What does it really mean to raise securely attached kids? I first came across Eli Harwood’s book Raising Securely Attached Kids on a solo trip, and it completely re-energized how I think about connection and parenting. Her words reminded me that so much of raising emotionally healthy kids starts with how we show up, not how perfect we are. It is now one of my most favorite parenting books out there. 

On today’s episode, Eli and I talk about the real meaning of secure attachment, how it shows up in everyday moments, and why so many of us misunderstand it. She shares her own story of growing up with a cycle-breaking mom, how that shaped her work, and the lessons she now passes on to parents everywhere.

We discuss:

 ✔️ What secure attachment actually means in daily life

✔️ The four main attachment styles and how they develop

✔️ How to tell if your child feels emotionally safe with you

✔️ Why repair after conflict is one of the most powerful parenting tools

✔️ How to build lasting connection through small, consistent moments

To connect with Eli Harwood follow her on Instagram @theattachmentnerd, check out all her resources at ⁠https://attachmentnerd.com/⁠ and purchase her books here: ⁠https://attachmentnerd.com/books⁠ 

Upcoming mother daughter journal “Uniquely Us”

⁠https://attachmentnerd.com/books/uniquely-us⁠

Upcoming encyclopedia style book called “How to Deal With Your ____ so Your Kids Don’t Have To” created to help parents develop healthy emotional patterns! 

⁠https://attachmentnerd.com/books/how-to-deal-with-your-so-your-kids-dont-have-to⁠

EMDR Podcast Episode: ⁠https://pedsdoctalk.com/podcast/trauma-therapy-why-you-may-need-emdr/⁠ 

0:00 What Secure Attachment Really Is
1:00 Why One Safe Caregiver Changes Everything
1:58 How Dr. Mona Found Eli Harwood
3:12 Eli’s Story and Becoming Attachment Nerd
7:58 How Attachment Theory Shapes Family Patterns
10:12 Why Connection and Communication Matter
12:18 What Secure Attachment Looks Like Day to Day
19:39 The Four Attachment Styles Explained
30:13 How To Tell If Your Child Feels Emotionally Safe
32:35 Real-Life Parenting Mistakes and Repair
37:59 Four Daily Habits That Build Secure Attachment
42:56 Listening, Feedback, and Emotional Language
43:55 Repairing After Messy Moments
50:24 Final Takeaways and Where To Learn More

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00;00;00;01 – 00;00;31;06

Eli Harwood

Building deeply trusting, positive relationships with our children. So when a child feels that they can emotionally rely on their caregiver, my caregiver is there for me. You know, I can go to my mom when things are tender, crusty, overwhelming, when I feel shame, when I’m stuck. That sense of trust between a parent and a child. We have seen from tons of research, lots of longitudinal studies, replicated studies.

 

00;00;31;06 – 00;00;58;09

Eli Harwood

What you know is a doctor is a just very important part of science. We know that when a child has at least one parent in their life, one caregiver, that they trust to be there for them in those tender and distressing moments. It actually has a protective trajectory in their life.

 

00;00;58;11 – 00;01;23;10

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the show. It’s me, Doctor Mona, your online pediatrician mom friend, and you all ask me all the time what my favorite parenting books are. I love the whole brain child, and my nightstand is stacked with more books that I’m making my way through. But one of my absolute top favorites right now that I actually did finish is raising Securely Attached Kids by Eli Harwood, who you probably know as an attachment nerd.

 

00;01;23;16 – 00;01;46;26

Dr. Mona

When Eli said yes to coming on the podcast, I completely fangirl. Like, what do you even do when one of your favorite parenting authors says yes, you just squeal a little and hit record? Eli is a licensed therapist mom of three and the creator of Attachment Nerd, where she helps parents understand how our early attachment shapes everything, how we parent, how we love, how we handle conflict, and even how we show up in the world.

 

00;01;46;29 – 00;02;08;25

Dr. Mona

She’s funny, warm, and so good at making deep psychology actually makes sense in everyday life. Now, I do want to say this I don’t agree with every single thing in her book, especially her take on sleep training being harmful to secure attachment as a pediatrician, I see that differently, but I absolutely respect and love the premise of her work and the book is pure gold.

 

00;02;08;28 – 00;02;32;14

Dr. Mona

The guidance, the insight, the stories. It’s one of those reads that changes how you think about connection. And so is Eli. In this episode, we talk about what secure attachment actually looks like in real life. Beyond the buzzword. We go through the four attachment styles, how they show up in kids and in us, how to tell if your child feels emotionally safe, and the four things Eli says are the foundation for secure attachment.

 

00;02;32;16 – 00;03;02;15

Dr. Mona

And you’re going to want to take note of those. Before we dive in, take a second to follow and subscribe and download episodes. That is how the show keeps growing, and it’s because of you that we’re consistently a top 20 parenting podcast in the United States. I am so grateful for you and this community. All right, let’s get into my conversation with the brilliant, hilarious, and all around good human Eli Harwood, the attachment nerd.

 

00;03;02;17 – 00;03;06;03

Dr. Mona

Eli fangirling. Thank you for coming on the show.

 

00;03;06;05 – 00;03;12;02

Eli Harwood

Well, I can like, mutually fangirl here. I, I’ve just oh, I love it so much. So I’m so happy to be here.

 

00;03;12;04 – 00;03;28;08

Dr. Mona

Well, you know, I, I like to tell people how I get my guests on my show and especially, you know, the stories here, but I have a form and people fill out the form if they want to come on. And I don’t check the form until it’s time for me to start to record. I take the breaks from recording for, you know, personal boundaries, life.

 

00;03;28;11 – 00;03;47;17

Dr. Mona

And then I read your book because someone else had shared it on their stories, and I was like, well, this sounds wonderful. Like, I love learning about secure attachment, and maybe I’ll learn something that I don’t already know because I’ve done my own, like learning on attachment. And so then I picked up the book. I happened to go to the to the West Coast, I’m on the East coast and I had a flight.

 

00;03;47;20 – 00;04;02;23

Dr. Mona

I was solo, no children. I had a long drive through LA, so I had hours and hours and I read the book when I was able to read, and then I did the audiobook. Love your voice, by the way, to be able to do an audiobook. And I loved it. And then the next day I shared it on my stories.

 

00;04;02;23 – 00;04;19;14

Dr. Mona

I was like, y’all, this is a great book. I am not reading tons of parenting books. And now you have not only inspired me to read more just because I love learning and I’m like, why don’t I read more? I should read more. But you’ve also inspired me to take my idea of my book and put it out into the world.

 

00;04;19;17 – 00;04;38;01

Dr. Mona

Thank you. I was putting it on the back burner, and I think it’s like this divine intervention of like, I love this. And then I was feeling the energy and the vibe, and then I got contacted by an agent. And I don’t know when this is going to go live, but it’s not. The book’s not going to be out before then, but I cannot wait to share with the world what that is and a future date.

 

00;04;38;04 – 00;04;43;12

Dr. Mona

But thank you, Eli. I just wanted to share that story because you have helped me so much already.

 

00;04;43;14 – 00;04;53;24

Eli Harwood

I mean, that’s like the best feeling in the world to me, that you would have that level of connection, that it would help you trust in yourself more. Yes. And follow the thing that you want to do.

 

00;04;53;26 – 00;05;11;18

Dr. Mona

But I and I, you know, I also had my husband read excerpts from the book. You know, he we really are into secure, secure attachment. We both did not get that. And we’ll talk about, you know, the different styles and stuff like that. And we see how it shows up in our romantic relationships and, you know, obviously not just the parent child relationship.

 

00;05;11;20 – 00;05;28;12

Dr. Mona

And so your book really open that up and allowed him to also see it in writing and reaffirmed so much of what we felt we knew. But just when you see it from a professional in writing with examples, you’re like, yes, Eli. Yes. So thank you for the. Yes. Okay. But tell us a little bit more about yourself.

 

00;05;28;12 – 00;05;33;21

Dr. Mona

You know, obviously, what prompted you to, start Attachment Nerd? And then also write this book for the world?

 

00;05;33;24 – 00;05;57;06

Eli Harwood

Yeah. Well, I think any time that we’re talking about relationships, there’s a deep personal connection. So in my family, my mom was the first cycle breaker, and she didn’t start breaking cycles until I was kind of in middle of elementary school. I think I was around 8 or 9 years old when she recognized she was really struggling and started to get help.

 

00;05;57;09 – 00;06;17;02

Eli Harwood

And as she started to get help, she realized, oh my gosh, my family of origin is pretty screwed up. Yeah, yeah. And it screwed me up. And I don’t totally know how to relate in secure ways. And at the time that she did this, this is in the 90s, she wasn’t thinking in attachment terms that, you know, language wasn’t out there.

 

00;06;17;09 – 00;06;36;02

Eli Harwood

But what she was really doing was healing. Her attachment was she was understanding, you know, what had gone wrong with her parents and their childhood and how that had affected their ability to be there for her. And so she did this kind of deep dive and sort of working through and there’s through this chain of events that happens where she starts to heal.

 

00;06;36;02 – 00;06;56;25

Eli Harwood

And as she started to heal, she was more curious about this work. So she went to graduate school, got her masters in counseling, you know, started this pathway. She kind of cleared some of the snow off the driveway of like, okay, there’s we can get out of here. We don’t have to stay stuck here forever. That being said, I had a lot of trauma when I was little.

 

00;06;56;25 – 00;07;16;09

Eli Harwood

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that happened before that point, and there were still things that happened after that point, because it is no small task to address trauma that you have internalized and patterns that you have learned through your trauma. But my mom made it a thing we were allowed to do. We were allowed to talk about what was hard.

 

00;07;16;09 – 00;07;36;29

Eli Harwood

We were allowed to try to heal from it. We were allowed to have mistakes and try and learn from them and do something different. So it was a really natural path for me to become a therapist. I sometimes joke that I’ve been practicing for, you know, somewhere around 43 years. You know, I played a role in my family.

 

00;07;36;29 – 00;07;58;09

Eli Harwood

I definitely played a role, and that made it really natural for me to take care of other people. So when I was in graduate school, I had a professor this very small, short class who wasn’t one of our primary professors, but it was human development. And he did a pretty significant deep dive into attachment theory. And for me, it was like, oh my lanta.

 

00;07;58;11 – 00;08;21;15

Eli Harwood

This this is I can see how this plays out from my childhood, in my adult relationships. I can see it how it’s different with my brother than with me. You see how my you know, it just sort of it was a light bulb moment and I just started nerding out on it, and I was nerding out on it at a time that what was really more popular in behavioral science was behavioral science.

 

00;08;21;21 – 00;08;40;04

Eli Harwood

Why do people do the things they do? How do we get them to change what they do? And what was interesting to me was, why do we do the things we do? And most specifically in our closest relationships, the places that matter the most to us. So I went from graduate school nerding out on that to having a practice.

 

00;08;40;04 – 00;09;03;15

Eli Harwood

I practiced for about 15 years doing that specific work. And what I saw time and time again is that when we understand our relational stories, what happened to us and why, and our patterns and then we work to shift those patterns, that’s where real healing happens and hope happens. And so about 15 years in, I was like, I have got to help people prevent some of these injuries.

 

00;09;03;15 – 00;09;21;21

Eli Harwood

Like, I can help you heal it. I can help you deal with the fact that you had a really disconnected or cold parent who wouldn’t give you warmth and affection. I can help you heal from that, but actually, what I want to help you do is not create that for your children. So I started running my mouth on the internet and giving people messages.

 

00;09;21;21 – 00;09;44;18

Eli Harwood

And what was clear is that a lot of people are just really ready for this information. They want to know how to do this. How can I help my children feel safe and secure in their relationship with me? And I started writing books and I wrote my book, and I’m still kind of doing all of it. And I’m hoping, I’m hoping that by the time I’m on my deathbed that someone can come to me with some new statistics and say, oh my gosh, look at this.

 

00;09;44;25 – 00;10;03;29

Eli Harwood

It’s no longer 50 and secure, 50 secure. We’re at a 72% secure, you know, like or even if it’s 53%, I don’t care. Like just make the world a little more secure because I think I think that’s the key to so many of our problems here on planet Earth.

 

00;10;04;02 – 00;10;12;08

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;10;12;10 – 00;10;33;18

Dr. Mona

Oh my goodness. Amen. Because that is it. I mean, we talk, you know, you you mentioned in the title like the subtitle connection, focus parenting. You talk so much about communication. One of the biggest things that I really try to get across on my videos is about so many of the barriers between child and parent and even marriages, and any relationship is the lack of communication and the lack of feeling seen.

 

00;10;33;23 – 00;10;48;20

Dr. Mona

And I love that your book embodies that, because that is the crux of a lot of issues in this world. And a lot of wars that are started and a lot of things that we see and a lot of the strife that we see on the national international level and then local levels, we know that this can be better.

 

00;10;48;20 – 00;11;07;09

Dr. Mona

If every parent made this pact, like, I am going to raise a securely attached kid, I’m going to read this book now. It’s so important to have that. And I love that. And I love that you told that story. And I loved, kudos to your mother for making that change in her life and obviously fostering that in you.

 

00;11;07;12 – 00;11;29;15

Dr. Mona

For me, I had to foster that and learn that later in my 30s, I’m now almost 40. And my I had to teach my mom why that this was so important. And now she at in her 70s and she just turned 70, so late 60s really started to embody that change. You know, the healthy boundaries she makes of people who are not and are not for her best interests, learning about her wounds.

 

00;11;29;15 – 00;11;52;29

Dr. Mona

And it’s so beautiful to see a mother do that, especially an older mother, especially an Indian American mother, where feelings were just never talked about. You had to be strong. When I started sharing about birth trauma on my on my Instagram. No, Moana, you can’t share that. Like, there was a lot of this, like, lack of being able to be vulnerable and pushing down of feelings that made it that we we grew up like that.

 

00;11;52;29 – 00;12;10;26

Dr. Mona

There was not a healthy ability to express emotion, which you talk about is like that was the that was number one problem, that I didn’t have that secure feeling of being able to be secure in self and around my parents. And that’s something we want to change. So kudos to all the cycle breakers, including your mom and yourself and anyone listening so far.

 

00;12;10;26 – 00;12;17;27

Dr. Mona

And if you haven’t done it, I know you will by the end of this this podcast episode. And also when you read her book two.

 

00;12;17;29 – 00;12;18;10

Eli Harwood

Love.

 

00;12;18;10 – 00;12;40;13

Dr. Mona

It. And you know, your book is called Raising Securely Attached Kids, which obviously embodies what exactly the book is about. But a lot of parents listening may still wonder, what does that actually mean? Like what is a securely attached kid? So can you explain what in your heart secure attachment means in the context of everyday parenting moments? Or just as a parenting philosophy in general?

 

00;12;40;16 – 00;13;06;25

Eli Harwood

And a less, you know, sciency nerdy way to say it is building deeply trusting, positive relationships with our children. So when a child feels that they can emotionally rely on their caregiver, my caregiver is there for me. You know, I can go to my mom when things are tender, crusty, overwhelming, when I feel shame, when I’m stuck.

 

00;13;06;28 – 00;13;38;25

Eli Harwood

That sense of trust between a parent and a child we have seen from tons of research, lots of longitudinal studies, replicated studies. What you know is a doctor is a just very important part of science. We know that when a child has at least one parent in their life, one caregiver, that they trust to be there for them in those tender and distressing moments, it actually has a protective trajectory in their life.

 

00;13;38;27 – 00;13;57;01

Eli Harwood

It helps to protect them from more extreme levels of of suffering, struggling. It gives them a sense of self-worth. And the way I would describe it is like, you know, the world is big and scary and overwhelming. And it’s much bigger, scarier and more overwhelming if you don’t feel like you have a team behind you. Right?

 

00;13;57;01 – 00;14;15;01

Eli Harwood

Like, I don’t yet. I don’t ever want to climb Mount Everest. That’s not a goal for me. But if I did, I certainly wouldn’t want to do it alone. I would want to know that there are people I can go to to huddle up together when the storm comes in, right? To help feed me when my own supply is running low.

 

00;14;15;03 – 00;14;36;18

Eli Harwood

Right? To help me brainstorm when I’m at a tricky point in the climb and I’m not sure how I’m going to get there. Like we’re relational creatures and so secure. Our attachment is this gift of protection that we give our kids. And selfishly, it’s a gift to us. I mean, feeling connected to our kids makes the journey a whole lot more enjoyable.

 

00;14;36;20 – 00;14;47;17

Eli Harwood

And this hard being a parent, even when you have that support, man, if when you don’t, it just it’s another layer of pain. Not just for our children but also for us.

 

00;14;47;19 – 00;15;05;04

Dr. Mona

And it’s just a good feeling. Like, I mean, like you said, like the feeling of having that sort of person who has your back in your team. And I, I think sometimes people forget how it feels when we look at peer relationships or romantic relationships. That is, that same feeling is valuable in that just as it would be in a parent child relationship.

 

00;15;05;04 – 00;15;24;13

Dr. Mona

And sometimes, yes, I think because we think we’re the adult and the the kid, that that can’t be a reality. But that is the reality that there should be this sort of healthy relationship. And like you said, it’s for the child. But I feel so good when I do see that return. You know, that reciprocity of that. Mom, I love spending time with your mom.

 

00;15;24;13 – 00;15;33;07

Dr. Mona

I love doing this with you. And for small children, you know, I have a five year old. It’s not him saying I trust you, it’s play. Is him saying that I love being with you. That you are.

 

00;15;33;07 – 00;15;34;23

Eli Harwood

My play with me. Play with me, play.

 

00;15;34;23 – 00;15;55;27

Dr. Mona

With me, play with me like I love playing with you is translation to I love being with you and you keep me safe by by wanting that play right. And I, I know that as someone that’s so passionate about child development that I take that as such a huge compliment and like, I’m like, thank you. And like, I really I really love spending time with you and I love being able to connect with you on these things that we find enjoyable.

 

00;15;55;27 – 00;16;11;16

Dr. Mona

But also when things get a little sticky and messy, like you said, that how am I going to get you through the storm? And you, you, you brought up this analogy that I loved in your book about the waves and the paddling out. I think that was what, you know, a about being in the waves and like trying to help them out of that waves.

 

00;16;11;16 – 00;16;27;12

Dr. Mona

That, that is such a beautiful analogy of like, the waves are going to come and go, like we are going to have to get them through these tough waters, but they they will need us. But eventually, maybe they’ll be able to handle those moments on their own. But yes, at the beginning and in many different times of their life, they will need the help.

 

00;16;27;14 – 00;16;49;24

Eli Harwood

This is such an interesting, area of discussion because I think there are many things we want our children to learn to do. Yeah, fully, independently, you know, like I, I told all my kids, by the time you’re five, you will wipe your own butt completely undone. And, they all do. And it’s so great. Like, the best I don’t I have no desire to continue to help them wipe their bottoms.

 

00;16;49;27 – 00;17;17;11

Eli Harwood

But when it comes to emotion regulation and healthy adults co regulate with other adults. Yeah. So healthy emotional development does not mean we outgrow our need for support from other people. It means that we are able to easily identify what we feel, share it without shame and in regulated, appropriate ways, and then receive care and soothing from other people.

 

00;17;17;13 – 00;17;38;04

Eli Harwood

So that’s the that I call this the most important lesson. I mean, this is what we’re teaching our children is it is safe to be known and soothed and understood and supported. When you are feeling emotionally overwhelmed in some way, shape or form. Yeah. That that lesson about the waves is like, it’s not my job as a parent to stop the waves from coming.

 

00;17;38;04 – 00;17;59;02

Eli Harwood

I can’t I am not more powerful than the ocean, right? It is my job to help teach my children how to surf those waves, and to be with them until they can surf them without as much support. But I still, you know, when I’m 67 and my kids are going through a hard time in their marriage, I want them to feel like they can call me and say, mom, I don’t know what to do.

 

00;17;59;03 – 00;18;16;22

Eli Harwood

What should I say? How can I go through this? You know, and I might not have anything to offer other than I don’t know. And I’m so sorry this is happening, but I’ll be with you through this wave no matter what the outcome is, you know? So I think I’m not trying to make my kids emotionally independent. I don’t want them to go, oh, I’m sad.

 

00;18;16;22 – 00;18;33;00

Eli Harwood

I can handle this. I don’t need anyone. I want them to be able to say I’m sad. What is it I need? How can I get that need met and then execute that effectively so that they can move through their feelings without shutting them down or spraying them everywhere?

 

00;18;33;03 – 00;18;51;04

Dr. Mona

Yeah, what a great way to put it. I mean, that emotional intelligence. And I see that budding in my my children already. And it’s so powerful, especially coming from a childhood that that wasn’t there, you know, like that wasn’t something that I got, that like you, you gave the beautiful example of is something going very difficult? My my parents are not the first people I’m going to call.

 

00;18;51;04 – 00;19;15;01

Dr. Mona

Right. And that and I want and you know, my husband and I want to have that moment where we would be that person in a bind, where our children would call us and say whether they’re in danger or whether they are confused, frustrated, happy that yes, ever big feeling there happen they’re having that mom and dad are going to be the ones that we get to talk to, whether they’re, like you said, in their 40s, in their teens or five years old.

 

00;19;15;01 – 00;19;18;10

Dr. Mona

And that is what you set up with this foundation. And I love that.

 

00;19;18;12 – 00;19;19;16

Eli Harwood

I love it.

 

00;19;19;18 – 00;19;39;10

Dr. Mona

And, you know, you talk. Let’s zoom out a little bit because I think maybe people don’t understand that there are different attachment styles. You obviously wrote a whole book on this. So, what are the four, the four main attachment styles and how might they show up in a child’s behavior? Or maybe give some examples of someone, that may not understand how it would look like in everyday life.

 

00;19;39;13 – 00;19;58;11

Eli Harwood

Yeah. So what you want to understand about attachment is that all children are attached to a caregiver at the beginning of their lives. There is no, you know, story of an infant that crawls out of a uterus and goes, Yeah, I can do better. I’m going to go find somebody else, right? Like, or I got this. I’m just gonna get some woodchips and moss and eat some pine cones.

 

00;19;58;16 – 00;19;59;25

Dr. Mona

No, you.

 

00;19;59;28 – 00;20;31;00

Eli Harwood

Are relationally wired and relationally dependent from birth. So the attachment patterns that we form are adaptive to what’s available to us. But everyone has one of these four categories, which is what’s so cool about some of this replicated research is we know it’s global, it’s generational. It’s it stays the same. So these four categories are kids who have access to warm, reliable, sturdy caregivers.

 

00;20;31;02 – 00;20;48;25

Eli Harwood

What they develop is what we would call this secure pattern. And this is what I’m wanting everyone to be able to learn. Because whether you identify with one of these other three categories I’m going to share or you identify as secure, you can learn secure patterns. So it’s not like a, you know, which Harry Potter character are you quiz.

 

00;20;48;25 – 00;21;11;04

Eli Harwood

And then that’s just who you are. It’s where am I now in my journey towards security. Where, where and where was I in the past, you know, where did I land? So the secure child, when they are upset, have an instinct to reach for their caregiver, to seek and maintain proximity to their caregiver for enough time to soothe.

 

00;21;11;06 – 00;21;30;23

Eli Harwood

So I call that the reach and receive process of getting their needs that in distress. The other three categories I’m going to talk about we consider insecure, but they have different flavors, and their different flavors are based on the caregiver. So one of them we call insecure resistant. And by the way, you don’t need to know any of these terms.

 

00;21;30;25 – 00;21;40;15

Eli Harwood

And it gets a little confusing because we have two different bodies of research and two different labels for things. And they don’t always, you know, correlate. But in general.

 

00;21;40;17 – 00;21;41;12

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;21;41;14 – 00;22;08;21

Eli Harwood

This this resistant kid, has a caregiver who is a occasionally able to give them that secure feeling. So every once in a while, not consistently every once in a while. And what happens is that child knows what it feels like to get that. And so they become fixated on getting more of that. But they believe it’s their job to get more of it because they can’t figure out why.

 

00;22;08;21 – 00;22;31;03

Eli Harwood

Why does my parents sometimes have to have emotional availability and other times they’re, you know, laying in bed and non-responsive to me. And why do they sometimes have compassion for me? But in certain scenarios they think, you know, so there’s this confusion for kids in that setting. So what that kid does, in order to maintain closeness with their caregiver is they become clingy.

 

00;22;31;05 – 00;22;56;04

Eli Harwood

And there’s a key here. They become clingy without soothing. So we have some kids that would be clingy because they’re highly sensitive, but we would experience their clinginess as soothing, like they would cling to us and then go, I don’t want to leave your side, but I’m calm by your side. This resistant pattern is different. The resistant pattern is a kid who clings and seeks and is hyper vigilant and does not soothe.

 

00;22;56;04 – 00;23;15;17

Eli Harwood

Because this child is afraid. If I soothe, then my caregivers attention may not be on me anymore. Yeah, and then they might go away and I might lose the proximity to them that I need. So this kind of clinginess in adults, we would call this an anxious pattern or a preoccupied pattern. Do you love me? Do you still love me?

 

00;23;15;17 – 00;23;26;04

Eli Harwood

Are you sure you love me? I think these are the nine reasons why you might not love me. And so there’s a preoccupation with the attachment figure in your life as a decided meeting commercial.

 

00;23;26;04 – 00;23;42;17

Dr. Mona

Yeah. I had very consistent caregivers. That would be amazing. And then also, I’ve talked about on my podcast, Loving Funny, but then also would slap me across the face when I wasn’t behaving. And then I did. I was walking on the eggshells of like, what am I supposed to do here? How do I gain their love? Like, and that was very hard.

 

00;23;42;20 – 00;23;45;20

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;23;45;22 – 00;23;51;19

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;23;51;21 – 00;24;14;23

Eli Harwood

Oh, yes, I that is also. That was also what I would call like my default settings. My default settings were also preoccupied because my mom was someone who was close enough to some healing that, yeah, she could at times be there for me, but then she’d sink into a depression where her mental health would kind of go off, or my dad in her would be having a really hard time, and then she wouldn’t be available anymore.

 

00;24;14;23 – 00;24;42;10

Eli Harwood

So I am with you on that. The second category of insecure pattern is what we would call an avoidant pattern of relating. So if a child has a caregiver who is unable to be emotionally connected and soothing, that might be that they are shut down. So someone who’s just cut off from their emotions like everything’s fine, nothing’s wrong, feelings are for weenies.

 

00;24;42;16 – 00;25;11;12

Eli Harwood

You know, whatever their mental state is. But it could also be a caregiver who’s so keyed up, so anxious, and so preoccupied with the child that their emotions are intrusive. Yeah. So the avoidant pattern, it can happen in response to someone who is also avoidant, or it can happen in response to someone who is preoccupied. Yeah. So there’s kind of know that because it’s a little bit confusing.

 

00;25;11;12 – 00;25;41;04

Eli Harwood

People tend to think like, oh, you match whatever pattern of how your parent related to you. And it’s not necessarily it’s about the the amount of connection they could give you. And then and then the style of connection they gave you. So the avoidant pattern says there’s really no reason to reach for my caregiver when I’m in distress or upset, because if I do that, I will feel worse, I will feel dropped, I will feel dismissed, or I will feel flooded with my caregivers response to my distress.

 

00;25;41;07 – 00;26;09;02

Eli Harwood

So instead, I’m going to cope with my feelings, and I’m going to try to stay close to my caregiver, or by keeping those messier things internal and not showing them on the outside. Avoidant kids often get praised for being calm, chill, mature, or when they’re young, because they are on the outside, very regulated looking. But what we know from the data is are actually as dysregulated as any of the other kids.

 

00;26;09;04 – 00;26;31;17

Eli Harwood

They just aren’t showing it on the outside. And that’s because there’s no good reason to, I talked about secure kids being reach and receive, the resistant kids we would call that reach and reject. I’m going to reach for you, but I am not going to be soothed by you. This third category, we would say avoid and distract.

 

00;26;31;17 – 00;26;57;12

Eli Harwood

So avoiding kids really just focus on anything other than their caregiver or their emotions in those tender moments. And it is not to say they’re avoiding attachment. They’re avoiding sharing their needs and reaching actively for their caregiver when they’re upset. And the last category is always the most heartbreaking to talk about, okay. And this is what happens when kids are genuinely scared of their caregivers.

 

00;26;57;12 – 00;27;23;12

Eli Harwood

So we would describe a caregiver in this category as frightening in some way to a child. And that is what creates a disorganization. So a disorganized style, a disorganized pattern is almost actually a weird way to say it, because the core of disorganization is there is no clear pattern. So if you learn to to be hypervigilant and clingy, you had an adaptive pattern of handling your caregiver.

 

00;27;23;19 – 00;27;42;18

Eli Harwood

If you learned to keep all your insides on the inside, you had an adaptive way of staying close to your caregiver. But if you have a caregiver who is a sense of threat to you, and this is interesting, you know, you talked a little about your parents hitting you. It depends on the relationship, whether that how that creates that, like in the culture too.

 

00;27;42;20 – 00;28;04;15

Eli Harwood

So disorganization, it really comes from feeling very confused and disoriented about the caregivers behavior. And in some cultures when caregivers are, you know, disciplining with physical means, that isn’t always scary to kids because it depends on how intense that discipline is, how hard, you know, all that kind of stuff. It’s still not what we do for secure attachment.

 

00;28;04;17 – 00;28;16;02

Eli Harwood

It’s still a no. Yeah, yeah, it’s a hard no, but yeah, but it it is nuanced in that you could have a caregiver who is frightening to you, who never laid a hand on you.

 

00;28;16;05 – 00;28;16;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;28;16;25 – 00;28;39;18

Eli Harwood

But maybe the way they thought about you was really disorienting, you know, like, they treated you like you were manipulative and trying to, you know, do terrible things to them or, you know, but in this situation, the dilemma is the attachment instinct is I’m going to get as close to my caregiver as I can when things are rough in order to stay safe.

 

00;28;39;19 – 00;28;56;11

Eli Harwood

Right. There’s a saber tooth tiger across the room. I’m going to run to my mom or my dad or my parent so that I can totally get protection. But when your parent is a grizzly bear and there’s a saber tooth tiger at the other side of the room, your attachment system is discombobulated.

 

00;28;56;18 – 00;28;57;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;28;57;20 – 00;29;12;24

Eli Harwood

And so you don’t have the opportunity to cope in a patterned way. Instead, your body will just pick for you. Fight, flight, freeze, feint, find those kind of survival reactions. And it’s really messy and complicated.

 

00;29;12;26 – 00;29;33;08

Dr. Mona

Yeah. I love how you outline these. I mean, of course, you go into detail in your book and obviously talk about this in other ways, and I love it. I love being able just to put that out there. Like you said, I think most of our listeners, I’m not too concerned that are in that frightening, disorganized phase. I wish I wish more of those people would listen to your read your book and listen to that.

 

00;29;33;10 – 00;29;53;15

Dr. Mona

You brought up one of the biggest ones you you talked about was the, avoidant type with the overly anxious or worried or like, obsessive. And I, I do see that in my patient population a lot, you know, like that, that I guess if you want to use the term like the helicopter type, this is wrong. And this is worrisome in, in a medical setting, something’s wrong, something’s wrong.

 

00;29;53;15 – 00;30;13;26

Dr. Mona

And I can see that sort of come out. How can a parent tell if their child feels emotionally safe and secure? So if they’re doing that secure attachment, you talked about the reach and risk, which I think is beautiful, but is there anything else in terms of kind of small signs, big signs that a family can say, yeah, I see this and this is wonderful?

 

00;30;13;26 – 00;30;16;13

Dr. Mona

Or is there also nuance in that conversation?

 

00;30;16;15 – 00;30;42;05

Eli Harwood

Well, there’s definitely nuance. Yeah. You know, human beings are so complicated. We’re so complicated. There’s so many different specific things that can lead to different stuff. So for instance, in general, I would say you’re going to be able to assess the quality of that attachment bond with your children most accurately in moments where they feel scared. So when they are scared what do they do.

 

00;30;42;07 – 00;31;00;22

Eli Harwood

Do they see you as a refuge as a safe place to run. And that is different than what they do when they’re ashamed. Like sometimes their kids will run away from us when they’re ashamed. And that doesn’t indicate that they aren’t securely attached to us. It’s because shame says hide, hide quickly. You’re bad. Get away, you know?

 

00;31;00;23 – 00;31;19;01

Eli Harwood

Yeah. And so then the real question of security in that moment would be, you know, how do they respond when you approach, when you, you know, they’ve gone back to their room, they’re hiding under their covers. You give them a minute to kind of feel that sense of agency to hide. And then you step into their room and you say, hey, good, are you ready for me?

 

00;31;19;02 – 00;31;44;10

Eli Harwood

Do you want me here? Do you want some space? Do you want me here? You know, a kid who feel secure. Once they’ve gotten calmer, we’ll say like, don’t go. Yeah, yeah, I want you here. Yeah. But also, neurodivergent kids will sometimes need space for longer. Yeah, because they need that sensory deprivation in order to regulate.

 

00;31;44;12 – 00;32;18;00

Eli Harwood

So it is hard to say. Hey, here’s the exact way to know. Are they are they? And it’s messy. You know, we go through seasons with our kids where it takes us a little while to get in sync with them because they’re going through something or we’re going through something, you know? So, I don’t I haven’t actually said this that often online, and I need to say it more, but there are distinct periods of time in my relationships with my kids where I could sense them entering into more insecure patterns with me because of stuff that was going on with me.

 

00;32;18;02 – 00;32;35;14

Eli Harwood

And so, like, you’re going to have that that’s going to like, slip in, you know, I don’t know, my my son is entering, you know, early adolescence. And so like the anxiety is higher and like there have been a couple of what I would consider to be very inconvenient panic attacks. Just like time for him.

 

00;32;35;14 – 00;32;35;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;32;35;22 – 00;32;43;15

Eli Harwood

For him. Yeah. Yeah. Where I’m like now. Oh, yeah. For shoots sake. Yeah.

 

00;32;43;16 – 00;32;46;14

Dr. Mona

I hear and I love this really ability because it’s, it happens to so many of us.

 

00;32;46;22 – 00;33;09;15

Eli Harwood

Yeah. And I haven’t been what I would describe like as good enough in those moments because I was honestly just annoyed like, yeah, child stop. And I can look at myself with compassion in that moment and be like, yeah, it was bedtime. And my twin five year olds were having a whatever, and we had done this whole day and blah, blah, but like, I understand why, but there is a failure of empathy on my part.

 

00;33;09;17 – 00;33;21;18

Eli Harwood

And, you know, my son, at some point in one of these nights, I’m kind of like patting him on the back, but I’m sort of like, go for her sleep. Yeah, yeah. You know.

 

00;33;21;20 – 00;33;23;20

Dr. Mona

And and he’s like, House on Saturday.

 

00;33;23;28 – 00;33;43;16

Eli Harwood

That’s what we’ve been there. And he yells at someone, he’s like, just leave, just leave. And I was like, okay, cuz here’s what’s happening. So I actually what I did in that moment was I was like, I hear you that I am not helping right now. I’m going to take a minute and try and see if I can get my druthers about me, and I’ll be back.

 

00;33;43;19 – 00;34;00;08

Eli Harwood

And so I did leave the room. And he’s ten, you know, he’s not like three and clingy for me to stay. He really was like, get out of here. And I calmed down and I came back and I tried again. And, you know, I would give myself like a B-minus on my second attempt. My first attempt was like a D plus, you know, this was like a B minus.

 

00;34;00;08 – 00;34;22;09

Eli Harwood

I didn’t get to that. But then the next morning we worked through it and we talked about it, you know, so I don’t want people leaving a conversation like this and trying to evaluate their attachment. I’m are we secure? Are we not secure? What I want you doing is going. Am I as a caregiver, regulated enough in my body, or am I shut down or am I amped up?

 

00;34;22;11 – 00;34;48;13

Eli Harwood

What do I need in order to feel secure enough in myself? To be present enough to be responsive enough, empathetic enough, caring enough that my kids can sense? Overall, I’m going to be there for them. Yeah. And, you might need you might need a therapist involved. You might need somebody who can help you understand some of this, because it isn’t very it isn’t simple.

 

00;34;48;13 – 00;34;48;23

Eli Harwood

It is.

 

00;34;48;29 – 00;35;06;20

Dr. Mona

Yes, I had that, too. I mean, I needed the therapist to help me through the anger that I developed by having a father who was very angry, but also very funny, like there was a sort of, you know, feeling. And yeah, I mean, therapy was a I mean, what a blessing. Thank you for all the therapy work that you do.

 

00;35;06;20 – 00;35;15;21

Dr. Mona

But like, it really helped. And I did a lot of eMDR for trauma that happened through my childhood, which I’m a huge proponent of. Anything that you need to do to be your best self.

 

00;35;15;23 – 00;35;19;17

Eli Harwood

And I do eMDR. I’m a big fan of that. So just for anyone out there, it’s yes, I.

 

00;35;19;17 – 00;35;33;01

Dr. Mona

Have another I have another episode. If you’re into that, I will link it about eMDR. And if I forget to link it, I just look it up. A pizza, dog talk, eMDR. I did it with another therapist. Fantastic. Like really good to know what resources are out there. But like you said, I mean, we all have those moments.

 

00;35;33;01 – 00;35;51;17

Dr. Mona

And, you know, I think about our parents who probably didn’t do that repair that you did with your son. My same situation on Friday with my five year old where I was like, I thought to myself, I if because I act, I’m very similar in temperament to my son. And I thought to myself, wow, I understand why my dad probably slapped me across the face.

 

00;35;51;22 – 00;36;08;21

Dr. Mona

Like that’s literally that’s my husband. And I said it in a very I mean, obviously I didn’t slap my kid, but I was like, I get it. Because my dad was a an immigrant parent, had no emotional tools. Like, do I do I think it was what he should have done? No. But he used to slap me because he didn’t know how else to.

 

00;36;08;22 – 00;36;33;01

Eli Harwood

Turn it, and he thought he was supposed to control you. Yes. So that’s another thing I talk about. Like what you believe about your role as a parent can lead to secure or insecure patterns. Yeah. So if you believe your job is to make sure your child makes $1 million a year, you might actually engage in secure patterns because you’re going to ignore some of their emotional cues in order to get them to perform in a particular way.

 

00;36;33;03 – 00;36;55;29

Eli Harwood

Or if you believe your job is to to control your child, then when they have sensory dysregulation or emotional dysregulation, when you’re going to react to their behavior instead of responding to their dysregulation. So it’s really important that we pause and are like, what is it I believe about my role and where did I learn that? And do I want to keep that?

 

00;36;55;29 – 00;37;03;01

Eli Harwood

And is that serving me in this goal of teaching my children that they can rely on me or not?

 

00;37;03;04 – 00;37;20;26

Dr. Mona

Yeah. We could talk about so more and I have one more question. You know, I like to keep my episode short, but again, if you are liking this conversation so far, you got to get her book because everything that we’re talking about is an amazing storytelling backed by science. I love your nerd alerts. Like I said, it was so great to just get that whole blend.

 

00;37;20;29 – 00;37;37;25

Dr. Mona

But are there some core patterns that we can do? I know I love that you’re talking more about rather than check marking, like, okay, my kid hugged me today or, you know, reached in, you know, reached and received some for patterns that we can do to lay that foundation for a secure relationship.

 

00;37;37;27 – 00;37;59;19

Eli Harwood

Love us. Okay. So these are my four favorite things that I tell myself. And I just keep them in mind. So when I’m getting off track, I can go back and be like, am I doing these things? So the first thing is, is that I am very intentionally light up when I see my kids. I want my kids to know that I want them near me, that they bring joy in my life, that they are delightful to me.

 

00;37;59;19 – 00;38;25;10

Eli Harwood

So the metaphor I use is thinking about how our dogs greet us. You know, like you’re never confused about whether your dog is happy that you’re home. Yeah, I’m cats. And like, that’s a different thing. But like with your dog, you know, like, oh, you’re home, you’re home, you’re home. I’m so glad I see you, you know? So as much as you can early as you can in your child’s development, showing them that they bring light to your heart, to your body, and expressing it in a way that they can feel that.

 

00;38;25;15 – 00;38;29;01

Eli Harwood

So that’s just a protection around their heart and soul in the world, too.

 

00;38;29;03 – 00;38;44;19

Dr. Mona

Warm and fuzzy already. And I do that the same. But literally, I’m just thinking of all those moments where I’m doing work and my son walks through the door and how I drop what I’m doing, and it’s just a millisecond like you don’t. I think the misconception is that you got to stop everything and do all this thing, but it’s just a moment to show them.

 

00;38;44;19 – 00;38;57;08

Dr. Mona

And I do it with my husband, too, now, because we sometimes forget as a marriage to do that, you know, like they walk through the door and you’re on your computer and you’re like, hey, what’s up? No, I love it. I want to go to you like a golden retriever dog, like, let’s do you know.

 

00;38;57;14 – 00;39;22;23

Eli Harwood

You’re just like you are the most precious. I love certain things in my life. The second thing is to show up for these two very important things. So show up for those tender moments. You know, in those tender moments might be small, like they’ve fallen and scrape their knee. And there’s my knee and I fell. Or they might be big, you know, they get broken up with surprisingly out of the blue or someone you know, we had this recently.

 

00;39;22;23 – 00;39;37;23

Eli Harwood

Someone made fun of one of my kid’s bodies, you know, was mocking them. Oh, that. You are the type of parent that says, I’m here. You’re not always going to know what to do or what to say or how to fix it. That’s not that’s actually not possible and not what we’re aiming for. We’re aiming for. I care about what you feel.

 

00;39;37;25 – 00;40;00;17

Eli Harwood

I’m here to help you regulate. And together we will go through this. You are not alone in your pain process. I’m with you. Yes. It’s yours. Yes, you. It belongs to you, but I. I’m. I’m right by your side. So that’s the tender moment. And then the other thing is the triumphant moments. You know, it’s really important that our kids feel that we care about the moments they are proud of.

 

00;40;00;23 – 00;40;20;08

Eli Harwood

Yeah. And that when they’re tiny, it’s like, look, mom, I found a ladybug. Yeah. You know, and and when they’re older, it might be that, you know, they just finally figured out how to draw this, you know, specific anime character that they didn’t think they could ever draw on. They’re showing you, or they’re graduating from kindergarten or they’re graduating from high school.

 

00;40;20;15 – 00;40;39;18

Eli Harwood

They have a special sporting event. My caveat here is this doesn’t have to be every single time. I don’t want parents feeling like, oh my gosh, if I ever missed one thing, then that’s it. No. Yeah. It’s it’s consistency. I’m a working mom, I travel, I speak, there are times when I’m not there, my husband’s there or my parents are there, someone else is there.

 

00;40;39;18 – 00;40;56;13

Eli Harwood

You know, you can outsource that sometimes. Make sure someone is there, you know. But it’s not all the time it’s enough. And when you do miss it, that you communicate. I’m so bummed that I wasn’t there. Can you please show me that replay of the hit you got on the, you know, baseball game? Or can you please you care?

 

00;40;56;13 – 00;41;27;15

Eli Harwood

Not guilty. Not. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. Yeah, that’s in intrusive. It’s me. I really wish I could have been there. I would have loved to have been there. And I’m sad that I wasn’t. Tell me about it. The third thing we’re doing is we’re being parents that listen up to our children. So you’re letting your kids tell you about what matters to them, about the perspectives on the world, and maybe most importantly, about their perspective on their relationship with you?

 

00;41;27;18 – 00;41;44;04

Eli Harwood

Yeah. And this can be tricky because especially when we’re cycle breaking, we’re like, I don’t want my kid ever feel like I felt or I don’t want my kid to have a bad relationship with me. But part of doing that is being tolerant of the feedback our kids give us about the ways that they’re struggling with us. Yeah.

 

00;41;44;04 – 00;41;50;29

Eli Harwood

And that, you know, again, is nuanced. You know, if I don’t buy my 25 year olds exactly what they want, they will often tell me they hate me.

 

00;41;50;29 – 00;41;56;05

Dr. Mona

And yeah, that’s sounds good. All right. I was a five year old to learn the hate words recently, so.

 

00;41;56;07 – 00;42;11;24

Eli Harwood

Yeah. Well my right now one of my you know, they’re different personalities. But yeah my like more verbal of the two says to me you’re the worst not the worst. And oh no, that really isn’t feedback about our relationship is.

 

00;42;11;24 – 00;42;12;19

Dr. Mona

That,

 

00;42;12;21 – 00;42;33;27

Eli Harwood

That is emotional dysregulation. The first thing that human beings lose in a moment of dysregulation is meaningful speech. Yeah. So even if a child can in other settings, say, I feel really disappointed that they maybe can’t when they’re really triggered and upset and still what comes out instead is you’re the worst. Yeah, I’m angry, you know. And so we’re helping them nuance it.

 

00;42;34;00 – 00;42;56;17

Eli Harwood

Feedback is like, you know, every once in a while I’ll be just a stressed mess. I have a tendency to be a stressed person, and my son will do two different things. One, he’ll go, be okay, mom. And I’m like, oh, oh, I am wearing my stress on my sleeve and I’m not doing what I need to be doing to, to be more available and regulated.

 

00;42;56;17 – 00;42;59;16

Eli Harwood

And the other thing is they’ll just say, like, you’re being really harsh.

 

00;42;59;18 – 00;43;01;24

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Oh, I love it. I’m like, good word use.

 

00;43;01;26 – 00;43;23;12

Eli Harwood

Yep. And I’m like, okay, that’s good feedback. Thank you for that feedback. I’m going to take that in and I will get so many more feedback as they develop and they grow and nuance things like that. Part of the gig I’m a human being raising human beings. It’s messy, but if we can be the type of parents that listen to our children when they give us feedback that is incredibly trust building, you know, think about that in your own life.

 

00;43;23;12 – 00;43;36;16

Eli Harwood

If you can tell a friend, hey, I didn’t like when you said that, they go, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Oh, trust is built, right? Versus like, well, I wouldn’t have said that if you hadn’t done blah blah blah. Or you try being a parent, wait till you’re a parent. Wait till you see what this is like.

 

00;43;36;16 – 00;43;55;05

Eli Harwood

Now you just you take it and you learn and you and your guided by it. And then the last one is to be the type of parent who makes up when they mess up. So get good at saying I’m so sorry. You’re right. I was, I was responding kind of harsh. I need a mommy timeout I absolutely I don’t put my kids in timeout.

 

00;43;55;05 – 00;44;12;15

Eli Harwood

I put my kids in time in but I put myself in timeout. Yeah. Sister needs timeout occasionally. I think it is time for a break. I need a break. I need a moment. And I let my kids see that, you know, hey, I really wish. The other thing is, I think sometimes we think of repair as being like this.

 

00;44;12;17 – 00;44;31;28

Eli Harwood

I don’t know, shame based thing of, like, I was bad. That was wrong. You should never have had an. And that actually isn’t that helpful. Repair is more. I want to be back in sync with you. What do you need from me in order to feel good again? And what I have found with my kids. I’ve had so much more of a secure experience than me is they actually need not that much.

 

00;44;32;01 – 00;44;41;16

Eli Harwood

Like often they just need a little time and a little moment. Then I’m like, hey, I’m sorry about that. Are you feeling okay? And they’re like, what? Yeah, mom, mom, can you give me a hit on like, you’re.

 

00;44;41;16 – 00;44;43;04

Dr. Mona

Like, okay, I cared about this. Yeah.

 

00;44;43;06 – 00;45;03;17

Eli Harwood

Yeah. Well, you you’re okay. Yeah. But they trust that. Yeah. Reconnection will always come after disconnection. And that’s what we’re teaching is like as quickly as we can and as calmly as we can, with as little shame as we can going back to our kids and saying, I got that wrong, can I have a redo? Yeah, I wish I had done something else.

 

00;45;03;17 – 00;45;16;06

Eli Harwood

So you’re you’re being a parent who lights up, shows up, listens up and makes up when you mess up. If you’re doing those four things, you’re doing great.

 

00;45;16;09 – 00;45;24;20

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;45;24;22 – 00;45;47;10

Dr. Mona

I love that I was going to say that’s like the final uplifting message. I mean, that is parenting in a nutshell, and I love that you lay it out. So it’s not something that is like, again, that checklist thing that I don’t want my listeners to ever get into. It’s these sort of philosophies of raising these children, these children who feel seen, who feel love, who feel connected and who feel super safe with you and I, you know, my my five year old.

 

00;45;47;10 – 00;46;03;09

Dr. Mona

And he started that. He’s five and a half. He learned that I hate you. And I noticed he says it when he doesn’t when I he doesn’t want to do something that he’s supposed to. And then it’s what it is. And knowing where it’s coming from and not taking it personally was so useful as someone who understands child development.

 

00;46;03;11 – 00;46;21;23

Dr. Mona

And the other day I was with them all alone for a whole day. My husband was at work and he was like, mommy, I hate mommy time. Like because I was with them the whole day and that really inside, like, you can imagine because I spent the whole day doing arts and crafts and like, you know, we did this thing and did all this and I’m like, and then your fiber was like, I hate mommy day.

 

00;46;22;00 – 00;46;38;00

Dr. Mona

And I’m like, oh. And so then I talk to him and I actually was like, hey, when you say that, I it hurts my feelings when you say you hate mommy Day. I always love you, you know? But it hurts my feelings. And it’s like, mommy, it hurts my feelings when you don’t listen to me. And I said, whoa.

 

00;46;38;03 – 00;46;53;13

Dr. Mona

And I said, when did I not listen to you? Because I was asking. He’s like, I was telling you what I wanted for lunch and you weren’t listening. You were doing something else. And I was like, you, right? I was distracted and you felt like I wasn’t listening to you. And it opened up this beautiful conversation about communication, right?

 

00;46;53;13 – 00;47;09;09

Dr. Mona

That he was angry because he felt like I wasn’t listening. And he was right. I was distracted with my other daughter. I was not paying attention. And I made the food that he had. And, you know, he told me he wanted bananas on whatever peanut butter toast. And I forgot. And I gave it to him. And then I got upset at him.

 

00;47;09;09 – 00;47;23;16

Dr. Mona

I’m like, this is what you want. He’s like, that’s not what I said. And we really just got back into the repair of what do we miss in that connection moment, what was missing. And he said, and then he’s like, I always love you to mommy. And I’m like, I love you. And it was there’s no apology needed from him.

 

00;47;23;19 – 00;47;40;26

Dr. Mona

Like I wasn’t expecting him to be like, mommy, I’m sorry. He’s fine. But he was like, I love you. And and he hugged me. And I think sometimes we expect our kids to. Well, you need to apologize and say this. I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for the accountability from me, like you said. And then also the where do we go wrong here?

 

00;47;40;29 – 00;47;43;00

Dr. Mona

You know, like where and how it happened back.

 

00;47;43;00 – 00;47;45;17

Eli Harwood

Yeah. Right. Yeah. It was such an out together. Yeah.

 

00;47;45;19 – 00;48;02;07

Dr. Mona

Well I mean the next and the next day was beautiful. And I mean I said I’m like, we’re going to be better tomorrow. I’m going to be better at not yelling and not not listening. And I know you’re going to be better at, you know, telling me how you feel and using kinder words. And of course, he hasn’t said it in the last 2 or 3 days, but it’s it could have gone two ways.

 

00;48;02;08 – 00;48;18;17

Dr. Mona

It could have been the well then you make your own food or then go to your room. Don’t talk back to me. Which is what I got as a kid. And I love talking to you because of this fellow cycle breaker and the the love you have for children and their brains. Eli, like you could talk forever.

 

00;48;18;17 – 00;48;35;06

Dr. Mona

As you know, I love you, I love you. I mean, I love his love. I feel warm, like you make my heart feel warm. And you. I think your voice just lends to such a warm way of parenting. That is like making them feel just so joyful to be a child, and so joyful to be a parent through all the hard that there is.

 

00;48;35;06 – 00;48;36;14

Dr. Mona

And I thank you for that.

 

00;48;36;16 – 00;49;10;03

Eli Harwood

Yeah. I mean, that’s the hope. You know, I, I would say there will always be an all of us, just a sense of just how messy and complicated parenting is. It is messy and complicated. And so the hope is like that. The love covers over the mess. Yeah. You know that our kids can sense, hey, above all else, my mom or my dad or my parent cared more about their relationship to me than they did about my performance in the world, their appearance in the world, their status, their sense of control or dominance.

 

00;49;10;05 – 00;49;33;26

Eli Harwood

And like, did they at times say, fine, make your own sandwich? Sure. They said that of course, couple of times, you know. But then they came back and said, sorry, I, I really that I don’t like the way I responded, you know, and so there’s a, there’s a repair around the narrative there that takes it back to I matter to my parent.

 

00;49;33;28 – 00;49;50;21

Dr. Mona

I love this, Eli. I can’t wait to have you back on the show. I’m sure this is not going to last the last time. You know, there’s so much that we can chat about again, I love your book. Please let everyone know where they can stay connected. Obviously your Instagram handle, social handles, website where they can get the book.

 

00;49;50;23 – 00;49;52;18

Dr. Mona

I’m going to be linking all of that to my show notes.

 

00;49;52;26 – 00;50;06;08

Eli Harwood

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, you can find me running my mouth for free on Instagram and Facebook, primarily at Attachment Nerd. My website’s attachment or.com, and my book sold wherever you buy books so you can wonderful. Buy it from your retailer of choice.

 

00;50;06;10 – 00;50;22;04

Dr. Mona

And like I said already, I’m not just saying this. It is one of my favorite parenting books out there. I have read maybe a handful, like 4 or 5 books. And just the way you storytelling, the way you just bring in the science and the actual facts are really beautiful. So everyone, you should read the book if you love this conversation.

 

00;50;22;04 – 00;50;23;24

Dr. Mona

So thanks again, Eli, for joining us.

 

00;50;24;00 – 00;50;28;11

Eli Harwood

Thank you for having me. I loved being here.

 

00;50;28;14 – 00;50;51;10

Dr. Mona

This conversation with Eli reminded me of something so important. Secure attachment doesn’t mean a childhood free of struggle or complexity. It means a childhood with access. And that access is to support, to repair, to safety, in relationships with a caregiver who is emotionally and mentally able to handle it. And a bonus, if there’s more than one caregiver who can do that.

 

00;50;51;12 – 00;51;17;22

Dr. Mona

Our kids can have many secure attachments, not just with us as parents, but with grandparents, teachers, caregiver coaches and in my experience, our nanny. Every connection that says you’re safe here, you matter. I’ll show up for you helps build that foundation. And it’s not about perfection, it’s about access. If this conversation spoke to you, take a second to follow and subscribe to the Stock Talk podcast and download your favorite episode.

 

00;51;17;22 – 00;51;35;24

Dr. Mona

Those downloads really helped the show grow, and it’s because of you that, like I said in the beginning, we are a top 20 parenting podcast. Share this episode with a friend or a loved one, or in your stories on social media and tag at Attachment Nerd, at PedsDoc talk, and at the PedsDocTalk podcast, because you never know who might need to hear it.

 

00;51;35;26 – 00;51;48;04

Dr. Mona

Thank you for being a part of this community, for doing the very hard work. It is to be a cycle breaker, and for giving your kids the kind of access that builds lifelong safety and connection. I cannot wait to chat with you next time.