Practice Companionship Care
How to practice companionship care:
- Nurture a connection with your child by listening and responding empathically to her communications.
- Use your bond with your child to regulate her distress, calming negative emotions, like fear, and elevating her positive states, like joy.
- Aim to be in-sync in this way consistently, but when there is a break, such as a misunderstanding, take prompt action to repair the break.
- Resist cultural ideas that promote detachment, demanding independence, power struggles, ignoring, and stifling emotions.
Supporting Science: