When Our Child's Big Feelings Wake Up Our Younger Selves

We explore how attunement transforms anxious attachment, why empathy and clarity prevent trauma, and how reparenting our younger selves helps us show up for our kids. Practical tools, honest scripts, and real repair strategies turn meltdowns into moments of connection.

• defining attunement as entering a child’s feelings
• recognizing triggers from unfinished stories
• using simple, honest language to reduce fear
• modeling regulation before logic
• repair after rupture and praising effort
• setting boundaries with warmth and clarity
• tailoring co-regulation to each child
• reparenting the younger self to heal patterns
• trusting natural consequences as teachers
• building long-term safety and open dialogue

Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have at wystieedwards@gmail.com

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Order: Waiting for Mister Rogers: Teaching with Attachment, Attunement, and Attachment

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Core Theme
• 0:40 Parenting Anxious Attachment Triggers
• 2:39 The Power Of An Empathetic Witness
• 4:19 Reparenting Our Younger Selves
• 6:40 What Attunement Really Means
• 9:33 Modeling Presence Over Perfection
• 12:24 Trauma, Misunderstanding, And Clarity
• 16:23 Explain Hard Things Simply To Kids
• 20:26 Stories Shape Everyday Reactions
• 23:11 Humility, Repair, And Honest Reflection
• 26:07 Unfinished Stories And Old Defenses

Transcript

Wysteria Edwards BA, Ed.M: 0:03

Welcome to the Simple and Deep Podcast, where we delve into attachment, stories, and intentional living. I'm your host, Wysteria Edwards, and I'm thrilled to have you here with me today. We'll be exploring the depths of all of these topics together, sharing insights and unlocking the power hidden within your story.

Speaker: 0:21

Let's get started.

Wysteria Edwards BA, Ed.M: 0:40

One of the hardest parts of parenting a child who struggles with anxious attachment is how quickly that we can internalize their distress. When their emotions are spilling over through a tantrum or a meltdown, they're clinging to us, crying, pushing us away, or panicking. Something within us, a very old part of us, is gonna light up like a Christmas tree. And often it's not about the present moment that we're in. It's like being transported back to a moment in our own story where we felt abandoned, helpless, overwhelmed, terrified, or rejected. And it's in these moments through our lived experience that we haven't really had what we would call an empathetic witness. When someone is empathizing with what we're experiencing, they're just naming the fact that it's hard, that it's scary, that it's overwhelming. It's not necessarily that that person is jumping into it and feeling it for us, but they're just saying, I get it. It makes sense that that would be hard for you. But this is something that many of us who are now parenting or working with children did not have consistently in our childhoods. And so that is the blueprint of how we are going to start to show up in moments that feel chaotic or hard. And if that is you, if you just were like, absolutely, I just resonated with that, give yourself the space as you listen to these next couple minutes that you just kind of allow yourself to know that it was okay, that it makes sense, and that right now is the opportunity for you to start moving forward with that new state of consciousness of being able to know, like, yeah, that's me, but I don't have to continue to work from this place. This is the brave work that we're doing here at Simple and Deep, as well as what I wholeheartedly believe is the way that we can truly engage the parts of ourselves, the younger parts that have been trapped in stories without an empathetic witness. We're going to go back and talk to ourselves as young children, reparenting those places that are broken and reminding ourselves that we've survived and that we are no longer in places of fear or we aren't abandoned. Because as adults, we can walk out of situations of harm or heartache. But as a child, we were forced to stay there. And that doesn't necessarily mean overt abuse or neglect. It could just be moments where we did not feel seen. Or someone said, Oh, I'm sorry, that's sad, but they didn't really sit with us long enough to help us process that. Or maybe we needed to process it more times than we got to.

Speaker: 3:32

So if that's you, maybe you want to put your hand on your heart and just say, I see you to your younger self. I'm here and I've got you. And recognize that those feelings are going to show up, but they don't have to drive the car.

Wysteria Edwards BA, Ed.M: 3:52

So so many of us that did grow up without someone who could sit with our feelings or reflect them back to us or hold space for our needs have open wounds within our souls. We've gotten really good at coping with those wounds, bandaging them, pretending they don't exist. But there is nothing like the innocence of a childhood tantrum or the discard of a child not wanting to do what we want or not uh falling in line with our ideal of what we think that they're going to show up as that will absolutely trigger us into that place. And when that happens, we're going to go into a younger part of ourselves because our brain develops in layers. And that first layer was all about reacting to our situation, reacting to our environment. Are we safe? Are we loved? That stays with us, that feeling of whether or not we're going to be accepted by the people that love us the most or are supposed to love us the most. And that's what we call attunement. Attunement, truly, in the way that I like to look at it, is really we just come to a person and we are allowing that other person to have an emotional impact on us. We're entering their emotional experience and sitting down, taking off our shoes and saying, You matter to me. You matter to me in this moment. And usually people, when they're dysregulated, are not going to bring us their best selves. When I cry, there's just not everywhere. I'm not really very eloquent. I just seem really immature and young. And really, honestly, think about when we are angry or super upset, we revert back to those places of ourselves that are very young and how we handled being overwhelmed in the past. How I like to think of attunement is how Mr. Rogers, when he opened the door to his television house, he would come in, he would change out of his coat into his sweaters, and then he would change his shoes. And I think that's really important because it's an intentional act of sitting down and choosing to enter the experience of another person. It's not because we have all the answers. What I've learned over my lifetime, especially when I relate to the people who have loved me into being, those people that I didn't have to clean myself up to be near. I didn't have to shrink down parts of myself to be accepted by it was really just the fact that they were willing to sit down beside me or come alongside the situation I was in. They would walk beside me, they would be near in case I needed them. Sometimes they were in another room, but I knew that they were there. I knew that they were accessible.

Speaker: 6:30

That's what attunement is. It's listening more than talking.

Wysteria Edwards BA, Ed.M: 6:35

It's listening with our heart, not just our head. Because some of us go right to logic. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. But that's part of the journey of being in relationship with other people. Our children are not going to understand that unless they see it modeled to them. And if you didn't have people modeling it to you, oh my God, it's so hard to be able to come alongside a child and do that for them. But that's why I want to share these ideas and encouragement for you in this space, that it's a safe place to come with all of your garbage, all of the things that you feel like you have guilt over, the things that you feel like you're really knocking it out of the park with, but also just an opportunity to have an open heart to receive something new that God or the universe wants to share with you about ways that you can heal, ways that you can love and be more intentional about showing up in your world. Because as we heal, it's a funnel. It will channel down into all the various aspects of our lives. And especially it's going to affect our children. They're going to see how we are showing up in the world and they are swallowing that into their body. They're imprinting that. And our voice becomes their inner voice. If we're critical, they become highly anxious. It's important for us to recognize how we're speaking and how we're showing up. And if we are really sucking it up right now, it's okay. We can get better. Thank God I'm not where I used to be, and I'm still learning. We are always learning, we're always growing. Attunement is the missing part of why our story froze in time, why it was traumatic. Now remember, trauma is not necessarily something that's just outward. It's something that our bodies or our brains could just not fully grasp. And oftentimes trauma happens when people don't explain something to us. I had a friend recently say that she found out at a young age that her mom had diabetes, but she didn't know what that meant, but she knew that her mom was going to the hospital a lot. And then she pointed out that the word diabetes has the word die in it. And I was like, oh my God, of course it does. And so if you don't explain to a child what that means, they're waiting to hear that their parent has died. In a famous episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Daniel Tiger doesn't want to be in a wedding. And they keep saying, Well, why not? He's going to be the ring bearer. And they thought that was such a great opportunity for him. And the puppets come and ask him questions. And finally he says, I'm scared because I don't like bears. And I won't want to be a ring bearer. And they were like, Oh, that's not the word that we're using for this. It means that you're holding it or you're bearing the ring. And he was like, Oh. And oftentimes when I've worked with young children, all it takes to not have something be traumatic is just a little bit of insight or a little bit more explanation. But we don't take the time to even wonder or question if it under if it's understandable to the child in our care. Have you ever had an experience like that that you can think of? You might not think of something right away, but maybe something will come to you after you listen to this. And I would really like for you to one, recognize that it happened, but two, what would have helped you understand the situation better now that you are a grown adult, a wise adult? What would have helped ease the burden or the heartache or the confusion in that moment for you?

Speaker: 10:08

You might be surprised at how incredibly simple it was.

Wysteria Edwards BA, Ed.M: 10:13

Children like to be told. And if it's gonna be hard, if it's going to hurt, if it's going to last forever, whatever it is, they just need to be told the truth. And we are the ones that have difficulty with what to say. Instead of just saying that grandma died because living things do die, do they always die? No. But do they sometimes die? Yes. Eventually things die. Now, that's science. That's real life. But we are so worried about telling young children that someone has passed away that we will say things like, Grandma went to bed last night and didn't wake up. Well, now that's freaking scary. And I'm never gonna want to go to sleep again. And then we wonder why, why is my eight-year-old not wanting to go to bed at night? It's because they have no concept of why would someone that has been so alive for me all of a sudden be gone. And what does that mean when someone has died? Are they ever going to come back? Can we possibly go somewhere and visit them? Those are things that we have to think about. And in our own distress, grief, or our own transition or whatever we're dealing with, it's very easy to overlook the things that we think are automatic, the children understand. What I've learned through all of my experience. They don't know any different. The first paper cut is their very first paper cut. You've had tons of paper cuts. You've had tons of times where you didn't die from when you fell down on the cement. But when a young child sees bleeding, it's over. That's the end of the world. If someone says they hate you, it's forever. If they say they're not your friend, it's forever. If a relative is going away for a number of years for a job, people are moving away, to them, they're just gone forever. So we have to help children understand as best we can in their kind of language what it is that they're dealing with. And we can't pretend just because we're uncomfortable that it's not happening. Because it's not in the past, it's right here in the present. And if I believe anything wholeheartedly, it's that our stories are constantly informing our brand new choices right here in this moment. It's not in the past. I know that you think it is, but it's in every single relationship. All of those ways that you attached and bonded, how you receive or give love, how you keep love, all of those things are present in every day. They're present in your interactions with your boss. They're in the interactions with the person at the car wash that you're getting annoyed with, or the lady that's in front of you that's talking too long at the checkout stand. They're in every single interaction you have, but most of all in our reactions and our responses to our children. And in those moments where we were not able to have an empathetic witness, it's really hard to sit in feelings that are overwhelming, even if they're not ours. Because if children are anything, they're an extension of us. We want our children to thrive. We want them to grow. We want them to have good things. And oh my goodness, to watch them hurt is the worst. Parenting is your heart walking around outside your body. And I can tell you that I've never felt more violent than when I thought that my child was being ostracized by another child. Oh, or a parent was allowing something that was affecting my child. Ooh, that was when I wanted to throw down. And I'm not violent, but boy, I can use my words as a weapon. And so I get ready to rumble. And it's really important that I've learned over time that I need to question even my own child because your child can also be doing things that are not so above the mark. And they can actually set you up for failure. And that has been my humble experience as well. I'm going to detail a couple of the places that you would have had a really hard time with what we would call unfinished stories in your life. So when a child reaches out with anxious attachment, especially, and I speak primarily here on the podcast about anxious attachment because that's what I have had and I've healed from, but I will regress back to in moments of stress. But I will also touch on the other ones as well. From an anxious point of view, obviously, it is a strike when something happens right at the center of who we are and our unfinished story when my child is dysregulated. So it's going to automatically go to places where no one studied me. In the book, I spoke about how I became kind of a band-aid Scrooge and I wouldn't give band-aids out. And I had to really evaluate, like and ask myself some hard questions. Like, why is it so hard for me to give a band-aid to a child that says they needed one? And then I realized that there were times in my life where I needed someone's full attention when I needed something like a band-aid or I needed care or comfort. And that person was distracted or they ignored me. And so a part of me, a younger part of me, was like, well, I didn't get that. So maybe you don't need it, which seems so ludicrous, but it's actually very honest. If we look back on our stories, there's going to be parts of our younger selves, our little girl or our little boy, that's like, why do they get that if I didn't? Still, because every child, no matter who they are, has visited some place called Fairland. And we know when we are not getting the same treatment as someone else. We just know it. Or when we think we're not getting the same treatment. It's not fair. I know that you've either said it or heard it. And we have a keen ability to recognize those situations. But when I saw it rearing as an educational professional with young children, I was amazed. And I realized this is part of my story. This child just needs a band-aid. So I started giving them out a lot. Then I learned that Mr. Rogers talked about body integrity and it made sense. Like we just want to know that we're going to be okay. Are we still okay under the band-aid? All of that kind of stuff. But it's really about something as simple as handing out a band-aid or getting really annoyed when they're crying for mom. Well, here's the deal. I knew very early that if I cried, that mom wasn't just going to show up at school to make everything better. So why would your mommy show up? That sounds so mean, but it's so true. Like when I really look deeper into my story, that same little girl was like, Well, sorry, sucks to be you, Buster, but you're just gonna have to deal with it. And I'm like, wow. But as soon as I had compassion for that little girl and said, Wow, I'm I I feel so sorry that you needed, you needed that comfort. And it's created kind of this cynicism and this criticalness in you and this protective part of you is like, well, this is how it's going to be. Those are made in moments of heartache. It's like those little parts of us are birthed or stuck in those moments. So these are moments also where someone might have made you feel as if your feelings were too big or too inconvenient for them. So when you have a need now, or you want to say, uh, I don't like something, and or someone points out that maybe you're being true dramatic or you're overreacting, you're gonna go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, or you're gonna find ways of apologizing to that person or uh shrinking down and not allowing your whole self to show up. And this is a constant battle for me that I'm looking at really strongly in the last couple of months, where is it that I'm not showing up in an authentic way, or is it that I might possibly be triggering someone else's unfinished stories? And I can't change that. I have to be compassionate and understand that. But there's times where I need to be able to fully show up and know that I'm speaking my truth and being resonant and in alignment with who I am. And that's a really difficult choice. But we want to make sure that we don't also perpetuate pain where we start telling our own children that it's over the top because they're basically using our nervous system to regulate. Those moments of being too much might have caused separation instead of support. Maybe we were told that we needed to calm down and so we were put in a separate room, or we were told, you know, you need a time out and you remembered being by yourself and you had to learn how to regulate yourself, or you fell asleep crying. You know, and I think those are really important moments where I've had to go back in my own story and soothe a three-year-old that was crying on the other side of a door, uh, that was just very confused as to why I was left in here alone. And it had very little to do with me and more to do with the people that were caring for me that it was just too much. It was just, ugh, it was just too far to go into that situation. Really, it's about swallowing the chaos of a child and saying, you're in chaos. I must be a horrible parent. And I remember one time my counselor said to me, just because your boys are struggling does not mean it was because you had addictions or you had unbroken or unhealed places in you. It's really about the fact that children are on a natural course of learning. And there are going to be moments of harm and heartache that happen just because we live in a broken world, in a place where people are not always going to be kind, where our dreams are not always going to be fulfilled. And we have to be honest about that and recognize that if we look back on our own story, there were moments that although they were hard, we learned. Kindergarten was a great place because I'd be like, Don't run, don't run on the blacktop, don't run, bam. They'd they'd fall and they'd be like, and I'm like, oh man, ouch. And they'd look at me and I'd be like, Did you hear me say not to run? And they're always like, Yeah. And I'm like, Yeah, oh, ouch, that's why. And it was almost like the world worked with me in that moment, like God was. There in that situation, not because he made him fall, but it was like I was able to say, ouch, wow, can I help you with that? But then it was like, yikes, that's why I told you not to run. Now do we understand? Yeah. But honestly, they didn't understand until they fell. And that's the hard part, is that we have to hold that ground, but that like, you know, and we're not like thinking that we're a terrible, terrible teacher or a terrible parent because we're allowing them to fall. But sometimes it's it's the natural consequence of their actions and their learning. And so oftentimes if we if we swoop in and we always save them from those moments too, it just not as effective, unfortunately. I I guess this is what I've learned over time. Um, and then there's a part of us that also feels like if I have a really big need, it's gonna completely overwhelm the people around me. And so we're gonna feel that in our body. We're sitting next to a screaming child, we're in the middle of target and they're screaming and having a meltdown. And so now we get more concerned about how people are gonna perceive us, how loud they're being. Right? Because I know I did. I think it's important that when we are in those moments, that we're able to know what calms us down first. And sometimes it's just a calm and steady breath, a reminder like this is part of growing, this is part of learning. And my child is more important than anything else around me. Because if I take the time right now in this moment, I might not take off my shoes, right? But it's the ways that we take off our shoes are metaphoric. It's getting down on their level, it's looking them in the eye, it's giving them a hug, it's teaching them how to take deep breaths and maybe even putting their hand on our chest so they can feel us breathing with them. Might be saying a poem together, it might be singing a song, it might be just putting our foreheads together. There's so many things that have worked with children that I've that I've encountered, and every child is unique. So, what's going to work with one of your children is most likely not going to work with the other one, and that's gonna be exasperating too. But if you go into it knowing that, then you'll be able to be more creative with what's going to help this child regulate. Some children do not want to be touched when they're dysregulated, but other ones do. So it's it's just important that you really get to know your child specifically and recognize that this is just one part of their learning. But it is one of the greatest things that we can do to come alongside our children and help them understand emotional regulation. But if you get anything from this episode, I want you to hear this. It can be retrained and it can heal. But you have to recognize when you go into trauma brain and when you have old responses, and then being able to enter into a situation with the child. And if you botch it and you're like, man, I really screwed that up, always tell your child the truth. Wow, that was really hard, wasn't it? And I'm talking about after they're calm. Because a lot of times I've noticed, even now, when my husband and I have a conflict, he wants to um talk to me and be logical about it way before my nervous system has ever come back to a regulated place. So recognizing how long it takes for your child to be at a calmer state where they can have an actual conversation with you. Um, and that obviously depending on how young your child is, right? But I think it's important that you always circle back and you talk about how hard it was, asking them what it felt like and also pointing out how they did well, what they did well. If they choose to try to do deep breathing, but it doesn't work, at least acknowledge, oh, but I did see you tried the deep breathing, didn't you? Yes, I know. And it was really hard, but you tried, and I'm so proud of you. Because the more that we come alongside them and say things like, I saw what you were doing, I noticed that you tried, I saw that, you know, it was it was difficult, but but you you tried for a couple minutes and then you needed my help. And that it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to say I'm overwhelmed. And it's okay to tell our children no in those moments too. Just because they're throwing a tantrum, don't just give them what they want. That's not what's gonna help them. It's about learning how to have a disappointment, learning to be told no, learning to be told they have to wait, learning to be told that there isn't time, that it's time to go. We can't give kids everything and expect that they're gonna understand how to do disappointment or competition or just like anything that's gonna be hard throughout life, well, if we don't allow them to experience it. So, attunement is about predicting what they might need in advance and then walking through whatever happens and understanding that it's a journey, that there's gonna be a lot of starts and stops. But then as you talk to your child about those things, you're able to come to a place where you understand them better and they know through that interaction that you are so safe to bring their whole selves to you. And where it's gonna start to play out is when they're teenagers, when they're able to come to you with the really hard things, or they're able to tell you about a friend that's really struggling that other people would never be able to talk about, but they can talk to you about. And that's a really glorious place to be. I've watched some of my friends do that. I've watched my own children return to me and tell me hard things. And they say it's because of the times where I came back and I repaired, or I said I was, I was wrong, and I'm really sorry. I know I can do better. Because our children deserve the same respect that we try to give other people that are our peers or our spouses or colleagues. So I'm gonna leave you with this that attunement is about entering the emotional space of someone else and letting that letting it affect us, taking off our shoes and staying a while, becoming a safe place. Even if within ourselves we don't feel safe, it's up to us to nurture that place and find ways and tools, which I will definitely provide here for you. So that we use those tools to go back to those places for our younger selves and learn how to give us inside what we needed so that we can in turn give that to our children on the outside. It's amazing how love knows where to land and those places will become a lot less more a lot less difficult if we go back and we tend them with love, just like we're tending to the children that we care about. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Simple and Deep Podcast. I hope that you enjoyed our conversation and found it enlightening and empowering. Remember, by understanding attachment, engaging your story, and living intentionally, we can transform our lives. Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have. And remember, until next time, take care of yourself because you are important.