I recently heard renowned relationship expert Esther Perel talking about bids for connection in relationships in a podcast with Brené Brown. Bids for connection can come from the adults, as well as the children in your life.
It's easy to accept an adults' bid for connection with grace and love, as it's often very obvious, such as my good bloke buying me a coffee each morning.
With children the way they seek connection can sometimes not look like that at all. The melt down in the car after school, jumping on a sibling and causing chaos, your child is trying to create connection with you.
As a parent it's important to remember these bids are not attention seeking, this is a bid for connection and there's a difference, so it's how you respond to them in that moment that matters.
Our children, especially under 5 and the tweens and teens, may need some practice and some guidance around how to do this more effectively, and you can help them and accept them with love.
Bids of connection are actually about love, even if it doesn't quite look like that in the moment.
The concept of bids for connection originally came from another renowned marriage and family therapists, Dr John Gottman, who says bids for connection are “the fundamental unit of emotional communication.”
14 окт 2024
