Category: Assessing Parenting

Children’s Response to Problematic Parenting

In “parental alienation,” the proposal put forward by the child’s symptomatic rejection of a parent is that the parenting practices of the targeted-rejected parent are so problematic that they reasonably account for the child’s rejection of a relationship with the targeted parent. This allegation then invites an assessment of the parenting practices of the targeted-rejected parent to determine if the parenting of the targeted parent is sufficiently problematic as to account for the child’s symptomatic rejection of a relationship with this parent.

The question then emerges as to the features of problematic parenting that produce a child’s rejection of a parent.

It is extremely rare for a child to reject a parent.  This is because of a specific primary motivational system in the brain called the “attachment system.”

The attachment system is a neuro-biologically embedded primary motivational system in the brain that compels children to form strong affectional bonds to their parents. As a primary motivational system, the attachment system is analogous to other primary motivational systems for hunger and reproduction in the obligating power of its motivational directives.

The attachment system developed as a primary motivational system across millions of years of evolution as a direct consequence of the selective predation of children.  Predators target the old, the weak, and the young.  Children are prey animals.

Children who formed strong attachment bonds to parents were able to receive parental protection from predators, so that genes promoting the formation of strong child attachment bonds to parents were passed on in the collective gene pool.

Whereas children who formed weak, or even moderate attachment bonds to parents were less likely to receive parental protection from predators (and from other environmental dangers) and so these children were differentially more likely to fall prey to predators (and other dangers), thereby selectively removing genes for weak or even moderate child bonding to parents from the collective gene pool.

Over millions of years of evolution involving the selective predation of children, a very powerful and resilient primary motivational system developed that strongly promotes children’s emotional and psychological bonding to parents.

Because the attachment system confers significant survival advantage to children it is a very strong and resilient system that does not dysfunction easily.  It takes SEVERELY problematic parenting to terminate the attachment bonding motivation of children.

For example, the response of children to bad, or even abusive parenting is to develop an “insecure attachment” because the inadequate parental care of the bad and abusive parent exposes the child to potential predation (and other environmental dangers), so that the child becomes MORE motivated to form an attachment bond to the parent.

The response of children to bad parenting is to be MORE strongly motivated to seek attachment bonding with the abusive parent.

I want to be entirely clear on this, because this is how the authentic child brain works, the response of children to bad parenting is to be MORE strongly motivated to seek attachment bonding with the abusive parent.

While adults may sever adult relationships in response to poor treatment by the other person (such as in divorce), children DO NOT sever their relationship with a parent because of poor parenting.  In fact, bad and abusive parenting produces an INSECURE attachment that MORE STRONGLY motivates children toward bonding to the bad and abusive parent.

So while a husband or wife may divorce their spouse for bad treatment during the marriage, exactly the opposite is true for children’s relationships with their parents.

While on the surface this may seem counter-intuitive and we would expect children exposed to abusive parenting to seek to sever the attachment bonds to the abusive parent, but it’s actually the reverse.  No matter how problematic the parenting of the bad parent may be, the bad parenting is still better than even the best predator.

Children who rejected a relationship with a bad parent were more likely to die from neglect, starvation, predation, or environmental dangers than children who responded to the bad parenting by increasing their efforts to form an attached relationship bond to the bad parent.  Children who become MORE motivated to bond to the bad parent survive.  Children who become less motivated to bond to the bad parent don’t.

“All seven of these MM monkeys [i.e., Motherless Monkeys who were raised without mothers] were totally inadequate mothers… Initially, the MM monkeys tended to ignore or withdraw from their babies even when the infants were disengaged and screaming… Later the motherless monkeys ignored, rejected, and were physically abusive to their infants…A surprising phenomena was the universally persisting attempts by the infants to attach to the mother’s body regardless of neglect or physical punishment. When the infants failed to attach to the ventral surface of the mother, they would cling to the dorsal surface and attempt to move to the mother’s ventral surface.” (Seay, Alexander, Harlow, 1964, p. 353)

Seay, B. Alexander, B.K., and Harlow, H.F. (1964). Maternal behavior of socially deprived rhesus monkeys. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 69, 345-354

---

“The paradoxical finding that the more punishment a juvenile receives the stronger becomes its attachment to the punishing figure, very difficult to explain in any other theory, is compatible with the view that the function of attachment behavior is protection from predators.” (Bowlby, 1969, 226-227)

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss. Attachment, Vol. 1. NY: Basic Books.

---

“A potential evolutionary explanation suggests selection pressures supported infants that remained attached because it increased the probability of survival.  From an adaptive point of view, perhaps it is better for an altricial animal to remain attached to an abusive caregiver than receive no care. (Raineki, Moriceau, Sullivan, 2010, p. 1143)

Raineki, C., Moriceau, S., Sullivan, R.M. (2010). Developing a neurobehavioral animal model of infant attachment to an abusive caregiver. Biological Psychiatry, 67, 1137-1145.

While these survival features may not be relevant in a parent-child relationship that occurs today, in the 21^st Century, the advances in our civilization over the past several thousand years are not relevant to the functioning of the attachment system that evolved across a span of millions of years and that is neuro-biologically embedded into the brain as a primary motivational system.

Problematic and abusive parenting produces an INSECURE ATTACHMENT that MORE STRONGLY motivates the child to seek attachment bonding to the abusive parent.

John Bowlby, who first identified and described the attachment system, referred to the attachment system as a “goal corrected” motivational system, meaning that in response to problematic parenting the attachment system maintains its goal of forming an attached relationship bond with the parent, so that the child’s behaviors then become distorted in an effort to achieve this goal to the greatest extent possible in the context of the problematic parenting.

Avoidance of Aversive Parenting

Problematic parenting may lead children to avoid the painful parenting of the problematic parent, but it does not result in a termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward the parent. The attachment system of the child CONTINUES to motivate the child to want to form an attached parent-child bond, but the problematic parenting prevents the formation of this attached bond

The frustrated motivation of the child to form an affectional attachment bond with the parent increases the child’s distress at not being able to form an attachment bond with the parent, and this increased distress creates the child’s “protest behavior” – see Parenting and Protest Behavior – to elicit the involvement of the parent.

In authentic parent-child conflict created by problematic parenting, the child’s “protest behavior” emerges from a frustrated effort to FORM a parent-child bond, it is NOT from a desire to SEVER the parent-child bond.

Change the problematic parenting that acts as a barrier to the formation of the affectional parent-child bond, and the protest behavior that is being caused by the child’s distress at not being able to form an affectional parent-child relationship goes away. 

That’s called “therapy.”

Resolve the features of the problematic parenting, and the child’s CONTINUING attachment bonding motivation will allow the formation of an affectionally attached parent-child relationship.

Problematic parenting may produce an avoidance response in the child, but NOT a termination of the attachment bonding motivation itself.

The attachment system is a primary motivational system, just like the hunger system.  When we don’t eat, we experience the distress of hunger.  But just because we are experiencing distress caused by not eating, that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to eat.  In fact, we want to eat even MORE when we’re hungry.

When the child’s desire for affectional attachment bonding with a parent is unfulfilled, the child experiences emotional distress (and so emits protest behavior).  But just because the child is experiencing distress and emitting protest behavior, that doesn’t mean that the fundamental motivational system for attachment bonding isn’t still active.  In fact, it’s even MORE active.

Just because we’re experiencing the distress of being hungry doesn’t mean that we don’t want to eat, and in an authentic parent-child relationship just because the child is experiencing distress at an unfulfilled attachment bond with the parent doesn’t mean that the child doesn’t want an attachment bond with the parent.

A child desire to terminate the child’s relationship with a parent is extremely unusual and is not at all a normal response to problematic parenting.

The primary motivational system still remains active even if we are in distress at our inability to satisfy the motivational press.

Parent-Child Conflict

Parent-child conflict is normal and developmentally healthy (see, Parenting and Protest Behavior). 

In some cases, child vulnerabilities or problematic parenting practices may elevate the severity of parent-child conflicts into unhealthy levels of excessive and extreme child displays of protest behavior.

Under no circumstances, however, is parent-child conflict ever lethal to the parent-child relationship, meaning that in no circumstances does parent-child conflict result in the termination of the child’s attachment motivations toward the parent.  No matter how bad the parent is, a bad parent is still far better than the predator.

Exceptions:

There are several exceptions, however, that CAN transmute parent-child conflict into a lethal strain that motivates the child to terminate the child’s relationship with the parent.  These exceptions are what should be assessed for in evaluating the parenting of the targeted parent that could be producing a termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations.

• Sexual abuse/incest

Parental sexual abuse of the child immediately and completely terminates the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward that parent.

The complete termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivation toward a parent is a very characteristic and singularly unique feature of the attachment system in response to incest.

The presence in “parental alienation” of the child’s motivated desire to entirely terminate a relationship with a parent, which is a singularly distinctive feature of the attachment system’s response to incest, suggests the possible presence of sexual abuse “source code” in the “files” of the attachment system that is being trans-generationally transmitted through distorted parenting practices from the original entry of the sexual abuse into the family system a generation or two prior to the current “parental alienation” iteration of the attachment system distortions.

• Chronic parental violence expressed in physical child abuse

Years of excessive parental violence as expressed though physical abuse of the child, such as beatings with fists, belts, switches, or electrical cords, can sometimes result in the termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward the violent parent.

When it occurs, the termination of children’s attachment bonding motivations toward a parent because of chronic parental violence toward the child tends to occur during early or middle adolescence (between the ages of 12-16).

• Chronic parental violence expressed in spousal domestic abuse

Years of excessive parental violence as expressed though physical spousal abuse can sometimes result in the termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward the violent parent.  In other cases, the child may develop an identification with the aggressor in which the child joins in the abuse directed toward the victimized parent/spouse.

When it occurs, the termination of children’s attachment bonding motivations toward a parent because of the chronic domestic violence directed by this parent toward the child’s other parent tends to occur during early or middle adolescence (between the ages of 12-16), at which time the child may stand up to the violent parent in an effort to protect the victimized parent.

• Chronic parental alcoholism or substance abuse addiction

Most often, chronic parental alcoholism or substance abuse addiction creates a role-reversal parentification of the child into a caretaking role relative to the inadequate and addicted parent.  In some cases, after years of a dysfunctional parent-child relationship created by the alcoholic or substance addicted parent, the child may seek to terminate the parent-child relationship with the addicted parent.

When the child terminates the attached relationship with an addicted parent, the attachment bonding motivation remains active but is severed as a product of the parent’s continuing addiction-related dysfunctions, so that should the parent ever enter recovery and become non-addicted, the child’s attachment bonding motivation can become reactivated toward reconciliation in seeking and forming a parent-child bond.

When it occurs, the child’s efforts to terminate the parent-child relationship with an alcoholic or substance addicted parent tends to occur during the child’s early adulthood (between the ages 18-30).

Attachment-Based “Parental Alienation”

The only other family dynamic that can produce a lethal strain of parent-child conflict in which the child seeks to entirely terminate the child’s relationship with a parent occurs in a cross-generational parent-child coalition of the child with a narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

The addition of parental narcissistic/(borderline) psychopathology to a cross-generational parent-child coalition against the other parent can transmute the child’s conflicts with the other parent into a particularly malignant and virulent form of parent-child conflict in which the child seeks to entirely terminate the child’s relationship with the targeted parent.

The termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward a normal-range and affectionally available parent as a result of a cross-generational parent-child coalition of the child with a narcissistic/(borderline) parent (i.e., attachment-based “parental alienation”) will be evident in a specific set of three characteristic and definitive diagnostic indicators in the child’s symptom display (see post, Diagnostic Indicators and Associated Clinical Signs).

In none of the other lethal strains of parent-child conflict (i.e., incest, chronic physical child abuse, chronic domestic violence, chronic parental alcoholism or substance addiction) will the child’s symptoms in seeking a child-initiated cutoff in the parent-child relationship evidence the specific set of three characteristic and definitive diagnostic indicators associated with an attachment-based model of “parental alienation.”

Assessment of Parenting

1.)  Targeted Parent:  If the child’s symptoms are evidencing a motivated desire from the child to terminate the child’s relationship with a parent, then the parenting behavior of the targeted parent should be assessed for the presence of the severely dysfunctional parenting that can sometimes result in the termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward a parent,

• Incest
• Chronic physical abuse of the child (years)
• Chronic domestic violence (years)
• Chronic alcoholism or substance addiction (years)

The presence of these parenting behaviors would indicate pathogenic parenting by the targeted-rejected parent as the causal agent in the termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward this parent.

2.)  Allied Parent: If the child’s symptoms are evidencing a motivated desire from the child to terminate the child’s relationship with a parent, then the parenting behavior of the supposedly allied and “favored” parent should be assessed for the presence of the three characteristic and definitive diagnostic indicators in the child’s symptom display of the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through a cross-generational coalition of the child with a narcissistic/(borderline) parent (i.e. attachment-based “parental alienation”),

• Attachment System Distortion: The child seeks to terminate the child’s relationship with a normal-range and affectionally available parent.

• Personality Disorder Symptoms: The child’s symptoms evidence a specific set of five narcissistic and borderline personality traits.

• Delusional Belief: The child’s symptoms evidence an intransigently held fixed and false belief in the supposedly (abusive) parental inadequacy of the targeted-rejected parent.

The presence of this specific set of child symptoms would represent definitive diagnostic evidence for pathogenic parenting by the allied and supposedly “favored” parent as the causal agent for the termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward the targeted-rejected parent.

3.)  Avoidance of Aversive Parenting: If the child is seeking to avoid aversive parenting by a parent, then the child’s attachment system remains active so that altering the aversive parenting practices of the parent that are creating the child’s avoidance of this parent will allow the formation of an affectionally bonded parent-child relationship.

If the child’s complaints regarding the problematic parenting behavior of the targeted-rejected parent are credible and confirmed through clinical interviews and observation, such as,

• Overly intrusive, over-anxious parenting
• Overly sad, depressed, and dependent parenting
• Overly angry, hostile, critical, and punitive parenting
• Overly controlling parenting relative to adolescent development

Then the problematic parenting practices should be specifically identified and therapy to change the identified problematic parenting practices should be initiated. Changes made in the parenting responses provided to the child will produce changes to the child’s behavior. 

If changes to the parenting behavior of the targeted parent do not produce corresponding changes in the child’s behavior, then the diagnosis of the parent-child relationship problems as representing the child’s efforts to avoid aversive parenting practices is in error (i.e., the child’s responses to the targeted parent are not under the “stimulus control” of the parent’s behavior, suggesting the presence of a cross-generational coalition of the child with the allied and supposedly “favored” parent against the other parent.

Note on Normal-Range Parenting:

There is wide variability in normal-range parenting, from lax and permissive parenting to more structured and firm parenting. Both ends of the parenting continuum can be normal-range and both approaches to parenting can produce healthy child development.

Parents have the fundamental right to establish family values through their approach to parenting. Some parents will value the improved relationship features available from parenting along the more lax and permissive spectrum of parenting practices, while other parents will value the improved child maturation of personal responsibility available from parenting along the more structured and firm end of the parenting continuum.

The decisions regarding the establishment of family values through parenting practices is the legitimate right of parents and is embedded within cultural values.

Broad latitude should be granted to parents in establishing family values through their parenting with their children.

It is only when parenting reaches the extremes on either end of the spectrum, either excessively lax and permissive parenting so as to represent child neglect, or excessively structured and firm parenting so as to represent emotional or physical child abuse, should broader societal standards for appropriate parenting be applied.

If we place parenting behavior along a continuum from 1 to 100, with lax and permissive parenting at the lower end of the spectrum and structured and firm parenting at the higher end, then normal-range parenting would fall between 20 and 80 on this scale.

Each style of parenting has positive and negative features, so that professional psychology tends to recommend parenting that falls in the mid-range spectrum (been 40 and 60 on a 100 point scale) that employs a balance of both reasonable parent-child dialogue and reasonable parent-imposed structure.

The relative balance of these two features, parent-child dialogue and parentally imposed structure, changes with the child’s increasing maturation, so that the amount of structure we provide to younger children, such as with a 5 or 6 year old child, is greater than the parental structure we would apply for older children, such as with a 15 or 16 year old adolescent who is preparing for entry into young adulthood.

As parenting practices move toward the more prominent use of a lax and permissive parenting approach over a structured and firm parenting style (20-40 on the 100 point scale), or toward the more prominent use of a structured and firm parenting style over a lax and permissive approach (60-80 on the 100 point scale) more problematic family issues can begin to emerge based on the parenting style employed, yet parenting from these more distinctively pronounced frameworks nevertheless remains normal-range and within the parental rights and legitimate prerogatives of the parent.

Broad latitude should be granted to parents in the establishment of values within their families.

Except in cases of prominent parental neglect or abuse, parents have a legitimate right to establish family values through their parenting practices, and it is up to children to adjust to parental values and expectations. Adjusting to parental rules, values, and expectations is an important part of child maturational development.  As long as the parenting practices are broadly normal-range (i.e., between 20 and 80 on a 100 point scale), then the rights and legitimate prerogatives of the parent should be respected and supported, and it is up to the child to adjust and adapt to the parenting approach.

If desired, therapeutic dialogue with the parent can be engaged regarding possible parenting approaches within the mid-range of the parenting spectrum that use a balanced blend of reasonable dialogue and reasonable structure, but such therapeutic dialogue should not undermine the legitimate parental right and the legitimate authority of the parent to establish family values that are consistent with the parent’s values as long as the parenting practices employed are broadly normal-range.

Healthy child development REQUIRES that the child adjust and adapt to imposed restrictions on the “degrees of freedom” available to the child that “constrain their children’s behavior in a way that promotes transitions to more highly organized, complex phases of organization.” (Cherkes-Julkowski & Mitlina, 1999, p. 7; see Parenting and Protest Behavior).  As long as parenting practices are broadly normal-range, healthy child development requires that the child adjust and adapt to the values of the parent as expressed in the parenting practices.

Reasonable parent-child dialogue that provides some restrictions on the child’s developing brain systems “while at the same time allowing enough degrees of freedom for the child to self-organize according to her or his own periodicities” (Cherkes-Julkowski & Mitlina, 1999, p. 14; see Parenting and Protest Behavior) can be encouraged, it nevertheless remains centrally important to healthy child development to support the legitimate rights, authority, and leadership of the parent in determining and establishing family values through the choice of parental responses and parenting practices.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857

References

Cherkes-Julkowski, M. and Mitlina, N. (1999). Self-Organization of mother-child instructional dyads and latter attention. Journal of Learning Disability, 32(1), 6-21.

Preface

Let me begin this post by acknowledging that it is technical.  I need the material described in this post as a foundation for later discussion of parenting.

---

The child’s symptomatic rejection of a relationship with a parent inherently accuses the targeted-rejected parent of poor parenting practices, which then requires that we assess the parenting practices of the targeted parent to determine if they represent normal-range parenting practices or whether the parenting of the targeted-rejected parent is sufficiently problematic as to account for the child’s rejection of a relationship with this parent.

Yet by what criteria do we assess parenting?  In my next series of blog posts I plan to address this issue.

My professional background is in ADHD and parent-child conflicts generally, not in “parental alienation.” In addition, I am a bit of an odd-bird professionally because I have a secondary expertise in early childhood mental health (ages 0-5).  Acquiring this expertise in early childhood mental health required that I develop a professional-level understanding for the various brain systems and how they develop, since brain systems are coming online all over the place in early childhood.

To work professionally in early childhood requires a fairly sophisticated understanding for how the brain works, and this foundational understanding for how the brain works has profound implications regarding our approach to parenting and parent-child conflict generally.

In order for me to address the issue of parenting, I need to first lay some foundational groundwork in the current scientific evidence regarding parenting and brain development during childhood that I can then refer to in my future discussions regarding the criteria by which we can assess parenting.

This blog post lays one of those foundational bricks regarding the scientific evidence concerning parenting and the neuro-development of the brain during childhood that I will need in future discussions of assessing parenting.

Parent-Child Conflict is Developmentally Normal, Healthy, and Necessary

Context: Understanding Child Development

Parent-child conflict is both normal and developmentally healthy. It is only when there are distortions in how parent-child conflict is addressed that the developmental consequences of parent-child conflict elevates to problematic levels.

The issue is NOT that parent-child conflict occurs, parent-child conflict is SUPPOSED to occur, the issue is how we respond to it.

To understand the developmental origins of normal range parent child-conflict requires an understanding for the context for how the brain develops during childhood.

We Build What We Use

The brain develops based on the principle of “we build what we use.” Whenever we use a brain system or pathway, that system or pathway becomes stronger, more sensitive, and more efficient.

The technical term for this process is called “canalization,” like building canals or channels in the brain, only these are not actually physical channels in the brain, but instead are chemical “channels,” chemical “grooves” in the brain that are created by structural changes in the molecules along the used pathway that make it more likely for that set of neurons, for that set of brain cells, to fire in that pattern again in the future. The technical term for these use-dependent chemical changes is “long-term potentiation.”

Brain cells that are used together also grow additional interconnections, called synapses, along the pathway that has been used in a process called “synaptogenesis.” This increase in the number of brain connections along used pathways makes it more likely that the used pathway will fire in that same pattern in the future.

Key Construct: We build what we use

The renowned neuroscientist, Donald Hebb (1949), referred to this as “neurons that fire together, wire together.”

The Brain is the Cause

Behavior is a symptom. The brain is the cause.

The organized and integrated functioning of the various brain systems produces organized and integrated behavior. Organized and integrated behavior is socially pleasant and cooperative.

When the integrated functioning of brain systems becomes disorganized and dysregulated for whatever reason, such as when emotions become too intense or too painful, or when there is a conflict between differing motivational goals, then this produces disorganized and dysregulated behavior.

Disorganized and dysregulated behavior is referred to as “protest behavior” and can be reflected in children becoming defiant and uncooperative, evidencing behavior that is too rigid and inflexible or that is too fluid and disorganized, and in emotional expressions that are too extreme such as angry tantrums in response to frustration.  All of these “protest behaviors” reflect disorganized and dysregulated behavior that is the product of disorganization and dysregulation in the functioning of the underlying brain systems.

Key Construct: A disorganized and dysregulated brain produces disorganized and dsyregulated behavior.

Key Construct: Disorganized and dsyregulated behavior is called “protest behavior”

Protest behavior is annoying to the parent, who then wants to make the child’s protest behavior stop.

In this way, the child’s protest behavior elicits the involvement of the parent who is motivated (i.e., annoyed by the protest behavior) to help the child regain an organized and well-regulated state (i.e., to make the protest behavior stop).

For mental health professionals:

Protest behavior is “designed” by nature to elicit the involvement of a more mature nervous system (i.e., the parent) who then mediates the transition of the child from a disorganized-dysregulated state back into an organized and well regulated state.

There are a variety of ways of transitioning the child back into an organized and well-regulated state. Essentially these approaches involve the use of either discipline or guidance strategies.

Discipline uses coercive strategies involving punishment to activate the child’s fear system and so induce submissive behavior in the child. The submissive override available through the activation of the fear system organizes the child’s brain networks into a submissive state and so eliminates the protest behavior that was emerging from a disorganized and dysregulated brain state.

Guidance strategies use social negotiation strategies to reorganize and re-regulate brain systems. Authority based guidance strategies are social communications of parental authority that trigger child cooperation with the socially expressed authority of the parent. This social communication of parental authority is predicated on prior (and possibly current) parental use of discipline strategies. The difference is that the communication of authority within a guidance-based approach is sufficient to engage the child’s cooperation without the need for a threatened application of punishment (i.e., the activation of the fear system override); the social communication of authority is sufficient to enlist social cooperation.

Guidance-based strategies also include social negotiation in which reasonable parent-child dialogue is engaged to encourage the child’s socially responsible communication of distress and the child’s consideration of the social and environmental context, in which a mutual goal can be achieved of meeting the child’s needs within the context of social and environmental restrictions.

A disorganized-dysregulated brain produces disorganized-dysregulated behavior (i.e., protest behavior) that elicits the involvement of the parent (because protest behavior is annoying and the parent wants to make it stop). The involved parent then uses discipline and guidance-based strategies to transition the child back into an organized and regulated brain state (i.e., protest behavior stops).

Now this is important to understand…

Through this process of the parent’s mediation of the child’s state transition from a disorganized-dysregulated state to an organized and regulated state, ALL OF THE BRAIN NETWORKS that were used as part of this state transition from a disorganized-dysregulated state to an organized and regulated state become stronger, more sensitive, and more efficient as a result of USE-DEPENDENT processes (i.e.. long-term potentiation and synaptogenesis).

In the scientific literature, the parent’s mediation of the child’s state transition from a disorganized-dysregulated state to an organized and regulated state is called “scaffolding.”

The parent “scaffolds” the child’s transition from a disorganized-dysregulated state to an organized and regulated state, and in doing so BUILDS the neural pathways in the child’s brain for making this transition. We build what we use.

Do this once, do this twice, do this five thousand times, and eventually the pathway is grooved in the child’s brain (i.e., “canalized”) for making this transition, so that the next time the child’s brain begins to enter this type of disorganized and dsyregulated brain state, the child can slip back into an organized and regulated brain state on his or her own without the parent’s active involvement, because the parent has BUILT the transition networks for this phase-state transition.

The capacity for the child to make this phase-state transition from a disorganized-dysregulated brain state (emitting disorganized-dysregulated behavior; i.e., protest behavior) back into an organized and regulated state (emitting organized and regulated behavior; i.e., socially calm and cooperative behavior) as a result of prior scaffolding of the neuro-development of this transition network is called the development of the child’s capacity for “self-regulation.”

The capacity for child “self-regulation” is initially mediated by the “scaffolding” support of the parent, whose involvement is elicited by the child’s “protest behavior” (i.e., disorganized-dysregulated behavior that is the product of a disorganized and dsyregulated brain state in response to a developmental challenge that the child cannot independently master).

Important Points:

1.)  Children are supposed to be annoying.

When a child is faced with a developmental challenge that he or she cannot independently master, the effective integration of the underlying brain systems begins to become disorganized and dsysregulated (such as from too intense or too painful an emotional state, or from conflicts in motivational goals). As the effective integration of the brain begins to break down into a disorganized and dsyregulated state, the child begins to display disorganized and dsyregulated behavior (i.e., “protest behavior”) as a consequence of the underlying disorganized and dsyregulated brain state.

The protest behavior is “designed” to elicit the involvement of the parent who then scaffolds the child’s transition back into an organized and regulated brain state (and organized and regulated behavior) through the well-modulated use of discipline and guidance strategies. In doing this, the parent builds the networks in the child’s brain (through use-dependent neural processes) for managing the developmental challenge that the child initially faced and that was threatening the collapse of the organized and integrated functioning of the child’s brain systems.

That’s EXACTLY how things are SUPPOSED to work.

The child’s protest behavior is not a “problem” – we only perceive it to be a “problem” because we find protest behavior annoying. But protest behavior is supposed to be annoying in order to elicit our involvement.

The child, or more accurately, the child’s brain, is doing EXACTLY what it is supposed to be doing. A disorganized and dsyregulated brain produces disorganized and dsyregulated behavior to elicit the involvement of a more mature nervous system to help re-regulate the brain and in the process of re-regulation to BUILD through use-dependent processes of “canalization” the neural capacity to manage the developmental challenge.

These developmentally vital relationship exchanges are called “breech-and-repair” sequences.

2.)  The issue is not that children are annoying, of course they’re annoying, they’re supposed to annoy us whenever they are having trouble and need our help.  The issue is not that children’s protest behavior is annoying, the issue is how do we respond to their protest behavior?

That becomes the central question of parenting.

Parent-child conflict is normal and natural.  Minor parent-child “breech-and-repair” sequences are developmentally essential for the healthy maturation of the child’s brain systems. It is what is SUPPOSED to occur.

Parenting involves an ongoing dance of consolidating the relationship through affectionate bonding, followed by minor “breech-and-repair” sequences of helping the child navigate developmentally challenging situations.

Vygotsky called these developmental challenges the “zone of proximal development”

Kohut called the normal-range breech-and-repair sequences providing the child with “optimal frustration” that builds the child’s “self-structure.”

3.)  Protest behavior is neuro-biologically “designed” to elicit the parent’s involvement.

Protest behavior (i.e., angry-oppositional behavior, inflexible-defiant behavior, angry tantrums, fearful-timid behavior, etc.) is an “attachment behavior” designed to elicit GREATER parental involvement. That’s how the brain works.

Protest behavior is NEVER a “detachment behavior” designed to DECREASE parental involvement. That is NOT how the brain works.

A disorganized brain creates disorganized behavior (i.e., protest behavior) that elicits greater parental involvement in order to mediate (“scaffold”) the brain’s transition back into an organized and regulated state, and thereby build all of the brain networks associated with this phase-state transition from a disorganized-dysregulated state to an organized and regulated state.

A Complex Self-Organizing System

I’m going to close this post with a somewhat technical construct that I need to establish relative to criteria for evaluating parenting.  Placing restrictions on children that force the child to accommodate to the restriction is developmentally vital for the healthy maturation of brain systems.  In addition, these imposed restrictions must be well-modulated to the child’s own rhythms and “periodicities.”

The brain is a complex self-organizing system.  As such, its maturation benefits from some external restrictions (challenges) being placed upon its “degrees of freedom” so that in accommodating to these restrictions the integrated functioning of the various brain systems will be forced to organize their integration at a higher maturational level. 

If no restrictions are placed on the degrees of freedom afforded to the developing brain then there is little impetus for it to develop into a higher organizational level, and the elaboration and integration of its brain systems remains flaccid and immature,

See Vygotsky’s construct of “zone of proximal development”

At the same time, if these imposed restrictions on the degrees of freedom afforded to the brain’s functioning are too rigid and inflexibly applied, then the organized functioning of the brain will collapse into chaos.

The restrictions placed on the integrated functioning of the developing brain of the child must be well-modulated and responsive to the child’s own rhythms and “periodicities.”

“A controlling parameter effectively limits the degrees of freedom within the system and thus constrains the system to assemble itself in more stable and productive ways. Mothers/instructors can act as communication partners/control parameters who constrain their children’s behavior in a way that promotes transitions to more highly organized, complex phases of organization.” (Cherkes-Julkowski & Mitlina, 1999, p. 7)

“Constraints must be well modulated. Strong constraints could infuse excessive amounts of energy, causing extreme perturbation, wildly chaotic activity, and a resultant rapid fall to a less organized, more entropic state. On the other hand, constraints that are too weak may provide little impetus for higher order development (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1989; Schmidt et al., 1990).” (Cherkes-Julkowski & Mitlina, 1999, p. 7)

“Well developing dyads move together as intentions move in a more gradual progression back and forth between the instructional intention and the child’s intention.” (Cherkes-Julkowski & Mitlina, 1999, p. 13-14)

“Effective instruction would begin with a goal not too disparate from the child’s and pursue it flexibly, with ample acknowledgment of the child’s intention. This is tantamount to providing weak constraint, one that provides some reduction of response parameters while at the same time allowing enough degrees of freedom for the child to self-organize according to her or his own periodicities.” (Cherkes-Julkowski & Mitlina, 1999, p. 14)

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857

References

Cherkes-Julkowski, M. and Mitlina, N. (1999). Self-Organization of mother-child instructional dyads and latter attention. Journal of Learning Disability, 32(1), 6-21.

Brain Development References

Hebb, D.O. (1949). The organization of behavior. New York: Wiley & Sons

LeDoux, J. (2002). Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. London: Penguin Books.

Perry, B. D., Pollard, R. A., Blakley, T. L., Baker, W. L., & Vigilante, D. (1995). Childhood Trauma, the Neurobiology of Adaptation, and “Use-dependent” Development of the Brain: How “States” Become “Traits”. Infant Mental Health Journal, 16(4), 271-291.

Shore, A. N. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum.

Shore, A.N. (1996). The experience-dependent maturation of a regulatory system in the orbital prefrontal cortex and the origin of developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 59-87.

Trevarthen, C. (2001). The neurobiology of early communication: Intersubjective regulations in human brain development. In Kalverboer, A.F. and Gramsbergen, A. (Eds) Handbook of Brain and Behaviour in Human Development. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers

Tronick, E.Z. (2003). Of course all relationships are unique: How co-creative processes generate unique mother-infant and patient-therapist relationships and change other relationships. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23, 473-491.