The Power of Aware Parenting and Attachment Play
Parenthood is a journey filled with love, joy, and the inherent desire to provide the best for our children. Many parents are turning Aware Parenting, which emphasizes building a strong parent-child connection through understanding, empathy, and respectful communication. This is often innately different to what we as children received from our own parents and the previous generations from theres.
One vital aspect of this approach is Attachment Play—a practice that fosters secure attachments and promotes emotional well-being in children. In this blog post, we will delve into the concept of Aware Parenting and explore the significance of Attachment Play in nurturing a deep and resilient parent-child bond.
I always like to start with a little bit of a background of Aware Parenting, developed by Dr. Aletha Solter. Aware Parenting is a parenting philosophy centered around the idea that children thrive when their emotional needs are met with empathy and understanding. It encourages parents to be attuned to their child's emotions, provide a safe and nurturing environment, and promotes healthy communication and connection.
The core principles of Aware Parenting include the acknowledgment and acceptance of children's emotions, setting loving limits (word coined by Marion Rose PhD) with empathy, and resolving conflict through peaceful means.
What is the essence of Attachment Play?
Attachment play is a key component of Aware Parenting, focusing on building secure attachments and fostering emotional intelligence in children. It involves engaging in playful interactions with your child that are centered around connection, joy, and emotional attunement.
Through attachment play, parents create a safe and supportive environment where children can explore their emotions, build trust, and develop essential life skills.
Attachment play serves as a powerful tool for building trust between parents and children. By engaging in playful interactions, parents create a safe space where children feel seen, heard, and valued. This emotional safety enables children to express themselves authentically and develop a sense of security, knowing that their emotions and experiences are accepted and understood.
There are 9 types of Attachment Play that Aletha Solter has categorised to help parents play with their children in specific ways. These types of play support your child to release accumulated feelings, pent up stress, mini and major traumas.
The nine different types of play and some brief examples are:
1. Power reversal games: These games are used to help children release feelings around not having enough choice and independence, feelings of powerlessness. Eg. Pillow fights, knocking you down with a pillow and magic wand, turning you into different things can support your child to come back into balance.
2. Separation games: These can be really useful when your child goes through periods of separation anxiety. Peek-a-boo with a baby or hide and seek with older children are beautiful games we can play creating a separation and then a connection again. This teaches the brain through repetition that we are always coming back.
3. Nonsense games: These games are really useful when our child is going through a period of mastering a new skill or trying to build their independence and confidence. E.g. they might find dressing themselves very difficult, so you might put all your clothes on all wrong and ask them to help you. You might put their clothes on wrong and say “silly me! I can’t remember how to do it, can you help me?”
4. Non-directed child-centered play: This can also be known as “special time”. During this time you invite your child to play whatever game they would like. I suggest sitting back and observing until they invite you into the play. Some suggestions of games I have played with my girls barbies, painting, dancing lessons, lego. The key is to be completely involved and interested in their world, filling their cup with deep connection time with you.
5. Symbolic play: This type of play is really useful when our children are going through something big, such as playing doctors if they have recently been to see a doctor. I know when my daughter broke her arm she wanted to play doctors over and over again for many weeks. We used the doctors kit, she was the doctor and her sister, myself and all the toys were her on-going patients. I had many broken bones during those few weeks! It’s important to remember that our children understand their world through play, and like to play games over and over again until the brain has made sense of that situation. Symbolic play can be an incredibly supportive part of this process.
6. Regression games: These games are beautiful for supporting deeper connection and healing. Often these games are initiated by the child and them acting in ways that are younger than their age. A very relatable example is when a new sibling is born, often the older child will want to play babies. She might want to be cuddled like a baby, wrapped in a blanket and even lie in the babies cot. The most important part is not to feel concerned when they start acting this way, it can feel so empowering for your child to be loved and connected to you during this transition of a new sibling.
7. Contingency games: These are games where the adult behaviour mimics what the child is doing. A great example of this with older children is when they do certain dance moves, and you must copy them! They find this hilarious and may try to do some difficult moves to see if you can keep up. You can also find this type of play with babies, for example poking their tongue out at you and you poke your tongue back to them. Babies and children find this funny and enchanting, that they can control you, feeling powerful and connected with you.
8. Cooperative games: These can be useful games when we are finding that there is a lot of sibling rivalry or general disconnection amongst the family. These are games that have no one “winning” or being “the best” but rather, everyone working together towards an end goal. Examples of this are baking and puzzles.
9. Physical games: These types of games can be incredibly important to providing children with the deep connection through touch. When you play this way with your children you are teaching them about body safety, connectedness and belonging to the family unit. It also allows your child to learn about their body, what feels good and what doesn’t and that touching can bring in a deep sense of closeness. Some examples are seeking cuddles and closeness when they have experienced a fright, pillow fights to release feelings but also learn about how to play safely with others, we love to do a self-care Sunday, where we massage each other, turn on beautiful music, put face masks on and cuddle together afterwards. With babies we can sing nursery rhymes such as ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ while touching the different parts of your babies body.
Playful interactions in attachment play provide children with a healthy outlet for emotions and expression. Through play, children can explore a range of emotions, from excitement and joy to frustration and anger, in a safe and supported environment. This helps children develop emotional intelligence, learn to identify, and manage their feelings, and build resilience in the face of challenges.
Attachment play strengthens the parent-child bond by fostering deep connection and intimacy. When parents engage in playful interactions with their children, they create joyful shared experiences, laughter, and positive memories. This shared joy enhances the emotional connection and nurtures a sense of belonging and security within the parent-child bond.
This type of play also offers an opportunity for children to learn conflict resolution skills and empathy. Through play, children can practice problem-solving, negotiation, and cooperation, as well as learn to understand and empathize with others' perspectives and feelings. These skills lay the foundation for healthy relationships and effective communication later in life.
Attachment play encourages children to express their unique selves and explore their creativity. Through imaginative play, children can experiment with different roles, emotions, and scenarios, promoting self-discovery and building self-confidence. This creative outlet allows children to develop their imaginations and problem-solving abilities while experiencing the joy of uninhibited self-expression.
Aware Parenting, with its focus on empathy, understanding, and respectful communication, offers a nurturing approach to raising emotionally healthy and secure children. Attachment play, a vital aspect of this parenting philosophy, holding immense value in building secure attachments, promoting emotional intelligence, and nurturing the parent-child bond.
By engaging in purposeful and playful interactions with our children, we create an environment of trust, emotional safety, and joy, allowing them to thrive and develop into confident, compassionate little people.
Attachment Play can be challenging to implement because so many of us weren’t played with in this way. It takes time and practice, finding games that feel good for you and of course having the capacity to do the play.
I’d love to invite you to feel into what was written here today, is there a game you might feel willing to try and play? Or how can you support yourself to build your emotional availability to play more with your baby or child?
Attachment play is a powerful tool for creating a deeper connection to your child, with an opportunity for more laughter, joy and safety in parenting!