Session 8: Bromfield
There was a lot of material that was interesting this week, but in chapter 11, Bromfield discusses the challenges of not having self-awareness in parenting. By not having strong self-awareness as a parent first, this inevitably trickles-down to your unsuspecting child. I remember first seeing the power of the “mirror” as a new mom when my first child started talking and he would mimic expressions that I soon realized I was saying! It was a humbling lesson for me in self-awareness.
As clinicians, we learn about our own biases and self-awareness. As parents, it is very important that we know what we are bringing to the environment… I have heard TOO many times, what other parents expect of their kids… they expect them to be athletes, they are embarrassed when they don’t accomplish this or that (which is announced right in front of them). New parents make mistakes… repeated mistakes though are shaming to the child and lead to different MH issues as we know.
I thought that Bromfield gave some nice examples from different clients of how to “gently” talk to differently clients and reframe and not shame the parent and have them think further and reflect… self-awareness can be very difficult but critical for the entire family.