3 Things You Need To Know About Felt Safety -

“Felt -Safety”
This means that adults arrange the environment and adjust their behavior so children can feel in a profound and basic way that they are truly safe in their home and with us. Until a child experiences safety for his or herself, trust can’t develop, and healing and learning won’t progress. We offer “felt safety” so healing may begin.
The Connected Child

How do you provide felt-safety for your kiddo? And why do we need to provide felt safety? Shouldn’t a child being safe be enough?

Dangers of not providing felt safety

Fear is a bully. It pushes a child into a corner. The child responds with tantrums, meltdowns, shutdowns, and high levels of anxiety.

Myth: Your child will feel safe because they are safe.

Whether fear is based on reality or not, it triggers the amygdala, known as “the watchdog of the brain.” In response, the body releases cortisol, and the child stays stuck in fight, flight, or freeze. When cortisol levels are high, it’s as if the child is being chased by a bear all the time. Even when it looks like their surroundings are safe, and you seem to be safe, the child doesn’t feel safe.

And here’s the thing: Anything you try absolutely will not work until that child feels safe. Fear is a tricky thing. It can cut off the executive function of the brain — the “upstairs brain” where we make logical decisions and make sense of things. When the executive function of the brain is not working properly, the child will stay in their “downstairs brain.” Everything will be reactionary.

“Chronic fear is like a schoolyard bully that scares children into behaving poorly.” – Dr. Karyn Purvis

This is a really hard one for us to understand. I struggled with this myself because when we brought the kids “home”, I assumed they would feel safe because they were in a safe environment. They didn’t have to worry about anyone sneaking into their room in the middle of the night to harm them — but they still had night terrors. That’s the weird thing about fear. FEAR doesn’t know the difference between the past, present, and future. Instead, the three run together.

Here’s something you can do right now: ask your child what she needs to feel safe. Listen to your child Would they like a night light? Do they want you to keep the door open while they sleep? Would they feel better if they had food in their room so that they can grab a snack anytime they want?

Ask your child, and if they can’t put their needs into words — because another thing fear does is mess with a child’s ability to verbalize their feelings — then help them find the words.

“Frightening behavior by a parent activates simultaneously inevitably competing tendencies to flee to the parent as a haven of safety and to flee from the parent as a source of alarm.” – Dr. Dan Siegel

This quote by Dr. Dan Siegel reminds us that we parents can sometimes be both the source of fear and the source of comfort (YIKES). It’s no wonder our kiddos struggle with felt-safety.

Fortunately, healing is possible. Your child can feel safe. But it’s going to take some investment parenting to make it happen.

“When a child feels genuinely safe, the primitive brain lets down its guard and allows trust to blossom and bonding to begin.” – Dr. Karyn Purvis

3 Simple Steps to Connect With Your Child

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3 simple ways to provide felt-safety

Arrange the environment to suit your child. Arranging the environment may be as simple as providing a snack basket for the child who fears not having food. Or providing noise-reducing headphones for the child who becomes anxious when it’s too loud. Arranging the environment means approaching your child’s fears with gentleness and understanding, no matter how illogical they are to you.

arranging the environment

When my four kiddos came “home” from Poland, my daughter hoarded food. She has a fear that she wouldn’t have food when she was hungry. So she stuffed food in a backpack, her pockets, and her pillowcase. Even though I showed her the contents of the fridge and pantry multiple times, she still had a deep fear of hunger. I got a basket and filled it with snacks. I told her she could take a snack whenever she wanted. The hoarding decreased and eventually disappeared. The gift of that season in her life is when she travels with her kiddos now – she never forgets the snacks.

Let your child talk about the past, i.e. tell their story. Just a little warning here- don’t ask your child endless questions about the past or an event that triggers her. Let these conversations be (mostly) child-led. Telling our story to an empathetic listener helps us make sense of it. Talking about her feelings also helps a kiddo put them in their place.

the tunnel trigger

We headed down under the ocean in the _____ tunnel. Two of my children whimpered and hung onto me, triggered by the dark confines. My eldest son began a tale of his past – Did you know … and he followed by sharing many horrible things that he and his siblings endured in their home of origin.

Sometimes our kiddo needs some gentle questions to start the conversation. Other times, the environment will provide the trigger of memory. We shouldn’t minimalize our kiddo’s pain in that moment. Instead, listen with compassion. Statements such as “but that’s it in the past,” or “I’ve had worse things happen”… aren’t helpful.

Find coping mechanisms that help i.e. what they need. Put the coping mechanisms into practice. Often when a child doesn’t feel safe, she doesn’t know what she needs to cope. Helping a child find appropriate coping mechanisms is part of the proactive and investment parenting package.

mindfulness

Finding out what coping mechanisms your kiddo needs requires mindfulness in the moment. What’s going on? Even if you know what triggers, your child, knowing what will help them cope, and recover to a place of feeling safe is a whole new ballgame. It may mean some trial and error.

Some kiddos may need some deep breathing
Others have a snack in their pocket
Others may need to stim – walk around in circles, swim, hug a stuffed animal, or twirl
Or escape to a comfy chair and read a book

One of my kiddos race walks circles around the kitchen island in order to process. He talks to me the entire time. If he’s told not to walk, he can’t talk and process the situation he is struggling with. I don’t know your child or what he needs. Take some time, be mindful, and by trial and error figure it out. You may find, your child has a few coping mechanisms, but she isn’t practicing them because they aren’t socially acceptable.

While being mindful is important, so is changing or lowering your expectation. If you want your child to both cope and fit into the cultural expectation at the same time, those expectations are going to have a fight and one of them is going to win. For the sake of your kiddo, let cultural expectations go. In other words, if your 12-year-old needs her stuffed owl to survive shopping at Target, let her take it, and don’t shame her. While carrying a stuffed animal at 12 isn’t exactly socially acceptable, does that matter? Whose rules are we following?

summary

Helping our kiddos feel safe requires an investment of our time, connecting to our kiddo, and gentleness, kindness, and empathy. Fear isn’t logical. It’s a bully who brings the past into the present and convinces your kiddo that it’s her future as well. Until your child feels safe, she can’t listen, learn, or grow emotionally. Felt safety is key.

free video training!

How do we connect more and correct less even when we are stressed? Grab this free short video training and find out! PS – you can apply these tips to yourself for a boost of self-care!

Learn more