“If we educate parents about emotional awareness and availability at home, we can strengthen children from their core before any part of the system is able to hurt them”
The reactions to my article “Healing from Within” [Issue 930] about how childhood emotional neglect (not being held, seen, heard, or unconditionally loved) causes insecure attachment — and how insecure attachment, coupled with some kind of trauma, are foundational reasons for why people leave observance — came fast and furious.
To recap the piece: According to psychologist Jasmin Lee Cori in her book The Emotionally Absent Mother, a child needs to hear and feel “good mother messages” in order to become securely attached. (To clarify, despite the “mother” terminology, the messages can and should come from the father as well.)
Some of those resonating messages are: I’m glad that you’re here. I see you. You are special to me. I respect you. I love you. Your needs are important to me. I am here for you (you can turn to me for help). You can rest in me. I’ll keep you safe. I delight in you.
I showed how all of those messages can be found in Jewish sources, as Hashem relates to us, His children. As we discovered in the Makom branch of our organization, Jew in the City, children who missed these messages are at a greater risk for going “off the derech.”
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