Expanding on Nature as the Third Parent: How the Nonhuman World Supports Early Attachment

As a trauma therapist, I hear a lot of stories about parents.  How they supported us, or didn’t.  How they believed in us, or didn’t.  Modern psychology is rather focused on how our parents made us the way we are, and how their parenting either harmed us or allowed us to succeed.  I’ve heard some pretty horrific stories about how incompetent human beings can be in the ways that we treat each other.  I understand the complexities of trauma and how that is passed through the generations, just as our names and eye colors are. Each of us is a complicated layering of depth, color, and texture.  

When I am sitting with a client, taking her in, exploring her unique ways of seeing the world, I am continually taking note of her strengths and naming the resilience I see in her.  I am asking myself, “What got her through all this?  What about her made her able to survive, move forward, and continue growing as a person in spite of all of these challenges?” Together we unpack what it meant to have that kind of a mother, that kind of a father, and so on.  We nurture and support the adult client’s inner child, and bring a new sense of peace and vibrancy into her current life.

A while back I read an incredibly eye-opening article titled Nature as the Third Parent  and it really blew my mind.  Of course!  Of course nature is the other factor in how we are raised.  And what I have noticed again and again working with clients with trauma is that no matter what their human parents were like, they have this other core relationship with nature.  There’s that one tree they would always climb, there was that one path they would always walk, there was that lake they would look out on.  Everyone has something.  Nature, for many of us, acts as a stable, loving, and relatively predictable presence in our lives- and through our connection with it, we can develop healthy attachment even if the humans in our lives aren’t always supporting us in the ways that we need.  In other words, nature picks up the slack.  

After reading Nature as the Third Parent, I began asking clients about this.  In addition to their parents, who else or what else, particularly in nature, impacted them?  I ask them directly, “What do you think about this idea of nature as your third parent?”  And the feeling in the room immediately shifts- they look off in the distance and start describing in detail the natural places of their childhood, the way they felt surrounded by a loving presence when they were up in a tree, the way they felt free when they were out of the house with bare feet on the hot sidewalk in the summertime.  Everything changes.  The conversation evokes feelings of peace and belonging, of secure attachment.  Simply by talking about nature, they feel more connected to themselves and more whole.

Wing Repair, and the Importance of Trusting Our Children’s Inner Knowing

My three-year-old didn’t want to go to preschool anymore.  The new kid, the kid who is only two and hasn’t yet learned body boundaries, has been damaging her wings and thus she has decided it isn’t safe there anymore.  My heart sank.

I’m not talking about her purple sparkly wings.  I’m not talking about her rainbow feather wings that Santa brought.  Her invisible wings.  Her secret power wings.  Her ever-present wings that she tucks in before getting strapped into her carseat, so as not to squish them.  Those wings.

And I can’t help but wonder if we’re also talking about her highly sensitive energetic body here, her higher self, her winged fairy creature self.  Real or imagined, it’s real to her now and that’s where I’m committed to meeting her.

The therapist in me translates it this way: Mommy, I don’t feel safe.  Help me.

The former teacher in me translates it this way: Mommy, this kid is bullying me and you have to fix it now.

And the artist in me goes here: What kind of damage have the wings experienced, what kind of repair needs to happen, and what imaginal protection can we call on to protect them from further damage?

Bottom line: I trust our imaginations to help us find our way in life. I trust the wisdom of our inner imagery.  There’s a part of me that wants to rush to fix it, to solve it for her, to keep her home from school today.  Yet my own inner knowing chimes in to say slow this down.  Trust her.  Trust her inner knowing. And this leaves room for her to find her own answers.  

Patches.  They need patches, she says. So we patch them. We recruit her teachers to patch them throughout the day.  Holes have been repaired; she’s still afraid of new holes, but at least she knows what to do when they happen.

Day 3: she still doesn’t want to go to school.  It’s going to happen again. It’s too hard. And now we start brainstorming as a family, we sketch out our ideas, we ask daddy for advice.  Meanwhile the teachers are teaching her how to use her big voice, be assertive, and firmly say “I do NOT like that” when he hurts her. And they are physically intervening, keeping her physical body safe.

This is what we’re really working with here: How do we protect ourselves?  When our fragile, feathery parts are out in the world and vulnerable to the inevitable bumps and bruises of life, how do we keep ourselves safe? I’m not offering answers; rather, I am helping her explore the questions for herself, and for her this is all happening through the metaphor of her wings.  We start drawing wings, we start imagining ways to make wings stronger and shielded.  She decides to put swords on one wing in case she needs to fiercely protect herself.  There’s a button she can press to release the swords immediately, as needed. She realizes these sharp swords could really hurt this new kid though, and she actually doesn’t want to hurt him.  So on her other wing she makes swords made of soft fabric. This sends him a message to back off but without harming him.  She’s protected, he’s protected.  Problem solved.  And now she’s back to enjoying school again.

This experience with her touches me deeply on so many levels.  Certainly it wasn’t just an imaginal process here.  It did take me communicating with teachers, advocating for my kid, and it took their skillful and prompt response to it to create such an empowering outcome for my daughter.  But I’m appreciative of how tracking her inner imagery made such an impact here.  Hearing her complaints about not wanting to go to school, and really unpacking that with her, engaging it, getting inside of her inner world through active imagination, drawing wings, drawing wings being protected, this whole process brought us closer together and taught us all a lot about paying attention to our needs, even our subtle ‘invisible’ needs, advocating for ourselves and our sensitivities.  

I’m in awe of the original solutions she came up with. This process has inspired me to connect even more deeply to my inner knowing as a person, as a mom, and as a therapist.  

“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections, and the truth of the imagination.” - John Keats

On Being with Our Children and their Art

Written by Alison McQueen, MA, LPC- Executive Director of Aspenroots Counseling,  Art Therapist, and Mom

Young children love working with art materials, and there is so much happening as they experiment with creative processes.  As parents we have the honor of supporting and nourishing their imaginations as well as their physical and emotional well-being through engagement with art materials.  Fortunately my mindfulness meditation practices have continually taught me to slow down and let go of any attachment to a particular outcome, and my art therapy training has taught me to really value the process of working with materials (versus the product). As a facilitator of therapeutic art groups for toddlers, I am continually invited to explore mindfulness-based art processes with the children.  They are teaching me a number of valuable lessons related to trust, exploration, letting go, and slowing down.  
 
Letting go of adult agendas, and letting children lead
 
When I set out a child's sketchbook and box of markers, I may have the expectation that she will open the box and draw something.  If I let go of this agenda and let her lead, this is what happens.  She keeps the box closed and slides it all over the table, listening to the scraping sounds it makes as it rubs against the surface of the table.  She shakes it like a rattle and says 'Shake!'  She picks it up and drops it, she takes all the markers out and puts them all back in.  She rolls the markers underneath her hands.  She takes the lids off and on, off and on.  And then she draws.  If my primary interest is in what she draws, or is in that she draws at all,  I miss everything else that happens.  I miss out on her and her process.  There is a whole array of physical, cognitive, social and relational skills at play and being developed during art time.  Even in a short art session with children, any and all of the following things are happening-- trying, planning, deciding, experimenting, making "mistakes", experiencing amazement, awe and beauty, seeing, touching, smelling (hopefully not tasting!), getting frustrated and practicing frustration tolerance, mastering skills and gaining confidence, learning to trust ourselves and others, and learning about personal and shared space... and all of these things may happen before the child even makes a mark on the page.  

A very rich experience begins to unfold as she starts to draw, as well.  There are big loose swooping scribbles, there are tight fast scribbles, there's pounding and dot-making, there's musical tapping with the 'wrong' end of the marker onto the paper, and all of this is fun and meaningful play for her.  As parents it's so important that we pay close attention to the particulars of a child's art experience.  This is a vital way of attuning with our children and letting them know that we care about them and their world.  Particularly when children start going to school, their schedules and activities become very regimented and they have little choice over most things about their lives.  In art, though, they can make all of the choices.  They get to experiment with being in charge, being responsible for outcomes, and in that process they can learn to trust their ideas and decisions.  Practices like these lead to increased confidence, better decision making, and a healthier sense of self throughout life.  
 
Quick tip: Have art materials handy for emotional regulation
 
I recommend getting kids their own sketchbook to work in, even as young as age one, so that they begin to develop a relationship with their work and with their creative process.  Art-making can become a calming self-regulatory activity for young ones, and kids can guide themselves out of stressed and activated emotional states with simple paper and markers.  It can also be great to offer stickers, glue sticks, and magazine pictures.  Dry materials such as these can all fit into a box that you keep handy and reach for when kids need an energy shift and parents need a break.  Early on, I made materials like these available for my own daughter and by the time she was eighteen months old she was able to ask for art supplies when she got fussy and more often than not the materials, along with my attunement in using them with her, helped her calm down.  Try this out for seven days in a row and let me know what you discover!