How to read your child’s body cues for attuned parenting
It was late one Friday afternoon when I picked Oliver up from daycare. Usually on our way out the door, he’d head over to the basket of apples to grab a quick snack that he eats on our way home. This time, the basket of apples was empty.
We hadn’t gotten out of the daycare car park before it started.
The screaming, the kicking, the throwing things – the rage.
Now Oliver goes to school three days a week and he was enrolled in daycare for the other two. It’s a full week. Going by this alone, it was clear that his body and brain would be tired. Add into the mix being around other children all day, overstimulated, holding it all inside all day and he may have chosen not to eat lunch. Top it off, his usual access to a snack was unavailable.
His platform was well and truly vulnerable.
Knowing how to read and understand what your child’s body and behaviours are communicating can be helpful for anticipating certain reactions and knowing what to do to respond.
Your child’s body and behaviours can provide useful information that can offer us clues about what they’re needing and how they’re feeling. It can remind us to:
- steady ourselves
- adjust our expectations
- navigate intense moments in a more helpful way.
Doing all of these things can help promote cues of safety to our kids and create moments of connection, rather than fuelling further dysregulation and disconnection,
In this blog post I teach you about your child’s platform and how you can read and recognise the cues it offers. My aim is to make things feel that little bit easier for yourself and for your kids as well, so you can get back to thriving and not living day to day feeling like you’re walking on egg shells.
Oliver’s behaviours that afternoon gave valuable insight as to what was happening inside his body. He was able to offer some big clues as to what it was that he was feeling and needing. I could have easily mirrored his dysregulation. Instead, using these clues I was able to be:
- more mindful of where we were at in terms of grounding our own bod
- able to adjust our expectations
- be in a better position to be more prepared the next time we picked him up from daycare on a Friday afternoon (hello Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs = bring snacks and a drink!)
What is your child’s platform?
Your child’s body is made up of complex systems that work together to create a loop of communication. Mona Delahooke, a child psychologist, refers to this as a ‘platform’. I resonate with this term for its simplicity. Your child has a platform, and so do we as their parent.
Inside the platform (the body) there is a two way system of communication that occurs between the brain and body.
I explore how the body constantly gathers sensory information around us in detail in this post here.
In summary, the brain and body is constantly gathering sensory information. It’s scanning three places for danger and safety:
- the environment
- our relationships with the people we’re with
- within our body.
Through our Autonomic Nervous System the body is communicating information to the brain. The brain is then making a judgement call as to whether something is threatening or whether something is safe.
Your child’s platform is constantly reacting to the world from moment to moment. Their platform either reacts by becoming defensive or receptive. If they’re experiencing and perceiving something as a challenge, a threat or a danger, they become defensive. They’re feeling safe, open and engaged, they’re receptive. When they’re defensive, their platform is wobbly and vulnerable. When they’re receptive, their platform is sturdy. The same applies to us and our platforms too.
What a vulnerable Platform looks like
When you’re child’s platform is in defensive mode and is wobbly and vulnerable it can look:
- chaotic
- unpredictable
- emotional distress
- rigid
- oppositional
- need for control
- uncooperative
- impolite
- triggering
- explosive
- disconnected
- disengaged
- shutdown
- collapsed
What a sturdy platform looks like
When you’re child’s platform is in receptive mode and is sturdy it can look:
- open
- engaged
- flexible
- connected
- energised
- grounded
- motivated
- playful
Try taking a curiosity approach to what you notice about your child’s body and behaviours. Look at it through the lens of the ‘platform’ and take a guess about whether their platform is vulnerable or sturdy.
