How To Become Your Child’s Safe Space
When we think of a safe space, many of us may think of a home, a place with four walls that resembles a fortress to protect us physically. But you, as a mother, are a safe space for your child, much more than you can imagine.
The best gift we have to offer our children is an invitation to rest in our care. This is not the kind of rest that comes from sleeping, but from a lasting invitation for contact and closeness, a sense of importance and comfort. As well as the sense of belonging and of being known by the people to whom a child is most attached to be a safe space for them.
Safe space for relational rest
Inviting a child to rest is about inspiring them to depend on us for their relational needs. As creatures of attachment, we long for connection and have to seek relationships in which we can root and nurture.
Taking a child to relational rest is to assure him that his hunger for connection will be satiated. It means that you can take our relationship for granted and that it is unbreakable through context and behavior.
Taking a child to rest means that he will not be compelled to search for an answer to the question, “Am I loved and cared for?” It means that we have become the answer to your greatest emotional hunger by assuring you that our care does not have an expiration date.
Why is relational rest important? When children rest, they grow. Just as arms and legs grow while sleeping, personality develops when a child has a correct relationship with their adults.
The brain is wired for attachment
The brain is wired for attachment and will seek need above all else. When these needs are met in a person, he will move away from the pursuit of attachment. It will move towards the development of a separate self through play, discovery, learning, and trial and error.
Rest matters because it frees our attention. When we don’t have to search for love, we can begin to discover who we are. The challenge is that we cannot grow if we are not rooted first in healthy relationships.
Healthy personality development is firmly ingrained and emerges from relational rest. As Gordon Neufeld states, “We liberate children not by making them work for our love, but by letting them rest in it.”
Ways to invite a child to rest and become their safe space
We cannot rest a child in our care, but we can work to create the conditions that foster this. So there are things you can do to give your child an invitation that they can’t refuse.
Let him know that he is valued and loved
You have to give him the feeling that he is valued and loved all the time. Maintaining a strong relationship means that you work to give him a sense of security in your relationship and to convey that it is lasting. If the relationship feels strained or weakened, you have to move to repair and protect it.
Caring for your relationship means making it safe for a child to depend on you and refraining from using separation-based discipline methods. The goal is to use the relationship to influence a child, not to control him.
When you understand that a child’s desire to obey, follow, assist, listen, and share the same values that you do comes from having a strong relationship, you will need to take the initiative to preserve and protect it.
Take the alpha role in your child’s life
Assuming an alpha role means accepting, in a vulnerable way, your position as a leader and taking responsibility for caring for a child. See it as a job to ensure your little one has a secure base at home to grow and stay safe. The goal is to preserve your dignity when your behavior is difficult.
Claiming an alpha role in a child’s life is to act as his cardinal point and help him understand the world around him. It means that you not only have to meet their demands, but you take the initiative to respond to their needs.
You need to take the lead in raising your children and comfort them when they are faced with all the things that they cannot change. It means that sometimes you have to help them accept the futilities that are a part of life, such as not having cookies for breakfast or the limits imposed on the use of technology.
Ultimately, to invite a child to rest in our care, we need to represent a strong alpha presence so that they feel we are in charge and can handle whatever comes our way.
From their tantrums to resistance to emotional outbursts, there is a sense that we are holding them back and will find a way through the impasse . Claiming an alpha position in a child’s life is not about having all the answers, but about communicating, because we are the answer.
