Pandemic Parenting: Oppositional Movement is Key
Parents and caregivers—are you trying to manage children who seem insatiable?
Children hunger for attention, snacks, screens, play and then more attention. How does one help their child to find what they are truly hungry for from moment to moment—love and comfort, belly hunger, video game limits, peer connection, more parent/caregiver contact?
When our energy flows freely through our bodies we easily feel when there is hunger and fullness or thirst and an urge to rest. We feel the rise of day-to-day aliveness, which invites us to play with possibilities and to create interesting discoveries. But how do we regulate the flow of energy so we can both reach for what we want and can also wait our turn when we haven’t yet gotten what we want?
According to studies of child psychologist Judith Kestenberg and colleagues, babies have two rhythms they develop alternately over time—Indulging Rhythms and Fighting Rhythms.
The Indulging Rhythms tend to ‘match’ with the caregivers. A kid might match with a parent when helping with dinner prep and snuggling in for a hug.
The Fighting Rhythms tend to ‘mismatch.’ Mismatching occurs when a child argues in favor of a different ordering of the evening's activities.
The Fighting Rhythms with their mismatching interactions can confuse and concern parents: When my kid Fights the system, should I “whip ‘em into shape?” When my kids play internet games during virtual learning, should I punish them?
Instead of viewing the matching as “good behavior” and the mismatching as “bad behavior," is there a way to appreciate both? The matching experiences might seem like the easy and desirable parts of parenting. But, when the battles begin (over food, screens or sibling spats), might parents learn to appreciate the child’s urges?
The partner practices in Chi for Two® - The Energetic Dance of Healthy Relationship help parents appreciate and better contain kids’ urges to wrestle.
These Fighting rhythms help us to find our unique selves within our social systems. We yoke our spirit with our corporeal bodies as we form in the womb. We "dance" with the mothering-figures who hold us as we wrestle ourselves into being. As we push and wrestle and grow, we are exploring preference, pleasure and possibly power—we are finding our appetite for life, finding what individuates us from our caregivers!
Oppositional moves are the key to finding our unique selves. Doing oppositional moves within a boundaried but loving parent/child relationship, we begin to feel our body’s ability to manage the ups and downs of living. Chi for Two offers these trauma-sensitive, body-based partner practices to help support and hone the caregiver/child relationship: When I use the Star energy in my core to Push into what is Not-Me, I find Me!
Mental health counselor and Chi for Two embodiment coach Caroline Gebhardt offers M-Bodied: Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine, bringing Chi for Two® partner practices to families who struggle with disordered eating. Chi for Two® is polyvagal-informed, trauma-sensitive and attachment-based coaching.
Chi for Two creator Dee Wagner has worked with couples and families since 1993. She writes and presents on nervous system science, and trains helping professionals to better understand the energetic dance of healthy relationship.