Raising a Secure Child: How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child's Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore

If we want our children to be independent, to go out and take on the world, we have to give them full confidence that they can come back to us as needed. Autonomy and connection: That’s secure attachment.

it’s in our nature to seek both autonomy and relatedness. We often seek support from others to undertake new adventures in our lives and also need a haven from exploration where we can just fill our own emotional cup in the “and” of a close relationship.

Children need a little space to test out their autonomy when on the top of the Circle, but they still need to know we’re nearby and available as needed.

She needs you to help her calm herself, and one important aspect of that is giving her space and time.

Children who can rely on an adult from birth will be able to rely on themselves when they get older—particularly because they will know when to seek the counsel or comfort of a trusted other.

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. —ERNEST HEMINGWAY, A Farewell to Arms

Children who can use their parents all around the Circle are more securely attached and more resilient in the face of life’s challenges.

As hard as it may be to hear, parenting in the direction of emotional health for our children does, indeed, require making healthy choices. But more important than any specific choice is who we are and how we feel as we make that choice.

Taking charge does not, of course, imply being an authoritarian tyrant. It never requires stepping into being mean. Taking charge in a kind way is a way of saying, explicitly and implicitly, “I’m always going to be there for you, but that doesn’t mean that I always have to be overly nice, because sometimes it is about really letting you know that that is a boundary, you’ve crossed it, and we need to step back.

I sometimes feel like I just want to escape from long hugs, but I can remind myself that he is needing his cup filled and it’s actually OK getting a hug even though it makes me want to squirm away sometimes. I think ‘There is no real danger here, just my shark music.