- This session focuses on the relationship between maturation and attachment.
- The more immature a child is, the more they require attachment to function.
- Immature and stuck children require attachment more than other children.
- Attachment is essential for dealing with all immature and stuck individuals, including adults.
- Energy not directed towards human potential is automatically directed towards attachment.
- Attachment is what drives social media and online connection.
- The more emergent and integrative a child is, the less superficial contact satisfies them.
- Attachment is the context from which all growth and maturation emanates.
- Children do not have to separate in order to grow up; deep attachment allows for natural maturation.
- Adolescents also do not have to separate; becoming a separate being is a result of successful attachment.
- A child cannot be too attached, but attachment can be superficial, insecure, or wrongly attached.

- In marriage, there should be a reciprocal nature where both partners address each other's needs
- Children who are too attached are actually preoccupied with physical proximity rather than deeper attachment
- The deeper the attachment, the more a child can hold close when apart
- Rest and growth come from finding answers to attachment needs
- Digital intimacy addiction in children leads to restlessness and sleep disorders
- Children attach through being with, significance, and being seen and heard from the inside
- Pushing and pulling at maturation can uproot growth
- It's important to trust the natural process and not rush it
- Rest is important for children to be freed from preoccupation with contact and closeness

- Attachment is important for children's growth and maturation
- We cannot cause instant maturation, but we can provide conditions and remove impediments for it to happen
- Attachment serves as a shield against external wounds and stress
- The primary way to keep children safe and preserve emotional health is through attachment with a caring adult
- Foster the relationship between the child and the caring adult, rather than trying to foster relationships between siblings
- Teachers can also serve as a source of attachment for children
- Attachment protects vulnerability and allows for maturational processes to occur
- Peer orientation can lead to a flight from vulnerability and increased sensitivity to peer relationships
- It is important for children to have a strong emotional connection with a caring adult to shield them from emotional wounds

- The speaker emphasizes the importance of protecting children's hearts and cultivating strong emotional connections with them
- Children who rely on each other for significance and belonging are more vulnerable to getting hurt
- Vulnerability is often shamed and exploited in peer culture, which values invulnerability
- Programs that focus on teaching empathy and kindness among children are not as effective as building strong relationships with adults
- The attachment between adults and children is crucial for nurturing growth and providing a sense of rest and security
- The provision of love and care must be greater than the pursuit or seeking of it in order for a child to feel secure
- Seizing the lead in expressing love and affection is important for creating a sense of rest and security for children
- Trumping or surpassing a child's expectations in expressing love is necessary for them to feel secure and at ease.

- The author emphasizes the importance of taking the lead in providing for a child's needs and not simply meeting their demands.
- They argue that by doing more and seizing the lead in the attachment dance, a stronger bond can be established.
- The author suggests that attachment should be a secure base from which a child can venture forth and foster independence.
- Insecurity can arise when proximity is pursued but not secured, so the provider must be trusted and the invitation to exist in their presence should have no conditions.
- The author criticizes the use of timeouts and shunning as interventions, stating that relationship should be sacred and not be compromised.
- They emphasize that the confidence in meeting a child's needs should come from the provider, not the pursuit or the child's behavior.
- Attachment enables adaptation and the recognition of what doesn't work, while collecting tears along the way.

- Attachment is essential for maturation and fosters independence by inviting dependence
- Process is important in education, not just outcome
- Children do not need to separate to grow up, but rather deepen attachments for maturation to occur
- The deeper the attachment, the more room there is for individuality
- Maturation is an outcome of fulfilling attachment, not the enemy
- Attachment work is important in therapy and parenting
- Individuation, separateness, and independence should not be pushed directly, but allowed to develop through attachment
- Attachment creates and shields vulnerability, while defenses against vulnerability limit attachment and impede maturation
- Immaturity increases vulnerability and dependence on attachment

- Theory is essential for building a strong foundation in practice
- Skipping theory is not possible as it would make practice meaningless
- The remaining sessions will focus on practice and implication

- This session explores the relationship between maturation and attachment.
- Immature children require attachment to function properly.
- Attachment is necessary for dealing with immature individuals, including adults.
- Attachment drives social media and online connection.
- Deep attachment allows for natural maturation in children and adolescents.
- Attachment can be superficial, insecure, or wrongly attached.
- Rest and growth come from meeting attachment needs.
- Digital intimacy addiction in children leads to restlessness and sleep disorders.
- Attachment with a caring adult is important for children's emotional health and protection.
- Peer orientation can lead to vulnerability and sensitivity to peer relationships.
- Building strong relationships with adults is more effective than teaching empathy and kindness among children.
- Attachment should be a secure base for children to foster independence.
- The provider must be trusted and the invitation to exist in their presence should have no conditions.
- Timeouts and shunning compromise the sacredness of the relationship.
- Attachment enables adaptation and recognition of what doesn't work.
- Maturation is an outcome of fulfilling attachment, not the enemy.
- Attachment work is important in therapy and parenting.
- Individuation and independence develop through attachment, not by pushing them directly.
- Theory is essential for building a strong foundation in practice.

We have 1 more stop to make on our theoretical map.

1 more session on theory before we take the turn in the remaining sessions to practice.

And this, where we've been so far, first of all we started with maturation, walking around the construct of maturation, the adaptive emergent integrative processes, and then the human vulnerability, walking around that construct of defense, emotional, perceptual, and the attachment defenses.

At the end of last session we looked more closely at defensive detachment, 1 of those attachment defenses, the other 1 being defensive dominance, the alpha in the session previous.

And then attachment, We've looked at the primary characteristics walking around this phenomena, about the hierarchical nature of it, about the stages and phases, and about the polarized nature of attachment giving rise to the phenomena of shyness and defensive detachment.

And we also looked at the interface of maturation and vulnerability, the interface of vulnerability and attachment, and the last remaining place on this journey circumnavigating the model of the unfolding of human potential is the relationship of maturation and attachment.

This is pretty intuitive by now, but you'll be able to draw the implications here quite easily.

But I wanted to take a session to just flesh this out, this interface.

First of all, and most obvious, when you understand it, is that the immature are rendered creatures of attachment by default.

The more immature, the more in need of attachment to function.

The more dysfunctional, the more in need of attachment to function.

I think I already mentioned this once in the course, and pardon if I repeated myself here, but it bears repeating here that often the idea is if a child has a diagnosis or 2 or 3 or 4, if they qualify for a diagnosis, then this doesn't apply.

They need specialized treatment, they need specialized programs, They need specialized intervention.

The more dysfunctional a child is, the more immature, the autistic child requires attachment, a context of attachment to work on.

It's so important that they're dealt with inside of that context more than other children.

The more mature, the more emergent, the more adaptive, the less integrative, the less attachment is required.

But the more immature, the more stuck a child, these children require attachment.

And so this becomes the common denominator for dealing with all immature, all the stuck kids, including stuck adults.

And so if you're in, for instance, adult education and dealing primarily with a population in which there has been significant stuckness.

Again, if you do not develop the context of attachment, if there isn't the student-teacher relationships there, you're going to have great difficulty.

So the more immature the child to review, the greater in need of attachments in order to function.

And that, And energy that is not directed towards the realization of human potential is going to be automatically directed towards attachment.

So if there is stuckness, if there is a flight from vulnerability, And energy cannot go in the direction, the brain cannot move the child to his tears, cannot move the child to venture forth, cannot move the child to experience conflicting feelings.

By default, that energy is going to go to attachment, to the pursuit and preservation of proximity in whatever form that energy is taking towards sameness, assuming the same form, towards contact, and closeness and so on.

And so you see the attachment energy of the stock is profound and it is what drives Facebook.

It is this frenzied attachment activity that of connection that is there.

This is, the more emergent the child, the more adaptive, the more integrative the child, the less that kind of superficial contact satisfies, the less attractive they are to this.

And so part of being able to naturally immune or render children immune to this is simply healthy development.

The healthier the development, the less addicted they will become.

We now know, for instance, and research has shown, that a connection through social media, the pursuit of digital intimacy, is as addictive, if not more addictive, than cigarettes and alcohol.

And so it's incredibly addictive, primarily because it's empty.

It just simply does not nurture the underlying needs and so there's no rest.

And so the the more you experience, the more you go for, rather than it releasing.

The other relationship, of course, will the 1 relationship was the the immature, or creatures of attachment by default.

The more immature, the more stuck, the more we must enter their world through attachment, not through specialized treatment programs, not through this, through attachment.

Finally, for instance, in autism we have, there are a number of attachment interventions and programs beginning to surface for this, finally getting this, that this is absolutely essential.

But the other relationship is that attachment is the womb of maturation.

Attachment is the context, the roots from which all growth emanates.

It emanates from the dynamics of attachment.

And so I'll review here and then we'll look back at our roots diagram to get a picture of this.

A child does not have to separate in order to grow up.

This understanding that was predominant in the 80s and the 90s, and it still dominates many individuals now is that to grow up you have to separate Can you imagine?

Thinking this about a plant Well for there to be growth we have to uproot you Well, we have to separate you.

No, we know the answer is the deeper the attachment, the more the plant can find what it's seeking, the more naturally that maturation is there.

The idea that 1 had to separate was again confusing the outcome with the process.

The outcome is that a child becomes a separate individual.

The outcome is the child becomes independent.

The process is that a child is able to depend, is able to find the answers to what they're seeking.

When we lost the rituals and customs, it didn't occur to us that, no, it's not all up to us.

We don't have to directly go for outcome.

There's a process here, and that is the growth process that is there.

Even the adolescent does not have to separate.

Now I'll try to illustrate it when we go back to the roots diagram in a bit.

Now I'll try to illustrate it when we go back to the

The movement to become a separate being is a result of being effectively, successfully, and deeply attached.

And secondly, a child cannot be too attached, just like a plant cannot be too attached.

And we can't be too attached to each other in marriage.

We can be too superficially attached, so we can't hold on when we're apart.

We can be too insecurely attached so that when we encounter emotional storms, when we can trip over, there's things that can divide us.

We can be too insecurely attached, or we can be wrongly attached, where we can be attached in the alpha mode where we should be able to be dependent.

And again, in marriage, there should be, when we sense a need in our spouse, it should call forth the alpha instincts in us, that we are the answer, and when they sense a need in us, the same, and so there should be that reciprocal nature, but we can get stuck, and that's the story of many of our relationships, is tripping all over, 2 alpha complexes are both looking to be taken care of.

And in both looking to be taken care of at the same time, or being 2 alpha at the same time, the dance doesn't happen.

It's a misunderstanding is when children are so preoccupied with contact and closeness, When the preschooler can't bear to be separated from mommy, from daddy, when they're absolutely obsessed with proximity, we say they're too attached.

No, they're too attached, they're too obsessed with physical proximity or being with because they're not attached deeper through being able to be the same, through belonging, through significance, through sharing of hearts and through being known.

The fact is, the deeper you are attached, the more you can hold close when apart.

And again, that's the whole design of this.

When you see what nature has done, the whole design of this is to answer the basic human problem, is how do we stay close when apart?

How do we preserve connection when we're not with?

And when you look at the design of attachment in that way, say no, the child isn't attached enough.

And so we would change the question from trying to help this child handle separation to trying to help this child hold on.

Preserve the connection, hence the title of my book, Hold On to Your Kids, because if we can hold on to them, then they don't have to, then they can let go and become their own persons.

First of all, my own training was as a behaviorist, and all my graduate training, so I was working directly at outcomes, directly in the linear approach to this, and then I had my own children and like Maslow it totally turned my head around and that's when I gradually became a developmentalist but but then I got confused by the by by looking directly at the fruit and so my first courses for parents were all about how to let go so that they could become their own persons.

But of course, that's not what the issue is, is we need to be able to do the holding on, teachers need to be able to do the holding on, preserving the connection so that they can become separate individuals, so that they can find that.

And so it was quite ironic that I ended up calling my book Hold On To Your Kids when it was directly in contrast to my first understandings that we needed to let go.

And the deeper and the more fulfilling the attachments, the more likely to foster maturation.

And so the deeper, the more fulfilling the attachments are, we cannot, The child is yearning for the answers to the question am I invited to exist in your presence Do I have to work at it or can I take it for granted?

Everything inside of us yearns for the answer to that question and if we can give that answer and the child can take it for granted that's what leads to rest and all growth emanates from a place of rest even our physical growth and talking about children now I grow all the time I mean even our physical growth the child's physical growth, they grow most when they're asleep The brain restores itself when they're asleep.

Connections are built when there is rest.

The resting mode of the brain is where all the building takes place, all the construction takes place.

All growth emanates from a place of rest.

And the same is with children, is that they need release from the pursuit, the relentless pursuit of attachment.

That's why when children get addicted to digital intimacy, there is no release, None whatsoever.

Many of them are developing sleep disorders because children get, on the average adolescent in North America, gets 4,000 text messages in a month, and most of them are between 8 and 10 o'clock in the evening.

And it absolutely destroys the ability to find sleep and to find rest.

So we're finding all kinds of difficulties around this.

They lack any sense of rest because the deepest rest comes from finding the answers to what 1 is seeking with regards to our attachment needs, the pursuit and preservation of proximity.

And so we go back to this again, this diagram here, and yes, the child attaches through being with, and that gets a little bit of sustenance if they can find what they are seeking for.

And so they can see in the eyes of the parents the desire to be with them, that invitation to exist, that delight in their eyes when they enter into their presence.

They can find enough of that, that we give birth to kids, but they don't know that they're invited to exist in their presence, in our presence.

So we answer this, and so yes, there's a bit of growth and it holds us on until a child can attach a bit deeper and we've got a little bit more ability to nurture and growth there, to be able to find the energy there.

And a little bit deeper, and these ones are very important, that a child attaches through significance and gives his heart away.

If a child doesn't give his heart away, it really limits our ability to be able to nurture that child.

We need to have the hearts, especially as parents and grandparents, of the children we hope to be able to nurture and foster that independence of.

We need that sense of emotional intimacy.

And again, especially with the immature and the stuck kids in school, as I said before, they are creatures of attachment.

If we don't get their hearts, we're going to not have the access to their minds that we want.

And so this allows for a deeper connection.

And then finally, the ultimate connection that is there when a child feels seen and heard from the inside, because they begin as a five-year-old to feel as if they're a secret and that secret is very threatening because it causes all kinds of alarm because they're not seen and heard they no longer feel close and so now they need to tell their secrets If you happen to be a grade 1 teacher, a kindergarten teacher, and you've got a child who attaches to you and can attach at that level, they're telling you all kinds of things you wish you never knew about.

You know, you don't even know what to do with, but they must tell you because that's the way that they are close to you.

It feels like if they didn't tell you that, again, they wouldn't be close to you.

And so it's not always pleasant, but at least if you understand what's happening, you understand why it is necessary, this psychological intimacy.

Again, when I bring the diagram here, you can see that if you push and pulled at maturation, if you push and pulled at the fruit, that it would uproot things.

When I was an inexperienced gardener, I was in a hurry.

I would get my bedding plants, I would get my flowering baskets, and with the bedding plants I would get the ones that were already in flower, and I would plant them in the soil and I would get the flowering fertilizer right away and put it on it because I wanted results.

When I got to be a little bit more experienced as a gardener, I nipped all the flowering off, all the little buds off.

Because I didn't want the energy to go prematurely into the blossoms, into the fruit.

I wanted all the energy to go into the roots because I knew if this plant developed a good root system, the blossoming would carry well into the fall.

But if I didn't, it would burn itself out.

And sometimes it takes a little bit of experience and a little bit of trust in the natural process to not be in a hurry.

But The most important thing here is that we don't push at it, we don't pull at it.

We do our job in terms of the root system, the attachments, and nature will do its job.

But a child has to find what he is seeking for.

And if he finds what he is seeking for, that sense of significance, that mattering, and it feels secure to that child, can take for granted there's a bit of rest.

Now the rest doesn't happen for very long, but it's just a narrow window.

It's just like when you're filled up with food.

It's just a narrow window, but for that narrow window you're free from the preoccupation of food.

We all need to be freed from that for a little bit.

And we need to be freed, children need to be freed from the preoccupation with contact and closeness, just a little bit.

That is done through being able to provide those answers.

I put some of this material together just to provide a picture of this and to review this.

It's attachment that enables us to take a part in their growth, the miracle of maturation.

We can't, we have never been able to to actually cause life, that is something with all our science we have never been able to do.

And as I said before, there's not a pill, there's not a way that we've been found to be able to cause instant maturation.

We can provide the conditions that are conducive, we can remove the impediments, but it is not something that we can cause.

And so we need to remember again in our interventions and we need to remember their growth is not instant.

It requires a process but when it's there it's real, it's true and it and it delivers fruit.

And so putting some of this material, first of all it serves as a shield, the attachment serves as a shield against external wounds, against external stress.

How do we keep our students safe in an increasingly wounding world?

How do you keep children safe in an increasingly wounding world?

There is a way, and it's amazing, the research, there's no controversy in this.

All the research, an amazing amount of research says the primary way to preserve healthy functioning, emotional health, to decrease high-risk activity, to keep a child safe is through attachment.

Because the more you matter to a child, the more you matter to a child, the less it matters what other people think and feel concerning that child.

So if you have, for instance, if you have at home, I often get asked, well, what am I to do?

My 1 child's, the older brother, my first child has never accepted the younger sibling, rejects them, there is no invitation to exist, puts them down.

Our heart aches for this younger sibling and the answer is be careful about trying to foster the relationship between your 2 siblings, because the more that older sibling matters to the younger, the more wounded they become by the lack of invitation to exist in their presence.

We are all trying to get our children to get along.

We try to get our students to not hurt each other, to not wound each other.

We're all preoccupied with getting safe schools and we miss the most important thing at all.

And what I say to that mother is make sure that you're the most important person to that child.

The more important you are, the less they will be stung by the rejection of the sibling.

And that's exactly what all the research, 1 piece of research, 90,000 adolescents studied in the United States, longitudinal study of adolescent health.

Every year, it's a longitudinal study, every year the results came in the same thing, is the most significant shield against external wounding, the most important factor in preserving emotional health and well-being is a strong emotional connection with a caring adult.

by a strong emotional connection with a caring adult.

deserves to be shielded by a strong emotional connection with a caring adult.

In this research it says that many children have been shielded by an attachment with a teacher.

The teacher would never know the function that they served in this child.

The fact that they might not even know the child is attached to them, but the very fact the child is attached to that teacher is more important means that there are less, the weight comes off the dysfunctional relationships, the rejecting relationships, the wounds, the difficulty that child may be having with a mom or a dad or a sibling or someone else that is there or with peers.

I gave her my heart and I also gave my mother my heart and the 2 of them, my mother and Mrs.

Ackerberg, saved me from the stings of bullying.

Now because I did very well in grade 1, the bullies, and those days they had names, it wasn't so ubiquitous, Jim, Nick, and Butch, Holly too, but she didn't bother me.

So their inclination was to put me down, to assert dominance, to being able to put me down.

There were ditches where I lived, and so it was very handy, very literal, you see.

And also, the bully always operates around in the lunchroom to take the best for themselves.

All animals operate in terms of alpha around food and so that's very very natural that that's where you first of all see.

You always look to the lunchroom and you can see the bully in operation, long before they develop more serious kinds of things, because they get first dibs on the food, a very primitive instinct.

I wasn't defended against perceptions and I never understood why.

I fared so well and a number of my friends went down.

I remember 1 of my friends committing suicide in elementary school.

And I never, never understood what the difference was.

When I looked closely at it, I could see in retrospect that they had never given their heart to an adult.

Nick, Jim, and Butch meant everything to them, and there was no protection.

For me, they were just irritations in life, Because who meant everything to me was my mother and Mrs.

Now if they would have put me down, I would have had no protection.

But in their eyes, I never experienced shame.

I never experienced there being something wrong with me.

This is absolutely essential because without being shielded, the wounds are too much to bear.

And so this is absolutely essential to the process.

Attachment is the it of all the other kinds of things it can do it also operates to be able to shield the heart to protect vulnerability and thus the maturational processes.

And so I picture it here, the heart again, that which moves us, the picture of that we live and children increasingly live in a very wounding environment and that the most significant factor, according to research, is the child's emotional connection with a caring adult.

It operates as a shield by the very fact that the more the person matters to whom they're attached to, the less bruised, hurt, and wounded by others in their life.

And so this is a most significant issue here, absolutely essential for keeping children's hearts soft, soft enough, and even a little bit can make a huge difference.

But the problem is, is so many of our children are becoming peer-oriented.

And in my book, I discuss the legacy of this.

And the most significant legacy of peer orientation is that flight from vulnerability, because they lose the shield.

They become sensitized to the insensitive relating to their peers.

That is the more peers matter, the more you can be hurt.

The more peers matter, the more you can be hurt.

Those of us that have been parents of adolescents, you know, we we get concerned because we know our 13 or 14 year old is going to fall in love.

They're going to give their heart to someone and oh my goodness, you know, this is, oh a broken heart hurts.

And we all, in that situation, you know, you know, ah, you want that heart to be also have given to a grandma that keeps it in safekeeping, mom and dad, a family, because when that heart gets broken, you don't want it to be the end of the world.

You don't want it to be the place where it is a vulnerability too much to bear.

And the same thing is, the best, we need to have our children's hearts to protect our children's hearts and so we have to cultivate that level of connection so there is that emotional liking, that is that sense of emotional intimacy because when children turn to each other, when they get pulled out of orbit from around their parents, when they look to each other for a sense of significance, for a sense of belonging, for a sense of loyalty to be with and to be like, then they get hurt.

The vulnerability becomes too much to bear.

They lose the most effective shield against external stress, a safe attachment with adults.

And signs of vulnerability, furthermore, are often shamed and exploited in peers, it's a cool culture.

It's a culture defined by the flight from vulnerability.

You mustn't, you mustn't show your vulnerability.

And invulnerability is venerated in the pure culture and so again it's 1 of the reasons we have to win their hearts to protect their hearts again it's an issue of relationship how do we keep our children safe?

You know, the question, the question is, or the answer, is relationship.

The more, The more those who are getting hurt, rejected, who are getting wounded, are attached to the adults who care for them, the more attached they are, the more protected they will be from the wounds that are out there.

We can't keep children, we won't ever stop them from being insensitive.

We won't ever stop them from hurting each other.

Children were not meant to be responsible for each other.

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Intensive I - session 15