Episode 168: Melting a child's freeze

The Aware Parenting Podcast

This is part of a series of episodes where I refer to topics in my new best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', and I read a story shared from a child's perspective. In this episode, I talk about the process of helping a child move out a freeze state (which in Aware Parenting we tend to refer to as dissociation, or a control pattern) and back into connection with their body and feelings. Once they do that, they can then express the feelings they were needing to suppress or dissociate from, and return to calm presence. I've always seen control patterns as like frozen feelings. Our role as parents is to offer the warmth and safety required to our child can experience those frozen feelings melting into flowing feelings, which can then flow out, generally in the form of crying or raging, but sometimes as laughter. To do this, we need to be relatively present in our own bodies, to support them to know that they are safe to become present in their own body, to feel and then express their feelings. Dissociation can show up in a myriad of ways, including thumb or finger sucking, dummy/pacifier use, repetitive nose picking or hair twirling, screens, eating when not hungry, and so on. In this episode, I share about what we can do as parents to help our child move out of the suppression of feelings into expression. I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www.marionrose.net