which needs were met and which unmet when they were young. The primary focus of schema therapy – and one of the key healing ingredients in this or any other type of therapy – is helping people get those needs met as adults.

We believe there are five core needs, that every child has in any culture and any period of history – we all need the same basic things to flourish as humans:

1. Love and a secure attachment

2. Safety and protection

3. To be valued as a unique human being

4. The ability to play, be spontaneous and express our emotions freely

5. Boundaries and learning right from wrong

In my opinion, the most important of these needs (after safety and protection, of course, without which we would not survive long as vulnerable little people) is the first – love and a secure attachment. But what does that mean, in concrete terms? Let me explain…

Secure vs insecure attachment

What do we mean by secure attachment? Well, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s a photo of exactly what secure attachment looks and feels like. Both grandma and granddaughter have an attachment system in their brain (one of the most powerful systems we have, up there with the threat system in terms of neural dominance), which kicked in the moment that lucky little girl was born.

As a tiny infant she attached, probably first to mum, then dad, then siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, school friends, and so on, encompassing every key relationship throughout her life. And grandma attached to her, from the moment she first held that wonderful little bundle in her arms, sang her songs, whispered loving words, promised to cherish her forever.

I say ‘lucky’ because all of this love, warmth, safety and cherishing would help this girl feel securely attached and so develop a secure attachment style, which would stay fairly constant throughout her life – and help her have a series of close, nourishing relationships as an adult.

When attachment goes wrong

Sadly, most of my clients did not have this experience with their key attachment figures (mum, dad, other close family members). Perhaps mum was cold and unloving, not able to form a close bond with her child. Maybe dad was drinking heavily, so his moods and behaviour were too erratic to feel consistent and safe. Sometimes we are not the favoured or best-loved child, so we feel that keenly throughout our early life, on the outside looking in to the warm, loving relationships we crave.

If any of these experiences sound familiar, you may have an insecure attachment style, which is usually either anxious (being worried about people leaving or rejecting you, so clinging on too tightly in relationships) or avoidant (dreading intimacy, so avoiding commitment or long-term relationships and keeping people at arm’s length). Our attachment styles generally stay consistent throughout life, unless we do something to change them.

How to get your needs met now

As I am always saying in these posts and my webinars and workshops, it is never too much and never too late to heal. And that includes your attachment style, as well as any other needs that were unmet for you as a child. For example, research shows that people with an insecure attachment style become more secure, if they have a long-term, loving relationship with a partner who is securely attached. That’s why finding a caring, supportive partner is one of the most healing things we can do.

I would also suggest finding a skilled, trauma-informed therapist to help identify which needs were not met for you as a child, then help you get them met now. Some of this needs-meeting will be done by the therapist (especially if it’s an attachment-based model, like schema therapy) and some will involve learning new ways of thinking and behaving with other key people in your life – partners, family members, friends, colleagues…

Other models, such as CBT, compassion-focused therapy or internal family systems, place greater emphasis on transforming painful thoughts and feelings, as well as calming your nervous system; or on ‘internal attachment’ – helping you attach to and care for the wounded inner child whose needs did not get met when you were growing up.

The most important takeaway from this post is that you are not ‘needy’ (a word I particularly dislike), however much you might struggle in relationships and your day-to-day life. Having needs is a normal, healthy thing – it’s just problematic if those needs were not met when you were young. But getting them met now is both crucial and entirely doable, with the right help and support.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

The Story of You: What You Needed and (Probably) Didn’t Get as a Child

Image by Kelly Sikkema

So, you were born. And like all babies, you were beautiful, innocent and pure. You were like a little seed, packed full of energy, primed to flourish and grow. But to do that you needed certain nutrients like food, water, air and warmth, of course, but also things like love and safety, to feel cherished and valued for the little miracle that you were.

As well as all the basic ingredients you needed to nourish you day to day, what little you needed most was to be loved, held, whispered and sung to, told stories of who you were and how you came to be here. You needed to feel your mother’s skin on yours, your father’s strong arms as he rocked you back to sleep.

We call experiences like this attachment and it is so deep, so powerful, hard-wired into every human brain. You needed a safe, secure, reliable attachment first to mum – who carried you in her body for nine months, gave you life, fed and cared for you at your tiniest and most vulnerable – and then dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, school friends and so on, out and out for the rest of your life.

Our first and deepest attachment

But for most of us this starts with mum, our first and most important caregiver, who should love us fiercely, viscerally, as if we were part of her, because we once were. And when this goes as it should, it feels wonderful – so good in fact that we call it ‘attachment bliss’ – being held and stroked and fed and soothed and cherished. And this creates, in us, a powerful feeling, in our bones, that we are good, lovable, worthy of kindness and respect.

So that’s how it should be – and for some lucky people, that’s how it is. But for many of us, it doesn’t work like this. Something goes wrong, somewhere – either very mildly wrong, or more seriously. And if it’s mild, and we have enough love, enough safety, enough nutrients to feed our growing brain and body, then we come out of it fairly intact. We may be anxious, or get depressed from time to time, but mostly we’re OK, able to do all the normal stuff of everyday life and be happy, enough, most of the time.

And for some of us – in fact, far too many of us – the things that went wrong were much worse than this. And they happened not just once, but over and over, throughout childhood, one bad thing or lots of bad things, one after another. And if this is you, you might know what these things were, or just have a vague inkling that all was not well. Either way, what I’m saying resonates somewhere inside and you’re thinking, ‘Yes, that’s how it was for me.’

If that’s the case, I am truly sorry, because I know that you will be left with wounds. And one of the deepest of those wounds is that you will think you deserved it in some way, that you were a bad person, or somehow dislikable or unlovable. Because that’s what children do – they make it about them, because it’s too scary and threatening to think that the people who were supposed to love and protect you, were in fact the ones who hurt you. That’s too much for a child’s brain to comprehend, so they go, ‘Well it can’t have been their fault, so it must have been mine. I’m bad. I’m naughty. I made all the bad things happen and deserved them.’

None of this is your fault

And here’s where I really need you to concentrate. Take in these words, because they may be the most important thing anyone has ever said to you. And that’s this: none of those bad things that happened were your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just that sweet, innocent, pure little baby who was born into a bad situation.

See you think you’re a bad person, but you’re not. You are a good person that bad things happened to.

That’s so important I’m going to say it again. You think you’re a bad person, but you’re not. You are a good person that bad things happened to.

And somewhere inside you is that sweet, innocent, lovable little boy or girl. They still live in your mind and body and nervous system, whether you know they are there or not. And they are the part of you that needs to hear this the most, because they hold all the memories of bad stuff and how it felt, and what they thought, and all the other stuff that goes with that.

‘I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.’

Carl Jung

So let them know that they are not bad, or wrong, or naughty, or anything other than a beautiful little child, who deserves to be loved and cherished, and held, and made to feel good about themselves. Because that’s what we all want – it’s what we’re born for, really, to feel that from other people and to give it back to them. It’s why we’re all here.

I hope this helps you think a little differently about your life, about yourself, about why you struggle as you do. As ever, also know that these wounds can be healed, with enough time, work and loving, compassionate support.

And I will be here, every step of the way, giving you every ounce of knowledge, wisdom, guidance and support I possess.

Warm wishes,

Dan

PS I have recorded this as a talk for my InsightTimer Collection – click on the button below if you would like to listen (for free) now.

Why Your Temperament Shapes Who You Are

Image by Treddy Chen

Temperament may be the most important idea you have never heard about. I say that because so many of my clients have never heard about it, or have a minimal understanding at best. And it’s so important, because the kind of temperament you have really does shape who you are. So, what is it? How does it develop? And can it be changed?

The first thing to understand about temperament is that we all have one – it’s essentially your character, who you are as a person. You are born with a certain kind of temperament – it’s probably mostly genetic – and it stays fairly constant throughout your life.

It’s possible too that early life experiences help shape your temperament, because we know how powerful and formative they are for us as people, but we’re really not sure. What we do know is how to measure it.

If you had your temperament measured by a psychologist, he or she would use around 20 measures, such as passive/aggressive, sensitive/robust, emotional/rational and introvert/extrovert (they would use more complicated jargon for these terms, but this is what they would mean). And where you scored on these 20 items would determine your temperament.

The Highly Sensitive Person

Most of my clients (and most therapists I know) are what psychologist Elaine Aron calls Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs). Around 20% of the population are HSPs, which means they are temperamentally more sensitive than most people. This is crucial, because it determines how much you are affected by everything that happens to you throughout your life, but especially in childhood.

So if (like me) you are an HSP, even fairly mild negative experiences in childhood will really affect you. That’s not your fault, it’s just how you’re wired, in your brain and the rest of your nervous system. You might be more sensitive to sensory inputs like bright lights, loud noises, strong smells or crowds of people. You may find it harder to ‘shrug off’ hurtful, critical comments. You will certainly find it very difficult to ‘stop being so sensitive’ or ‘toughen up’, however often people tell you to do those things.

Can temperament change?

Of course, it’s not just sensitive people who experience traumatic things in their lives. And you don’t need to be highly sensitive to be hurt by things like family dysfunction, being yelled at as a kid, or bullied in school (as I wrote about in a recent post). These experiences are painful for everyone, to a greater or lesser degree.

So can your temperament change? If you are very sensitive, can you become less so? Or the other way round? Well, yes and no. I think your basic temperament does stay fairly consistent throughout your lifetime. A sensitive guy like me is not going to become highly insensitive overnight. But we know that so much about you can change, with the acquisition of knowledge, from blogs like this one, self-help books, therapy sessions, podcasts, and so on.

And, if you have a trauma history, we know that the wounds this causes can be healed, with the right help and support. So I think the answer is, yes, your temperament can change, in some ways – even if your fundamental personality probably won’t.

If you would like to know more about temperament and how it shapes us, especially in the context of trauma, do come along to my webinar on Saturday 26th February: What is Trauma and Can it Be Healed? Just click the button below if you would like to attend – I hope to see you there.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Healing the Wounds of Childhood Emotional Neglect

Image by Kelly Sikkema

Sometimes, when I’m working with people struggling with problems like chronic anxiety, depression or disordered eating, it’s hard to figure out where these problems came from. They describe reasonably happy families, with loving parents who did their best to raise happy, confident children. And sometimes what we figure out together is that there were ‘small misses’ – subtle issues with their parents’ attunement to that little boy or girl that led to lifelong problems.

Of course, sometimes these misses were not small and there was a deep lack of love, care, support, safety or any of the other things children need to meet their core developmental needs. And whether this lack of what you needed in childhood was small or large, what we are talking about is emotional neglect – an incredibly common problem that’s a key factor in many mental-health difficulties.

What is emotional neglect?

In schema therapy, we see this neglect showing up as an Emotional Deprivation schema. This means that, as a child, you were deprived of some of the key emotional nutrients you needed in order to thrive. And of all the schemas, this can be one of the hardest to detect in people, because it’s primarily about the absence of good things, rather than the presence of bad things. Let me give you an example.

*Jean comes to see me and in her first session, explains that she has a lifelong history of depression. She also recognises that she has low self-esteem, feeling bad about herself across the board and lacking confidence at work, as a mum, in her friendships and in terms of her body image.

When I ask about Jean’s childhood, she paints a rosy picture. ‘Oh, family life was great,’ she tells me. ‘I had such a happy childhood. Mum and dad were good to us, we had a nice house and everything we needed.’

But as our sessions unfold, it becomes clear that things were not quite so great for Jean. She was a shy, sensitive child who needed lots of love, warmth, support and encouragement from her parents. Although her dad was a kind man, he was also a workaholic, spending long hours at the office. Jean recalls barely seeing him throughout her childhood. ‘He was always at work,’ she says. ‘But I understood, because he paid for our house and all the lovely things we had as kids.’

Sadly, these ‘things’ were how her mother showed love to her children. She was quite a cold person, who was not good with emotion, so showed her kids love in practical ways – cooking meals, making sure school uniforms were pressed and clean, giving them toys for birthdays and Christmas.

She never told her kids that she loved them, never hugged them and scolded them when they were scared or hurt. She just couldn’t handle what she called ‘weak’ emotions like fear or sadness. So Jean didn’t get any of the love and hugs that she needed – an absence of good things, which didn’t help build her self-esteem and left her vulnerable to the depression that has plagued Jean throughout her life.

Healing the wounds of childhood

If Jean’s story resonates with you, it’s possible that you might have experienced emotional neglect as a child. And if so, what can you do to make sure this neglect doesn’t cast a shadow over the rest of your life? First, as I often say in these posts, knowledge is power. Start by reading up on neglect, in my blog and others like it.

You may also like Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, by Jonice Webb. It’s an excellent self-help book that explains exactly what this form of neglect is, the different styles of parenting that can cause it (from the well-meaning but unattuned to the destructive and traumatising), and offers lots of helpful techniques and strategies to help build your sense of self-worth, confidence and resilience as an adult.

Second, if your wounds are really deep, you might need some help from a mental-health professional like me. Schema therapy is really effective for problems like neglect, but lots of other approaches will also help, like CBT, internal family systems or compassion-focused therapy. All of these approaches will help you identify painful, self-limiting beliefs and behaviours that maintain the sense of being unlikable, unlovable or not enough in some way.

Finally, remember that experiencing neglect as a child was categorically not your fault. You didn’t choose your family, or whatever issues they had that didn’t allow them to give you all the love, support and affection that you needed. So whatever problems that neglect caused in later life are not your fault either. You were just unlucky, got dealt a bad hand as a child, so you’re now struggling with the consequences.

But enough is enough. Don’t let the neglect you experienced define you as a person. Don’t let it define your life. You deserve to be loved, valued and cherished as much as any other human on this planet. Make today the day that you commit to healing and happiness. I very much hope that you find both.

Warm wishes,

Dan

*All of the case studies on this blog are composites of actual people – I would never reveal any personal or identifying information about my clients.

What Are Core Needs in Schema Therapy?

Image by Eka P Amdela

One of the most important ideas in schema therapy is that all children have core developmental needs. These needs are the same whether you grow up in Tottenham or Tanzania, whether you’re male or female, raised in the 18th or 21st century. All human children have the same needs.

Think of these needs as nutrients that we all require to grow up strong, resilient and healthy. It’s like a plant – every plant needs certain nutrients to thrive. They need water, sunlight, minerals in the soil, carbon dioxide in the air, the right temperature and growing conditions. If plants get these nutrients, they thrive. If not, they fail to grow properly and can be small or spindly.

So what are these core needs? There are five, listed in order of importance:

1. Love and a secure attachment

Attachment theory is one of the best-researched fields in psychology. Pioneered by John Bowlby, a British psychologist and psychoanalyst, attachment theory tells us that all babies are born hard-wired to attach, first to their mother, then father, siblings, grandparents, and so on. Ideally, babies form a secure attachment, meaning they feel strongly bonded, comfortable and deeply loved by mum.

Sadly, many babies don’t experience this, for all sorts of reasons, so they develop an insecure attachment style – either anxious or avoidant attachment. If this is true of you, you might struggle to form close bonds or romantic relationships as an adult. This attachment style stays with us for life, unless we do something (like therapy, or finding a loving partner) to change it.

2. Safety and protection

This one is self-explanatory. We all need to feel safe and protected, from infancy onwards. If your family environment either was or just felt unsafe, you might have problems with anxiety, or be a worrier. You may develop a Mistrust/Abuse schema and find it hard to trust people. Or you might cling to others, especially if they seem stronger than you.

3. Being valued as a unique human being

As I always tell my clients, this is not about being special, getting all As at school or being the smartest/prettiest/most popular kid. It’s just about being loved for who you are. Just you, with all your strengths and weaknesses, likeable and less likeable bits, imperfectly perfect, like every other child. If this need is not met, you might develop a Defectiveness schema, feeling you are not good enough, dislikable or unworthy in some way.

4. The ability to be spontaneous and play

All children (and other young animals) learn through play. But some parents are not comfortable with their kids being playful, spontaneous or silly. They might shout at or critcise their kids if they are being ‘too rambunctious’ or ‘foolish’. And the kids quickly learn to stifle their natural – and hugely important – instincts to run and laugh and play.

In adulthood, this can mean being overly serious, struggling to be playful or have fun. And this can cause problems in relationships, especially if your partner is healthily playful and silly. You may need to develop your Happy Child – one of the key modes in schema therapy.

5. Boundaries and being taught right from wrong

All kids need to learn to respect other people. That they are not the centre of the universe. That their parents, not them, are in charge and get to make the big decisions. This does not mean smacking, yelling, shaming or hurting kids in any way. It just means helping them grow up to be thoughtful, respectful, decent human beings.

If this need is not met, you may develop an Entitlement schema and feel you are special, better than other people and deserve to have exactly what you want whenever you want it. That will clearly cause problems for you and everyone close to you, so needs work in therapy if true.

I hope that’s useful to understand. Remember that if any of your needs were not met as a child, and you formed painful schemas as a result, none of that is fixed or set in stone. Reading blogs like this one (or the fantastic blog/schema therapy resources at Secure Nest), or self-help books, getting therapy, forming loving relationships – these will all help you get those needs met as an adult. Wishing you all the best with that journey.

Warm wishes,

Dan

5 Things Parents Can Do to Raise Healthy, Happy Children

Image by Jakob Owens

Having children is the most profound, beautiful, life-changing and yet terrifying thing you will ever do. Nothing can prepare you for the awesome responsibility of holding that warm little bundle in your arms for the first time. And parenting — especially in those exhausting early years, when you think you will never sleep again — can be tough.

One of the hardest things for all parents is the worry that they will get it wrong and screw their kids up in some way. We will say or do the wrong thing and make them anxious, unhappy, or bereft of confidence. And no wonder — we are now deluged with information, much of it contradictory.

One parenting expert says let your baby cry it out at night; another argues vehemently against this, saying you should never let them cry. One expert recommends strict discipline with your teens; another says befriending and supporting them is best. This guru says be a Tiger Mom; that one says this will only make them stressed-out and destined to fail.

Trust your parenting instincts

Confusing, isn’t it? And in some ways I think the best thing you can do is ignore all the experts (including me!) and trust your gut. After all, some species of human has been raising children on this planet for millions of years. We know, in our DNA, how to raise healthy kids.

But the nature of modern societies means we now live in very strange, artificial, non-human ways — most of us in huge mega-cities, cut off from extended family and community, working punishingly long hours just to make ends meet. And many of us are stressed out, exhausted and stripped of our natural confidence about how best to parent.

Parents have never been under so much pressure to get it ‘right’ — while at the same time so lacking in elder-inherited wisdom about how to let themselves just be natural with their kids. Mums and dads are struggling — and I would like to help.

Lessons from my consulting room

As well as being the proud dad of a strapping 22-year-old young man — and having learned many parenting lessons the hard way over the years — I am also a therapist. I spend my days helping people whose childhoods have not been right for them, in one way or another.

Helping those struggling with chronic anxiety, depression, low self-esteem or a multitude of other life-limiting problems has taught me a great deal about what we, as parents, do to hurt our kids — even if we love them and are doing our best, which most parents are, most of the time.

It has also helped me understand what children need in order to be happy and healthy. After all, as I often tell my clients, babies are born ready to flourish. They are like little acorns, tiny and fragile but bursting with the potential to grow into a mighty oak. All they need are the right nutrients: light, soil, some minerals and they will thrive.

Your kids are just the same. So here are five pieces of hard-earned wisdom I would like to pass on to you, so that you can help your little acorns grow up strong, healthy and ready to flourish in the world…

1. There is no such thing as too much love

It is impossible to love your kids too much. That doesn’t mean you should spoil (see point 5), over-protect or smother them, but these are not the same thing as loving them. I mean hugging them, tight and often. Physical touch is how mammals communicate love, help to calm and soothe each other and build strong bonds (just watch a nature documentary about any kind of monkey cuddling and grooming each other to see how much our closest mammalian relatives need and value touch).

Tell them you love them, every day. And show them you love them, by listening intently; giving them your time, not money or things; play with them, read to them, bath them, be with them. These things feel good for you too, so it’s a win-win.

2. You can develop a secure attachment from day one

Babies are born hard-wired to attach to (usually) first mum, then dad, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts and everyone else they relate intimately to throughout life. And helping your kids develop a ‘secure attachment style’ is one of the greatest gifts you can give them — this will help them form close, loving, nourishing relationships for the rest of their life.

Again, this is about trusting your instincts. You are hard-wired to securely attach to them too. Just do all the stuff above, from the first seconds of their life, and you will both be fine. If you are able to breastfeed, that is wonderful. If not, please don’t feel bad about it — it’s not your fault and you can be physically close in many other ways.

Lots of skin-to-skin contact, soft words, lullabies, (just enough) eye contact, play, hair-stroking… just let yourself be an attentive, loving parent and you will raise securely attached, confident, loved kids.

3. Love your kids for who they are, not what they do

We have a self-esteem problem in Western societies. The (in many ways helpful) emphasis on good self-esteem means that we judge ourselves on our achievements and compare them with our peers. Parents do this too. We praise our kids for their gold stars, or straight As, or sporting prowess. And that’s fine, but I think it gives them the message: ‘I will keep loving you as long as you succeed!’

Instead, we should love them for them. And tell them, over and over: ‘I love you so much just because you’re you.’ With this unconditional love as a baseline, getting the A or scoring the winning goal is just the cherry on top. They already feel loved deep in their bones, so don’t need these achievements to feel good about themselves.

4. Aim to be a ‘good enough’ parent

The brilliant pediatrician and psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott, coined the phrase, ‘good enough mother’. I love this idea and use it with my clients (and myself) often. Parents — especially mothers — feel so much pressure to be perfect these days. But what does that even mean? I try really hard but I’m definitely not a perfect dad (just ask my son!).

Being good enough means trying your best, but getting it wrong sometimes. It means giving points 1–3 your best shot, but some days being a bit frazzled, snappy and impatient. It’s not a big deal. As long as that baseline of love is there, kids are pretty robust. They can handle an occasionally snappy mother or father and still turn out just fine.

5. Boundaries matter too

Although I think we should love-bomb our kids every day of their lives, I do worry about the kind of anything-goes, my little Tommy or Tina is the most special child in the world, I should never discipline them parenting I often witness. Kids need boundaries. They feel safe with structure and routine — especially with things like bath time, bedtime and (broadly) sleep routines.

It also makes them feel safe if they feel like you’re in control — no five-year-old should be the boss of a family! Children should be polite (mostly) and respect their elders. They need to learn not to hit, or bite, or have constant tantrums when they don’t get what they want, to share stuff, to be kind. Again, instinctively all parents know this, whatever the cultural or societal norms of the day.

So there you have it: my recipe for happy, resilient, self-valuing, confident kids. But please don’t turn these guidelines into more reasons to feel like you’re failing or beat yourself up! They are just guidelines. If they work for you, great. If not, do what feels natural to you.

Trust your instincts, go with your gut — and remember that you know how to do this. You don’t need a million parenting books to be a good mum or dad. Just love, value and cherish them and all will be well.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Improve Your Self-Esteem

Image by Sane Sodbayar

If you had to describe yourself in a few words to someone you had never met, what would you say? Would you use words like smart, funny and lovable? Or stupid, useless and pathetic? Sadly, if you have low self-esteem, you are far more likely to opt for the latter three – even if they bear no relation to your true self, or the words your friends would use to describe you.

At its simplest, self-esteem is the extent to which we respect and value ourselves. If the way you perceive yourself is critical or unkind, your self-esteem is likely to be low, causing a host of problems – from a lack of confidence and self-belief to depression, anxiety, underachievement, addiction, problems with anger and self-destructive behaviour.

Developing self-esteem

Self-esteem – or the lack of it – is inextricably linked to our childhood and family dynamic. Along with keeping us clean, safe and fed, it’s our parents’ job to make us feel lovable and worthwhile. Especially when we are infants (because that’s when our sense of self, as a separate entity to our mother, is developing), they do this by giving us lots of physical affection, playing with and singing/reading to us.

As we grow they reinforce this by taking an interest in and praising us, both telling and showing us how much we are loved, wanted and important to them. If we are lucky enough to get this kind of parenting, we will emerge into adulthood with an strong set of interconnected beliefs that we are worthwhile and deserve all the good this world can offer us.

Problems with self-esteem in childhood

But you, like many other children, may not have been so lucky. Your parents might have been distant or emotionally unavailable. They might have criticised rather than praising you. They may have had mental health problems, been addicted to alcohol or drugs, or punished you overly harshly.

If so, you would have been profoundly hurt and confused. Why were they treating you this way? It must have been, you concluded, because there was something fundamentally bad or wrong about you.

As you grew up, if that treatment persisted – and perhaps was echoed in the wider family or at school – your sense of self would have been affected. And as an adult, if you believe you are a bad person and deserve bad things to happen to you, it’s incredibly hard to be positive and outgoing; to forge loving relationships or find lasting success.

You are likely to see the world through grey-tinted glasses, seeing only the bad in it and yourself. It’s hardly surprising that low self-esteem is at the root of many forms of mental distress.

Low self-esteem can be unlearned

But it doesn’t have to be this way. As low self-esteem is learned, so it can be unlearned. Cognitive therapy is an effective treatment for low self-esteem, because it helps you challenge and modify the negative, self-critical thoughts and beliefs that keep you feeling bad about yourself long after your cold or neglectful parents, nasty teachers and school bullies have faded out of your life.

I strongly recommend Overcoming Low Self-Esteem: A Self-Help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, by Melanie Fennell. The books in the Overcoming… series are all excellent, but this is one of the best. If you have low self-esteem, it explains how this developed and how your adult thinking and behaviour stops you from shrugging off negative early experiences and embracing life.

Most importantly, it gives you simple, effective techniques you can use every day to feel better about yourself, boost your mood and increase your self-confidence.

Warm wishes,

Dan