Ep 36: Three Ways to Power-With and Meet Your Child Where They’re At While Keeping Them Safe

[INTRODUCTION]

Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. A place where we’re re-imagining parenting to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational. If you’ve been looking for ways to practice social justice in your daily parenting and nurture your child’s development while re-parenting your inner child, I’m so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic abolitionist, and founder of Come Back to Care. A dot connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineages and communities. And we come back to care… together. So come curious and come as you are.

[EPISODE]

Welcome to episode 36 of the Come Back to Care Podcast. Shall we talk about the gnawing worry and fear that many decolonized families have shared with me? Let’s see how much this resonates with you. You’re re-parenting your inner child and weaving social justice action into your daily parenting…most of the time…because you and your fellow decolonized families are shifting and shaping our culture to be dignity-centered and safe for our children to be all of who they’re becoming. And one way you’ve been practicing liberation is by meeting your child where they’re at aka practicing power-with. Then you turn on the news. You see examples of competition, exploitation, extraction, and scarcity -- so much so that you start to worry about your child’s future. You start to question yourself: “Yes, I want my child to be free but what if I’m not teaching them to be tough? How are they going to make it?” “Yes, I want my child to be compassionate and to build communities but am I preparing them well enough to pay bills, have roof over their head, and put food on the dinner table?” Do these inner monologues of worry resonate with you? Under capitalism, these worries are legitimate and shared among many decolonized families I work with. These worries can become so loud that they put our social justice values in the back seat, causing us to unintentionally slip back to raising our children with control, coercion, and domination, aka power-over. 

That’s why, in this episode, you and I are going to unpack parenting worries and fears that drive us to unintentionally center coercion, control, compliance, and domination in parenting. Then, we’ll explore a three-part process of powering-with so you can design your own way to balance power-over and power-with in your parenting. You’ll also look at how power-with builds children’s brain development and social-emotional development. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started. 

Under capitalism, we lose access to our food, housing, and health care when we stop working. Needless to say, all these worries about your child’s survival in the future are real and legitimate. On one hand, you feel the pressure to prepare and protect your child so they survive the Hunger Game of capitalism. That can look like never-ending urgency and pressure to teach, fix, manage, shape, and mold every aspect of your child…all the time. And this pressure to prepare and protect- when it’s out of balance- can feel like power-over which is an oppressive conditioning from white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy that centers control, coercion, and domination. On the other hand, you feel another kind of pressure to power-with with your child and meet them where they’re at so they can be their whole or authentic self. And you want to be about social justice in the home by weaving social justice action like power-with into your parenting and raising your child according to your social justice values. The questions we’re exploring are what do we do when these real fears and worries bubble up? What can we do to make sure that parenting doesn’t become a survival bootcamp of power-over, prepare, and protect 100% of the time? What can we do to balance the pressure to use power-over to prepare and protect your child with the pressure to use power-with to meet your child where they’re at … again most of the time?

To relieve this pressure, I wonder if we can shift the question from what to when. Because preparing and protecting your child for the Hunger Game of Capitalism is valid. So is powering-with with them. One’s not necessarily better than the other which makes the question “what to do?” irrelevant. To ask a better question, I invite you to experiment with: “when.”  Specifically, when is it adaptive to prepare and protect? And when is it adaptive to power-with? Then, your inner voice can give you the discernment you need to decide on the next steps. I have two examples for you so we can explore this “when” question in action.

The first example is of a time when power-with is adaptive. Andrea and her teenager Leo have had many arguments about getting Leo to clean and tidy up their room. I was curious about why it was important to Andrea that Leo cleaned their room. Andrea shared that she wanted to teach Leo a lesson on being responsible for themself so they can take more responsibilities around the house as a young adult. As a first-generation immigrant, Andrea believed that this self-responsibility was the foundation for Leo to be a good citizen. I remember being so touched by Andrea’s intention. She continued sharing that when Leo ignored her and sometimes talked back, she got triggered and she guilted them into cleaning the room. She would say things like “if you can’t even clean your room, how are you going to have a good wife and a good job?” To Leo, all the silent treatment and guilt trips felt like their mom was micromanaging and hovering. So, Leo became even more reluctant to clean the room. Once Andrea explored Leo’s side of the equation, her eyes lit up from figuring out what the conflict was about and how to move through it. Then, she and I smiled. Andrea knew what I was going to ask next which was the “when” question I invited you to explore earlier. So I asked Andrea “is this worry and fear adaptive for this situation?” Andrea shared that it’s valid for her to prepare Leo to be a responsible adult. I absolutely agreed. Yes. And. Was it adaptive for this situation? Was it getting Leo to meet Andrea’s goal? Andrea felt a little embarrassed to say that her worries and fears backfired because Leo argued with her instead of cleaning the room. Then, Andrea and I wondered together what it would look like for her to shift from practicing power-over to prepare and protect Leo to practicing power-with with Leo? To say it differently, what would it be like for Andrea to set aside her parental agenda to teach Leo a lesson- for a minute- to power-with and meet Leo exactly where they’re at? 

If you’re already inspired by Andrea’s wisdom- I feel you and I feel so honored and lucky to work with families and children like Andrea and yourself everyday… but I digress. 

Okay, the second example is one when power-over actually was adaptive. If a part inside of you was wondering while listening to me talking about Andrea and Leo “but if I power-with with my child all the time, I wouldn’t get anything done.” Well, that wise part inside of you is correct. Again, our goal is not to use power-with all the time and throw power-over out the window or vice versa. The invitation here to use whatever’s adaptive for that moment so that your parenting is a balance between power-over and power-with. 

JB often dreaded the morning routine with their 3-year-old daughter Anuka. JB wanted to leave home with Anuka on time for the preschool drop off but Anuka didn’t understand what being on time meant quite yet. Calling this stressful would be an understatement. One time Anuka was under the weather and JB made a pediatrician appointment at 8:30 am. JB was rushing to get Anuka to her pediatrician appointment on time. After several attempts at powering-with with Anuka- validating her feelings, setting a timer, moving her preferred toys to the car- nothing was motivating Anuka enough to put her shoes on and get into the car. What’s worse was Anuka had a complete meltdown. JB named out loud that they were feeling the urgency in their stomach rising up to prepare and protect Anuka (in this case more of protecting than preparing like Andrea did in the first example). JB wanted to protect Anuka by taking her to the pediatrician ASAP. JB remembered to pause and reflect “is this stress, worry, fear, and urgency adaptive in this situation?” Everything in their body said yes. So, JB picked up Anuka and carried her and put her in the car seat while Anuka was- you know it- screaming and kicking. They got to the appointment on time and 15 minutes into the car ride Anuka settled down. But JB’s guilt did not. When I talked to them that evening, they still felt awful for having to pick Anuka up and carry her to the car. Because JB grew up with a very domineering parent in a “do what I said because I’m your parents…period” power-over kind of household. So, JB is very intentional about not repeating the power-over cycles with Anuka. What I appreciated was that even though JB felt awful (which I could see by how the guilt was weighing on their spine and breathing), that guilt didn’t automatically turn into shame. JB discerned what was adaptive when Anuka was under the weather and having a complete meltdown. And JB did what they had to do at that moment which was power-over. JB stepped up and used their authority, made a decision, set boundaries, and applied consequences but without being coercive, controlling, or punitive. Sometimes power-over means taking charge which was what JB did. The following day Anuka felt a little better and the whole family had a relatively smoother day. JB switched back to power-with when they read bedtime stories to Anuka and explained what happened the morning before. JB said to Anuka “I really needed to get us out the door and your body was telling me you needed my help. So I had to pick you up and carry you to the car. I’m here for you when you need me.” 

Application: 3-Part Process of Power-With

In both examples, Andrea and JB did what they discerned to be adaptive at that moment…something that fit with their styles and their children’s development. Now it’s your turn. Let’s break down the 3-part process of power-with that Andrea, JB, and I experimented with together so you can power-with with your child in your own unique style…if you’d like. Play with what feels right and leave the rest. 

The 3-part process of power-with begins with you pausing to ask, “is this fear, worry, or stress adaptive in this moment?” Your answer will then guide your next steps whether it’s power-with or power-over or somewhere on that spectrum. The second part of the power-with process is meeting your child where they’re at emotionally including the unmet needs underneath their behaviors. The third and final part of the power-with process is switching out compliance for cooperation when it makes sense. 

We’ve already covered the first part earlier in the episode. Let’s dive into the second part: meeting your child where they’re at emotionally including the unmet needs underneath their behaviors. So that your child feels seen, loved, and heard. The key words here are emotional needs. Growing up in a working class immigrant family, my parents believed that showing love was about making sure my two siblings and I had food at the dinner table, a shared bed to sleep in, and a roof above our heads. Physical needs? Check. Emotional needs for being seen, for hearing validation, for getting attention? Not so much. My parents also believed that their role was to teach me about right and wrong and make sure I work hard so I can support myself and care for whoever is in need. To say it differently, my parents prioritized doing and achieving over being with and feeling. But you know what they did? They made sure that I had all the right people to talk about my feelings with aka all the aunties in the village. I had one auntie who still lives next door to us in Thailand that I could go to for advice on romance; another auntie from my mom’s grade school that I could go to for advice on fashion, makeup, and how to look femme and pretty; and another auntie who taught me how to read tarot cards, listen to the ancestors, cast spells, and meet all of my spiritual needs. 

If you’ve been listening to me for a while, I know you know where I’m going with this. Whether you’re raising your child by yourself or surviving white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy, please know that I’m not asking you to be everything, everywhere, all at once for your child and meet both their physical and emotional needs 100% of the time. Rather, my invitation is for you to unlearn individualism and explore how the aunties (gender inclusive) might be able to show up for you in solidarity and support you in your efforts to meet your child where they’re at emotionally. Not having the bandwidth you need to show up for your child emotionally doesn’t mean that you’re flawed; the systems are not built to support you. Given how the systems might have kept you stuck in survival mode, you might have been overlearning doing, teaching, fixing, and managing your child…all of the prepare, protect, and power-over actions. At the same time, you might have been under-learning being-with and showing up for your child’s emotional needs to be seen and heard…all of the power-with actions. And now that we’ve named the barrier, let’s do something about it. 

And by “do something about it” I mean hold space and show up so your child feels safe and seen. Because that’s what really matters according to Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson’s book The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired. 

Safe means however intense their feelings might be, your child knows that they can share those feelings and process them with you. A simple “hey I got you. I’m here for you when you’re ready” can be so powerful. And it’s not always soft and warm, right? When JB decided to take charge, pick up and carry their 3-year-old Anuka who was under the weather to the car, they were providing physical safety. Then, the following day JB explained to Anuka why they had to take charge and provided her with emotional safety and reassurance. 

Seen means that you’re interested and invested in your child enough to see the unmet needs underneath their behaviors. You see their feelings, perceptions, and points of view underneath the behaviors that might be pushing your parenting buttons. When you power-over, your child might talk back, ignore you, shut down, people please, or push you away. Instead of labeling them disrespectful and punishing them, you might first wonder if there’s a bid for connection underneath these behaviors. Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman, clinical psychologists and researchers who have studied thousands of couples’ relationships for over 40 years define a bid for connection as one partner’s attempt to ask for attention, affirmation, and affection. Interestingly, they also found that married couples who stayed married after six years tended to notice their partners’ bids for attention 86 % of the time and meet each other where they were at emotionally. Couples that divorced by year six only noticed these bids for connection 33% of the time. So, noticing your child’s bid for connection or unmet needs underneath those behaviors that are pushing your parenting buttons can be a powerful way to make your child feel seen. Once your child feels seen and is a little more present with you, they’re in a much better headspace neurobiologically speaking to listen to you teach them about a more adaptive way to bid for connection next time. 

Powering-with with your child and showing up for them emotionally means that you respond intentionally to your child and in a timely manner. It doesn’t mean giving in to your child’s every demand and giving up on your personhood. To mother a child (gender inclusive), we don’t need to be a martyr -- contrary to what white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy condition us to believe. Your child might bid for a connection and your timely response could be “I heard you and I know you want my attention right now. But I need to finish making dinner for us. You can have snacks here and watch me cook or finish your coloring pages.” Or “I know you’re upset. I’m feeling that too. Right now you’re safe enough for me to hold my body, unclench my jaw, and take one full breath. Then we can go get your play dough together.”

Powering-with and showing up this way has a rhythm in the interaction between you and your child. It’s a back and forth or what the Center on Developing Child at Harvard University calls the serve and return. What’s important about this cued-in, attuned, serve and return interaction is, first, when your child feels seen it promotes the development of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Dr. Claudia Gold, a pediatrician and author, wrote quote “with a well-developed medial prefrontal cortex, a person can experience a sense of emotional balance. He can feel things strongly without being thrown into a state of chaos.” End quote. In other words, when your child feels seen, it promotes their brain development, specifically the part of the brain that supports their emotional regulation and resilience. Second, by being seen, children develop self-trust and self-esteem. They learn that “oh, these sensations in my body have names. I can name them and move through them. I have needs. My needs are real and valid.” They know that “Yes, I’m worthy of being known and loved by those I trust.” And as we discussed in Episode 27: Why Your Child’s Resilience Needs Your Parenting Mistakes, it’s not about getting it right 100 percent. In fact, studies show if you get it right 30% of the time and you repair and reconnection with your child 70%, you’re doing pretty well.  

Before we move on to talk about the third part of the power-with process which is -- replacing compliance with cooperation -- I’d love to take a moment to share another research with you. 

In the previous episode I mentioned that I had the honor of speaking about decolonized mental health at the 18th World Association for Infant Mental Health Congress in Dublin, Ireland. One research finding that I carried home with me that’s relevant to our power-with discussion is from Arietta Slade’s work at the Yale Child Study Center. In her keynote lecture, Slade shared that for children to feel seen their parents need to see their “real baby” instead of the version they want their baby to be. And what helps parents to see their real children or who they are right now is the parents’ capacities to notice their own inner experiences…their thoughts, feelings, and intentions. In my clinical work and community organizing over the past 15 years, I’ve seen that parents’ inner child wounds and internalized oppression wounds often disconnect them from noticing their own inner experiences and, as a result, seeing their actual children clearly. That’s why I’d love to invite you to work with me and a small cohort of liberation-minded families on building self-reflection and body-based skills to address your inner child wounds and internalized oppression wounds. The In-Out-N-Through® Program Fall cohort meets on Zoom for 7 Wednesday evenings from September 6th to October 18th.   

[CTA IN OUT N THROUGH] 

If you're a social justice curious and conscious parent who wants to stop performing parenting by white, colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal scripts so you can raise your child according to your own values, I'd love to invite you to join a community of like-minded families in the In-Out-N-Through® Program. An online 7-week, cohort-based social justice parenting and inner child re-parenting program.

Let’s write your own parenting playbook using child development science and social justice actions like solidarity, power-with, and accountability to guide your parenting decisions. So that you can practice social justice through your daily parenting while promoting your child's development at the same time.

And let’s re-parent your inner child too so you can intentionally respond to your child based on your values instead of automatically reacting based on your childhood wounds. So that you can heal your inner child wounds underneath your parenting triggers and do the healing work your ancestors couldn’t while raising your child with equity and liberation in mind.

If you’re interested in joining a community of decolonized, embodied, and intergenerational families please visit comebacktocare.com/learn for more information and registration. It's comebacktocare.com/learn.

Alright, back to the episode…

We’ve covered the first two parts of the power-with process. The first part is pausing to ask “is this fear/worry/stress adaptive in this moment?” The second part is meeting your child where they’re at emotionally and recognizing the unmet needs underneath their behaviors. Now the third part of the power-with process is switching out compliance for cooperation when it makes sense. 

Powering-with with your child to make them feel seen and heard is important. So is teaching them how to problem solve and navigate the world. But tension arises when you apply power-over where you want your child to comply and do what you said. Power-over often leads to power struggle. To minimize this power-struggle, let’s replace compliance with cooperation. 

Cooperation means co-creating solutions with your child. Remember Andrea and Leo? For Andrea to power-with with Leo through cooperation, Andrea first told Leo about her values and why she wanted them to clean their room. She talked to Leo about the lesson she wanted to teach and she asked Leo how she could work with them to make this chore a little more fun. To be honest with you, it took Andrea several tries. She was really passionate about her valid pressure to prepare and protect Leo. So she got impatient sometimes and reactive when Leo was being their sassy or strong willed teenager self. However, a week later, Leo told Andrea that they’ve been trying to put the dirty clothes in the hamper but it’s been hard to follow through. Then, they got distracted and forget to complete the chore. Here comes the power-with part. Once Andrea and Leo identified the issue together the two of them came up with a solution: Andrea and Leo would make a list of three tasks for Leo to do. These three tasks were usually, emptying the trash in the bathroom, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, and putting the game consoles away. Andrea and Leo found that when they make the list together on Saturday morning Leo can easily knock off these three tasks and head downstairs to eat breakfast with everyone as extra motivation. 

One specific practice I’d love to invite you to play with is the idea of leading with your values. Andrea shared with Leo why it was important for Leo to cultivate responsibilities. Once Leo understood their mom’s intention, it was easier for them to cooperate. By sharing your why or your values in ways that make sense to your child’s development, your child will deepen their sense of agency too. 

If your child is on the younger side, I got you covered. Parents of young children often share with me that it helps them to state their values anyway even though their children might not understand every word and gesture. Saying their values out loud is more for them than their children as it helps grounds their parenting in their values. And this sense of integrity and coherence feels really good to them. So my question to you is: how would you power-with with your child- your way- when you shift from compliance to cooperation? I trust that once you’re used to letting go a bit of control to arrive at the solution with your child, you’ll have no problem getting creative about these cooperative ideas. 

Closing

And that’s power-with! Instead of falling into the either-or binary trap, this episode invites to you explore your parenting fears and worries and ask when it’s adaptive to power-over in order to prepare and protect your child and when it’s adaptive to power-with in order to hold space for your child to feel safe, seen, heard, and loved. Because both needs are real and valid under capitalism. And by getting clear about your parenting fears and worries, you can ensure that your parenting is offering your child safety instead of surveillance. Safety- physical, emotional, and spiritual- is important for children to unfold and be their whole selves. Surveillance, on the other hand, is about shaping and monitoring children to be who white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy wants them to be.

Matt Hern, an organizer and scholar, wrote quote “at school children are always monitored, and schooled parents believe that they should similarly be constantly monitoring their offspring, in the name of safety… I have a deep suspicion of the equation that safety = surveillance. There is a threshold where our concerned eye becomes over-monitoring and disabling, an authoritarian presence shaping our kids’ lives.” End quote.

Thank you for exploring ways to power-with with your child…most of the time…with me. To work with me this September in the social justice parenting and inner child re-parenting online cohort, please visit comebacktocare.com/learn for more information and registration. 

Every link to the research studies, books, and extra resources mentioned in this episode along with the transcript is in the episode show notes for you at comebacktocare.com/podcast.

In solidarity and sass, until next time. Please take care.