Attached: A Different Lens, part two
Red rules, pink rules and finding your village
How parents can stay on the same side as their children, and where to find support when it is hard.
Where we left off
Last time, the question was whether mothers and fathers should parent differently. We talked about how we show up in relationships as individuals, the different styles and attachment wounds we bring, and the importance of being able to talk with the other parent, even if you are separated.
This week, Kirsty asked Donna to start with an idea that came up last time: red rules and pink rules.
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Red rules and pink rules
Donna learnt these during her studies in Budapest. They are Anna Tardos's idea, and Donna wants to make sure she gets the recognition for it.
Few, steady and about safety
A red rule never changes. It is usually about safety, and there are few enough that everyone can remember them, including the children. When Donna was a teacher her red rule was: we do not hurt people's bodies or their hearts, and we do not break anything. You can word it your own way. Children soon understood what breaking someone's heart meant. One mum told Donna she had been loud and upset with her child, and her child said, "We don't hurt people's bodies or their hearts." It stopped her in her tracks.
One test: if you have to go and look up your red rules because you wrote them down, they are not red rules yet.
Room for children to learn, negotiate and be trusted
Pink rules are where children learn negotiation skills. It does not mean anything goes. It means holding the highest expectations of children. Donna remembers a little girl visiting a centre she was setting up, asking to take a precious toy out to play. Her grandmother said no. Donna asked the girl, "Can I trust you to play with it and bring it back to me in person?" Half an hour later, the little girl placed it in Donna's hands. Her gran was amazed. Donna wondered whether anyone had ever said out loud to her, "I trust you."
If she had not brought it back, the next time Donna would have said, "Remember last time? This time I am going to say no." Pink rules help children feel seen, heard and important, and they teach responsibility on both sides.
It sounds easy, but you need to sit down as a family
If parents have different red rules, or negotiate pink rules differently, it is like playing lotto for a child. If dad does this, mum does that, a different parent does something else, they get a different result, and that creates anxiety.
Donna sees it go wrong in two ways. Sometimes the rules are not really red rules at all. And sometimes one parent turns something into a pink rule while the other parent holds it as a red rule, especially if that parent carries an old wound of feeling betrayed. Then the conflict starts between the parents. Kirsty gave an everyday example: you tell your child they cannot eat that, and your partner walks in and says, "Yay!" It might be small, but it can trigger a big feeling, and that is worth being curious about. Power and control are often about safety for us as adults too.
Holding a limit with a kind heart
- When one parent negotiates a pink rule and it does not go to plan, the other parent needs to back them up. Talk about it together so you both stay consistent, otherwise the pink rules do not work.
- Choose your words. Rather than "you did not do that last time, so you cannot have it", try "last time I really wanted it to work, and it did not. We are not quite ready for that yet." Make it about we, not about the child being wrong.
- Put in the no nonsense limit, then move to the nurturing: "I know you really, really wanted that third cookie, and it is half an hour before dinner. That was tough. I am here with you." Sometimes you have to drop what you are doing, and sometimes they are okay straight away.
- We are the senior partners, and this is a child's first time on Earth, so feelings feel big and scary. Being there for big feelings does not mean being there for every single one, but it might mean finding a less stimulating place.
- Be curious about what a meltdown means. Donna has worked with families where children asked for snacks all the time, because the whole family ate together at a time that did not suit that child's body. Perhaps their main meal needs to come two hours earlier. Thinking outside the box can mean fewer big behaviours.
When parents are far apart
Kirsty said that if one parent is all red rules and "what I say goes", and the other is swinging the pendulum the other way, afraid to put in any boundary because it brings big feelings, something has to give. Ideally it is better communication, and when parents are opposites it often helps to have someone come in who can help them see each other's point of view.
Kirsty also shared that her children felt everything strongly and were master negotiators from a young age. She could hold a limit and sit with a meltdown, but looking back, she was sometimes too soft, wanting to talk everything out. Her husband would swoop in with a harder limit, not because he was a terrible person, but because he could see that everyone was way past their limit and going around in circles.
Compassion, safety and the same side
It happened to you, it is not who you are
Our attachment styles are programmed in when we are young. They live in the body and the subconscious, so when we struggle, what we need is compassion and safety. Often you meet your opposite, and they feel like an alien: they communicate, think and feel differently. To grow, you need to understand yourself and your partner. You cannot work with boundaries and communication until you know what triggers you and what is driving you, including your wounds and your needs.
Repair has to wait for calm
We cannot repair while someone is still escalated. We have to wait until people are regulated again, and different attachment styles take different amounts of time. More anxious people want it sorted straight away, because their anxiety is all outside of their body. More avoidant people need time to process and think. They are not trying to get away from you. Fearful avoidants want the why. They are looking for the clarity that has kept them safe for most of their life.
So where can we meet in the middle? Donna keeps coming back to the field that Rumi wrote about, out beyond right doing and wrong doing. Parenting is exactly where you need that field, because you will have different viewpoints. If we place the child at the heart of the matter, we stop arguing with each other and start negotiating what is best for the child. Otherwise we talk wound to wound, we activate each other, and the children sit back and watch the sideshow.
Why Donna never tells a parent what to do
If Donna said "A plus B equals C", she would be overriding that parent's need for safety. Parents are the only people who can change their behaviour, because they have to feel safe enough to do it. Her supervisor taught her that you cannot hand educational information to a parent, because in the heat of the moment, in fight, flight, freeze or flop, their thinking brain is offline. So she works with the body.
Something that happened before the age of three often cannot be reached by talk therapy, because the language was not there yet. It has to be worked through the body, whether with a body worker like Kirsty, or somatically, as Donna does with Interplay and Relational Flow. Many people who find her can describe their attachment style better than she can, but they are so caught up in their heads that they cannot feel their bodies. They need someone to take on the role of a mum or dad, to co regulate so they can feel safe.
It is not so much about technique, but how I am within myself.
Anna Tardos
Donna remembers sitting in Budapest being told to put her pen down, so that she was in her body and fully present. Anna Tardos would show videos of parents and children, then ask what the parent should do, because she never wanted teachers to take parents out of their hearts or push them up into their heads. This is a parent's only chance at this relationship with their child. Let them feel, let them be, and let them make mistakes.
And because both the parent and the child can lack safety, someone has to give first. As the parent, that is us, but only when we feel safe.
When the pressure is high, and finding your village
Kirsty on the weight one parent can carry
When children are intense, medically complex or neurodivergent, one parent, often the mother, becomes the main port of call: the appointments, the funding applications, the research. That parent is living in a shell of responsibility, and it is so easy for her relationship with the other parent to come under enormous pressure. When the other parent comes home from work and does the "wrong" thing, it is really hard not to say, "You are doing it wrong." What is coming up is often deeper: you are at breaking point and you do not feel understood.
Kirsty also reminded us that the other parent is probably tired too, and perhaps feeling guilty that you are the one carrying the weight. They may just want to protect you. The pressure and the stakes are higher in these families.
Donna on the outside processor and the inside processor
When we are at breaking point, we are dysregulated, and that is when the wounds come out to play: I do not matter, I am not heard, I am not good enough. One parent is usually the outside processor and the other the inside processor, but we think the inside processor does not care, because they are processing. The inside processor found it unsafe as a child to feel emotions and to be expressive, so they take it all inside. That is how the attachment style formed: they learnt that the way to be safe is to be independent.
This is where a third person who does not take sides can help, because it is hard to see out of your own trench. You might be in different trenches from your partner. How do you get back into the same trench, together, in love, against the challenge? In the same way, we do not go into combat with our child over a pink rule. We are with them.
It is okay that it is hard
Kirsty reminded us that parenting and relationship offer so much opportunity for growth, and it is hard. It is okay that it takes time, that we do not always get it right, that we fall back into old patterns, and that we come back and repair. Being authentic matters more than having a perfect script, because children can feel it if we are putting on a show of being a gentle or responsive parent.
Kirsty was also clear that there are situations where the other parent is genuinely not helping and separation is in order. Donna added that an unwillingness to listen or change is data in itself, and hard data to take on board. For many other families, everyone has the best of intentions and is simply missing each other, and a little help with communication can make a world of difference. Often it is tiny, tiny steps.
A place to be held, not fixed
Donna also recognised something new about the village: sometimes we need an echo chamber, a safe place where everyone is on our side, to get the energy out. We just need to recognise it for what it is, then come back and look at where change can happen. We all need places where our own expression can come out safely, with no fixing. Places where we can say, "This is really tough, I do not want to be doing this. I do not want to be fixed. I just need to be held."
Some things to ponder
No pressure to answer any of these. Just notice which one catches you.
- What are my red rules, the few that never change, and could my children say them back to me?
- Where am I holding something as a red rule that might really be a pink rule, a chance to say to my child, "I trust you"?
- When did my partner and I last sit down together and talk about our rules, rather than finding out in the heat of the moment?
- When I feel undermined, what is the old feeling underneath, and what do I need?
- Am I an outside processor or an inside processor, and what does my partner need from me while they process?
- Where is my safe place to say, "This is tough, and I do not need fixing, I need holding"?
Meet Donna and Kirsty
Donna Stichbury
The Relationship Facilitator
PIKLER® Pedagogue and Circle of Security Facilitator
Donna is based in Pukekohe, Aotearoa New Zealand, and works both locally and online. She calls herself The Relationship Facilitator because her modality, Relational Flow, moves across every kind of relationship: adult attachment work, couples, parenting, and children's big messy behaviours.
Curious where to start? Book a free Zoom coffee chat with Donna.
Kirsty Denny
Kirsty Marie Energy
Energetic kinesiologist
Kirsty is an energetic kinesiologist and home educating mother of neurodivergent children. She uses kinesiology to work with the layers of subconscious stress and conditioning that can impact our ability to align to our truest expression.
When it comes to nervous system health and healthy attachment, she believes it all matters, the physical, the emotional and the spiritual, with healthy relationships with ourselves and others as the bedrock.
An invitation
If something here sounded like your family, you are welcome to sit with it for a while. There is no rush, and no right or wrong way through. Tiny steps count.
Donna and Kirsty welcome your feedback and your questions, and would love someone to join the conversation. When you are ready to talk it through, Donna would love to hear from you.
Book a Zoom coffee chat with DonnaMauri Aroha. 🌿
