The Myth of Normal 111
child. It takes relatively mature and/or well-supported parents to be able to
tune into the child’s emotional needs as distinct from their own.
- A sense of attachment security that allows the child to rest from the
work of earning his right to be who he is and as he is.
Once foundational security is established, the young one can relax
comfortably. This is the condition Dr. Neufeld identifies as “rest,” one in
which the child does not have to strive for attachment with the parent nor
work to maintain the right equilibrium of contact. This state is the soil in
which the roots of healthy development can firmly take hold. From there we
can reliably expect emotional, social, and intellectual growth to follow.
Despite my mother’s love for me, I was essentially put to work from the
moment I was born—no rest for the innocent. Contrary to her anxious halfjoke that, before I was three weeks of age, I ought to be “old enough of a
fellow by now to realize that . . . nighttime is for sleeping, not for eating,” I
was years away from being physiologically able to “realize” anything—much
less that my needs were up for barter.
- Permission to feel one’s emotions, especially grief, anger, sadness,
and pain—in other words, the safety to remain vulnerable.
“Since emotion is the engine of maturation, when children lose their tender
feelings, they become stuck in their immaturity,” Neufeld explains. For the
emotions to remain accessible, the environment must allow them to be safely
experienced—meaning the child’s expression of feelings cannot threaten the
attachment relationship with the parents.
For reasons we have already begun to glimpse, many children in our
culture are shut off from their authentic feelings.[*] And how would they not
be, given the conformist expectations of society, amplified through parenting
advice liberally dispensed by behaviorist “experts”? Consider the prescription
of psychologist and mega-bestselling author Jordan Peterson: “An angry
child should sit by himself until he calms down. Then he should be allowed
to return to normal life. That means the child wins—instead of his anger. The
rule is ‘Come be with us as soon as you can behave properly.’ This is a very
good deal for child, parent and society.”[10]
