Parenting: The job without the manual
Children don’t come with manuals. This is a well-established fact that the village of people surrounding each child knows all too well.
Sometimes things are tough and what we really want is for someone to tell us what to do. Or even better fix it. Now.
Children don’t come with manuals, because the intentional work of parenting is to lean in and listen really closely in order to really hear and understand what is going on for them. This is a process called attunement.
Attunement is about ‘tuning in’ to your child’s thoughts, their view of the world, their emotions and their needs in order to respond in the way that is needed in the moment.
A manual cannot provide attunement. A manual is rigid, rule-based and inflexible. A manual tells you exactly what to do in order to produce results.
Our children are not our outputs. Children are people, learning how the world works and deeply desiring connection but also not always quite knowing how to get it.
“When we attune with others we allow our internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. This resonance is at the heart of the important sense of “feeling felt” that emerges in close relationships. Children need attunement to feel secure and develop well, and throughout our lives we need attunement to feel close and connected.”
Dr. Dan Siegel.
When we spend time attuning with our children, they gain the benefit of learning how to attune to themselves and others. There is a co-creation of meaning over time that enables the child to understand themselves better and how they best relate to others in the world. The process of attunement builds empathy, and this world can do with much, much more empathy.
There are times when your child may present with challenges you have no grid for, and even your best efforts at attunement make no difference. In these instances, seek help and support from a registered therapist such as a social worker in private practice, or psychologist.
Children don’t come with manuals because children are not machines. And if they were I honestly would be stumped because never have I ever read a manual about a machine from cover to cover!
