Cues and Miscues - Behavior as Communication
A reminder: every Behavior is a message... a legitimate need. I showed a short clip from Circle of Security.
This kid is just being fussy, right? Au contraire- what is the message below? What is the need?
When our needs go unmet, our message not received or responded to, our experience can often manifest like this. As is stated in the book, behaviors tell us what the child (or other person) needs, whether they are getting it, and what we can do about it.
But what if or needs go unmet as an ongoing pattern? For children, who are doing their best to cope in the ways that they know, bad behaviors are often exhibited, and THEY are often seen as the problem. Ever heard a parent say "my kid is just being fussy", or bratty, or (insert similar descriptor here). It looks like-
Part of the roadmap to parenting offered by the book is to focus on the following-
The mixture of needs, messages, and behaviors can start early. Remember the Still Face Experiment? When mom becomes emotionally unavailable, what happens to the child's behaviors? They become confused, elevated, then desperate. 'What' is happening is the child is getting fussy. 'Why' is because the child, who appears at least presumably secure with it's mother and can rely on comforting connection at least some of the time, is left alone. Big emotions come quickly!
The book also states the following, "the parent's overall comfort with the child's needs translates to the child's comfort is asking for those needs". It truly takes TWO to dance.
Need - message - response - need - message - response - repeat ad infinitum.
The meeting of needs and reading of messages, or lack thereof over time, fill our implicit relational knowing (procedural memory) with what we begin to expect in our attachments. I also mentioned here, especially in reviewing the Still Face Experiment, that unmet needs and misunderstood or ignored messages can be the birthplace of guilt and shame. Baby needs their caretakers from cradle to grave, and when they aren't available they can't possibly blame them (they need them so bad), so they can start a pattern of internalization of blaming themselves. Ouch!
Need. Message. Response. Exploration. Comforting connection. Safety. Security. Call. Response. Call and Response...call and response... This attachment dance is a bit like listening to the blues, if you're a music fan.
The book states, "The parent's overall comfort with the child's needs translates to the child's comfort is asking for those needs". It takes both the parent and the child to dance. It takes two to tango. So the needs and messages can be clear, IF the child is comfortable in asking and trusting that their need will be acknowledged. Likewise the message can be masked as a means to meet the needs of the caregiver and maintain maximum closeness (which we need)
We begin discussing cues and miscues.
Cues: Direct, clear bids for a need to be answered. As an example, how many times does Boo feel comfortable asking for a need to be met in this clip? I freezed the video every time a student found an instance, of which there are several.
Miscues: Indirect, contradictory messages, or misdirection away from the child's needs (remember Shark Music?). Miscues are hiding a need. In this clip Elsa pushes Anna away, even though she is moving towards her to be close to her, (because she has been shut out and pushed away for so long).
I asked the class for other examples, not just of parenting observations, and not just of personal experience or actions, where they could speak to a direct request for a need to be met or message to be understood (cue), or contradictory or misdirected need or message (miscue). The most common response was wanting to reach out to other people but acting as though they didn't need help (such as stress all the common stressors of being a teenager, but feeling as though you have to put on a strong face and just muscle through it alone).
These cues and miscues can give us information about our relationships. In parenting, this is through the lens of security (or the lack of it). What exactly is a secure attachment again? It is formed as the book says when a caregiver is generally comfortable all around the Circle (much of the time).
Much of the time. Imperfection is the goal. Good enough is good enough.
It's when the child and caregiver know that they can focus on the relationship, needs and messages, not the behaviors, and work through it all together. It is as the book states "the cradle of 'and'".
At least one person who says WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER! WE'LL GET THROUGH THIS! I reminded the class that my genuine hope is that they have access to at least just one person who can say this with them.
And I posited that in parenting, and in our attachments, we focus on the relationship above all else.
And, regarding trust in access to at least one person who can offer us security, I proposed as the book does that it can change our trajectory (even significantly). And, if one person isn't available, we can find the relationship dance with our pets, or even in nature itself.
There were lot's of important take-home points in this chapter. Here are two of the takeaways that I wanted to leave with the students-
"Behavior problems are not a demand for attention- they are a sign hat the child finds the cost of revealing his true need higher than living with the painful consequences of his misbehavior". It's simply a cost/benefit analysis, regarding minimizing pain. If the caregiver isn't available in some way, the child will act out in ways that maintain even painful connection and consequences. Adult or high school relationships can often mirror this.
"Adults often make the mistake that babies and children want attention, when what they really want is connection". Our cues and miscues are defense strategies to keep us from feeling alone (a protection we need because no one can attune to someone else 100% of the time anyway). So, ruptures in relationship and parenting are inevitable, and remember to focus on repair and focus on the relationship rather than on not rupturing.
Our cues and miscues are born from our Shark Music (my Shark Music plays on a cassette tape, because I'm getting old). My mixtape is all of my past experiences, my implicit relational knowing, and it plays daily (and sometimes loudly) with my wife and my daughter.
Some days a song plays like it's stuck on repeat. Sometimes it sounds like Marilyn Manson, and other days it sounds like Polka (Yikes... really scary!)
The process is linear-
Need --> Pain --> Defense.
Repeat.
The more the message and need is not heard or met, anywhere on the Circle or within the hands, the more the pain builds in our procedural memory. And, the more we find ways to defend against the pain, or at least minimize it. Crank up the Shark Music, and rock on!
The more our Shark Music plays, in parenting, and in relationships with others, the more painful and even hopeless our attachment can perceive the relationship. The pain can grow. How do we get off this escalator?
The Defense grows in relation to the pain. Unmet needs can result in a disproportionate pain and defense. Big Pain = Big Defense.
And our defenses to pain are righteous and in the name of self-preservation, and in the name of preservation of what is available in our attachments, if unattended from childhood can manifest in different ways of coping as adults. We discussed different ways that people cope with pain. I asked for specific examples of pain and coping. Here's what we came up with.
One of the students asked, "What if someone never knows about 'and'... about security"?
Great question.
As the book states, unattended and unresolved Shark Music can manifest as 'procedural certainty'- procedural memories of only knowing that one's needs will CERTAINLY go unmet and ones messages unheard, because that is the pattern. Our procedural certainty can also reinforce that we are alone and will SURELY continue to be alone, because that is all the pattern of experiences we know.
Because it's a procedural certainty (unconscious lens to our perception of reality), we don't question it. Kent refers to this as being 'Dayblind'- The stars are out during the day, we just don't walk around thinking that. Many of us have never been told this, so how would we know?
I asked the students to tell me what was going on in this slide. What if someone never knows or is never shown security?
It took them a minute but one student did solve the puzzle on the left. It is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with several letters missing. As the book suggests, our procedural certainty may be akin to send and receive communication and messages without half of the alphabet. Or, our procedural certainty without security may be just like viewing a famous painting as though it is missing colors. (I photoshopped Starry Starry Night as having removed all of the blue and yellow tones).
Drab, right? How gloomy... When it should look like-
Or even this-
Dayblind. From procedural certainty.
We finished the discussion by touching the concept of labeling, and on the potential effects of labeling a child. Examples given by the book were such as projecting onto a child that they are 'independent' or mature', as byproducts of a parent's Shark Music. Labeling a child as 'he's so independent' or 'he's so mature' can not only push or direct the child to the top of the Circle (exploration), but it can do so in a way that plays into the child's self-concept. If a person is told time and time again, especially as a child, that they are 'so independent', or 'so mature' how do we enable ourselves to be simply our imperfect selves? How do we foster and rely on the innate need for connection, support, security, when we believe through procedural certainty that we are 'independent'?
Again, statements such as these are not often purposeful, but statements like these can be a permanent miscue away from fostering comforting connection. The child can end up associating themselves to taking pride in their independence, which can diminish the infinite possibilities of seeking comforting connection.
Statements such as these can hardwire into our implicit relational knowing.
I recently took my 14 month old daughter to her first dentist appointment. The dentist had to lay her backwards, and although mostly gently, invasively (to my daughter) stuck his hands and fingers in and around her mouth. She hated it, as anyone would. And he said to her, 'be a big girl', when she got upset. I know he didn't mean anything by this, but really? I explained to my wife later that he shouldn't have said that, and that my daughter had every right to be upset. How would you like it if some giant man in a mask forced his fingers into your mouth, and told you to be a 'big girl'? The class discussed their own labels, and how they believed they may interplay, good or bad, in how they try to be who they are.
Intended Takeaways: Finding hidden messages and needs in behaviors; Locating cues and miscues; Pain and defense mechanisms, and how parents and people cope; Procedural memory without known security
Course Student Feedback:
-"I learned that I am separation sensitive and that I take things too personal because of how I was raised"
-"Everyone needs that 'And'"
-"Pay attention because learning about this helps you understand your parents and yourself more"
-"This class was valuable because it taught me so much about my own life and helped me through trials and I want to be a psychologist"
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