Is your relationship with your child stuck or full of conflict?
With some children, you have an easy, effortless bond. But sometimes, the relationship is rockier. What do you do when you and your child are at odds?
In this episode, Carol and Anne share insight to consider when you have continual upsets or lack connection with a child. Whatever the issue, there’s a good chance it goes back to the energetic patterning of their birth. Listen in for stories about how this issue plays out—and what to do to resolve it.
This episode’s Parenting Practice
Think back to your child’s birth. If you have multiple children, start with one child that you’re having issues with or feeling a lack of connection. Listen to this episode to hear how the original event of birth can set up patterns of conflict later. If residue from that event is affecting your relationship, use the techniques in this episode to create a closer connection with your child.
Transcript of podcast episode
Anne: Oh, yeah. They’re like, “We need a doctor,” because with midwives, you know, they’re like, “We need a doctor. We need a…” My husband’s like, “There’s not a doctor? We’re in a hospital. What’s going on?” Like, we’re all just in panic mode and…
Carol: Welcome to “The Child Whisperer” podcast. I’m your host, Carol Tuttle, author of the best-selling parenting book, “The Child Whisperer.” I’m with my co-host, Anne Tuttle Brown.
Anne: I’m a Type 2 mom looking for help with my Type 1 daughter age six. I don’t feel connected to her, and I find myself pushing her away. I also have two sons, Type 2 and Type 4, ages one and four. I seem to click so much more with the boys than with my daughter. She was born and spent a week in the NICU, and I wasn’t able to establish an original connection. With my boys, I made different choices. They never left my side after birth. We spent a lot of times skin to skin, co-slept, and breastfed. My connection with them is so much stronger and more natural. I love my daughter dearly. But I find that I have to work harder making the emotional connection. It makes me so sad because I’m trying so hard, but I feel blocked.
Carol: There’s a couple of things that could be…well, there’s two obvious things, to me, that are happening here. One is her other two children are all lower movement like her. So, obviously, she’s just going to connect with them on that kind of plane of energy more effortlessly. When you have a child that’s a higher movement than you, it’s going to be a different kind of connection. So, right away, the comparative saying you feel more connected, well, maybe it’s a different connection, not more or less. It’s just different.
Anne: When you think of a Type 2, their energy is to connect. And that happens…between two Type 2s, that can happen very effortlessly. And with a Type 4, like you said, lower movement. The Type 1 energy is to connect and disconnect. So, the connection may be there. It may just look different, like you’re saying. And she just may need to change her perception of what that connection looks like with her daughter.
Carol: There’s going to be disconnects, and that’s okay.
Anne: Yes, and that it…but she is saying she feels blocked. She feels like she’s pushing her away. So, what’s the other…what else is there?
Carol: The other variable that’s worthy of looking at is the original event between the mother and child, which is the birth. Birth creates an original energetic imprint that can set up repetition in that same pattern playing out energetically between you and the child that you can actually alter and re-pattern that. So in her case, if the child was put in the NICU, we know there was a trauma. Babies that are in NICU have a traumatic event at birth. So, right away, that’s going to cause trauma energy to be originally in the relationship. So, you can clean that up.
And Anne, you have experience with that because your oldest child had a trauma at birth. And we actually did some cool clearings around this because we started to see that this energy would present itself repeatedly in your interaction with her. And I traced it back. I said, “You know, I think it’s her birth energy that’s still running, playing out between the two of you.” So, you can alter that so that you can create that healthy connection as though you had a healthy birth experience without any trauma.
Anne: Well, I’ll share my story. But before I do, it’s interesting to look in her question, she says, “I find myself pushing her away,” that…
Carol: You do push a child in birth.
Anne: Yeah, well, in birth you’re pushing. If she was whisked away or pushed away to the NICU, if there was…like, she wasn’t able to have that…maybe she’s pushing away these emotions, this trauma that was there. And it’s like just all this pushing, pushing away energy.
Carol: And I wonder if that original energy bond wasn’t established because if the infant is removed so quickly to be treated, there’s not that opportunity for a Type 2 mom, especially, to make that original connection. So, there’s [crosstalk 00:04:10]…
Anne: And if you, like, are going back to that, it’s all that trauma, those, like, emotions that you don’t really want to spend time in. And so, it’s like I’m just going to push that away and focus on…but I think it gives a lot of value if you do go back and, like you said, you kinda reset the energy that happened at birth.
Carol: Very much you can.
Anne: So, with my story, what happened, and I mean the line of work that you’re in, I know the, like, impact that a birth has. And so, I put on my cards and, like, “This needs to be a perfect birth.” So I can have…so I don’t…
Carol: Why? You change any birth.
Anne: So, right. Well, I’ve learned that. And then when I messed up my kid, you know, so, it was like I was ready to go all natural. I didn’t progress naturally. I got induced and then, eventually, ended up with an emergency C-section after two scares of her heart dropping and even stopping. And so, it was…
Carol: It was a life-and-death situation basically.
Anne: Yeah. Her umbilical cord was in the way. And so, every time I changed a certain position, it would clamp the umbilical cord, her heart rate would drop and stop. Then she came to once, and then it happened again. And they’re like, “We’re just headed to the emergency room.” So, they’re pushing me.
Carol: It was the flying down the hall scenario.
Anne: Oh, yeah. They’re like, “We need a doctor,” because with midwives, you know, they’re like, “We need a doctor. We need a…” My husband’s like, “There’s not a doctor? We’re in a hospital. What’s going on?” Like, we’re all just in panic mode, and they’re just pushing me down. And I’m crying because my whole plan has been, like, destroyed. I’m like, “No, not the C-section.” I’d watched enough videos to know that, like, you don’t love your child if you have a C-section.
Carol: I find that interesting because quite honestly, I think you’ve been thinking…
Anne: I can say that because I’ve been through that.
Carol: Thank you, God, that C-sections exist.
Anne: No, don’t know. And then in that moment, I was like, “Wait, but my child, is my baby okay?” I mean, it’s just this rush of crazy emotions. And then, we get in. They were able to give me the spinal tap. They didn’t have to put me out because, like, her heartbeat came back. And then, like, she came out. Everything was good. My husband and I were just crying because we were just scared and didn’t know what was going on. And then, I just have this feeling of, like, when they got her out that she was just like, “Okay, I’m here. That was easy.” I got cut out and I’m like…
Carol: We knew she’s a Type 3.
Anne: Yes. I mean, I knew that from before she was born, but…and they brought her over to me and I got to see her. And then, my husband went off with her and I had to wait till the medication had gone out of me. So, I was just, like, all of the sudden, I had a baby and I didn’t have a baby for, like, another hour or two. And I was FaceTiming with my husband and as he was…they’re like giving her the bath. And then, I finally got to hold her. But I had the same quality of, like, I didn’t feel this instant, like, “Oh,” this connection. I felt this stewardship in a way, like, “This is my baby and I will love and care for her.” But it wasn’t this, like, bond that I was expecting.
Carol: Emotional connection that you are…
Anne: Yeah. I remember thinking, like, “This is another human being and I need to build a relationship with her, and that will grow over time.” And it was different. It was different with my sons. Having them, it was just this, like, instant bond. And I think maybe it was the fact that it was a second child. And my heart has grown and, like, made space for that or because my son was a Type 2. I had both my sons VBAC’ed. I had them vaginally, which is a different experience. Both of them, though, had like little breathing problem, so there was no immediate skin-to-skin. But they were…I was in the room with them.
Carol: Well, the other scenario that you could throw into this mix that you’ve worked with this, if there’s a parent in the story that’s the same Type as the child and there’s some old stuff in the way, you’re going to have some interferences as well from that or your daughter’s.
Anne: I’m holding baby Carol.
Carol: Yeah, me in every way. She’s a dominant 3 with a secondary 4. And so, these are all variants. But I’d say the one you can work with the most profoundly that will shift things is re-patterning that birth energy. And that’s really quite easy to do. Well, the thing, continuing your story, we saw with Katie, these reactions in her.
Anne: Yes. So, what happened, and this is one example of an emergency C-section. There can be breech forceps, you know, getting stuck in the birth canal. There are so many different variables. Birth is an exciting experience and there are two people involved. And so, I had to do healing on my end to just realize, like, she was born the perfect way. I had an idea of what was supposed to happen, but I’ve come to peace that, like, any birth is perfect. It’s so individual and such a private, intimate matter that who am I to judge anybody of how their baby comes to the Earth, and that the child has a lot of say and power in how they’re born and how they choose to come to the Earth. So, what I was seeing in Katie’s behavior is that she would just go into, like, freak-out mode, that, like, something would happen and it was just like…
Carol: She’d overreact.
Anne: I remember pulling off the freeway once because I was, like, she’s crying so hard something has to have, like, happened. She’s hurt herself. The buckles are pinching her eyes. Something’s going on. She was just hungry. She was just like… and in that Type 3 manner of, like, “I want it and I want it now,” like, 0 to 60, and being very expressive and just would…you know, just get very intense. And after talking with you, you said, “You know, she’s repeating a birth pattern of this trauma and just, like, emergency.”
Carol: I remember saying that she thinks in order to get her needs met, she has to go into this high-alert trauma mode because that was in that original event, to get her needs met, which was keep her heart beating, there was a trauma energy around it.
Anne: Yeah. And, like, 16 people are in the room and everyone’s saying that, you know, it’s like “Bomb.” So…
Carol: It was like a trigger switch to her, “I have a need. Oh, I just…” It wasn’t conscientious. She’s not, like, contriving this in her mind. She’s too young. Literally, the energy just kept playing out this way that “I have a need. To get my needs met, I go into full-on overdrive.” I present this as though I’m in a trauma. A need is the basic…yeah, the need is traumatic in her energy, so…
Anne: And she’s a Type 3, so she’s a big energy. But it was definitely like over the top.
Carol: So, what did you do?
Anne: Hold that thought. Let’s continue this discussion after a short break.
Woman: Knowing your Type and your child’s Type changes everything, doesn’t it? It helps you to understand one another better. It can help your outside, too. When you wear clothes that express your Type, you feel better, you look better, and people understand you more easily, including your kids. Carol Tuttle created the Dressing Your Truth program to help you dress true to your Type and create a personal style that expresses who you really are. The best part, you can learn all the basics for free. Start loving how you look and feel at dressingyourtruth.com.
Anne: I did some birth clearings and these are clearings that you provide in the healing center that are actual, like, you’re going through the processes.
Carol: Yeah. You did your own…you cleared her birth energy. And then, a big part of that is I have you re-visualize the ideal birth.
Anne: And that, I think, was the biggest part for me of…and that wasn’t like, “Okay, I had her.” They didn’t re-visualize…like, changing the scenario, I tried to see the positives in what happened. And so, the story now that Katie loves to tell and this is what we’ve created it to be is that she’s a thrill-seeker. She loves rollercoasters. She always has since a very young age.
Carol: She came in. Perfect for her then. That was a thrill-seeking birth.
Ann: I remember when she was three. She was writing on this little, like, push car, and her friend was just pushing her as fast as they could. And she was screaming and her little princess dress was flying up in her face. And I was like, “That’s how she came into this world.” Just like “Woo-hoo, I’m coming.” And so, rather than seeing it as, like, “Oh,” like, rushing down the hospital hall freaking out, I see it as, like, she’s like, “Yes.”
Carol: You’re on the roller coaster.
Anne: And it’s this rollercoaster ride and she’s like, “I want to get here and I want to get here fast.” And it’s fun to have her tell her, and we’ve, you know, created it to be, “You came to the world fast and intensely, and in a very thrilling way, and that was perfect for you.” And I think my other births were very healing. I went, I remember, with my second, just a lot of fear came up that week prior to his birth that I had to work through of it just I’m going to be back in trauma mode. Something I don’t want to happen is going to happen. I’m going to have…you know, just a whole of these things. So, being able to have kind of a second version and things went a little bit differently, they’re two, but I had a successful VBAC, which I was really hoping for, and that just moving through. So, it wasn’t just like a one-time thing where I, like, “Oh, I did the visualization, I’m good.” It’s come over the years.
Carol: You can even shift the energy in the moment of it presenting again when you’re dealing with your child and you go, “Oh, man, I feel I’m back in the birth energy with this child.” And you can just, in that moment, in your mind, imagine coming down through the birth canal easily, comfortably. You’re working together in this effort. Your child is born vaginally. You take that child in your arms. That will shift the energy right there, just that brief visualization. I won’t go into the details that one of my four children’s birth was much, much more difficult than any of the others. And there were multiple times through his grade school, and then particularly in his teen years that I’d feel this energy, his resistance to me. He’s not moving forward. He’s at…
Anne: And you’re trying to push him out.
Carol: Yeah, and I’m trying to, you know, energetically, just trying to create some movement there. And he’s like…and that was his birth.
Anne: Standstill?
Carol: He was like locked down. And so, I would…just in that moment, I’d visualize him moving down through the birth canal, coming throughout into the world vaginally, and I’d be holding him. And then I would do this figure-eight technique that I teach in many places that I would imagine holding him in my arms, looking him in the eyes, and I do many figure-eights between my heart and his. So, it’s just a sideways figure-eight that you imagine drawing back and forth, back and forth. And it would literally shift the energy in that moment that we were in because these energetic patterns repeat themselves and they enroll us in the same drama over and over and over. And that was the original event.
So, I think it’d be interesting for our listeners to think of those children that you are having these continual upsets with or you don’t feel the connection, whatever it is, is that tie back into their original birth. How is that affecting their current relationship? What do you do about it? That quick visualization is very simple to do to see that. And you’re not making it comparative. It’s not like that birth’s better. It’s just to change the energy. You’ve become very accepting of Katie’s birth. It’s perfect the way it was. This is an energy technique. You’re not trying to make the birth, actual birth event better. You’re trying to shift the energy.
Anne: You’re starting at the root, which was the birth, and you’re seeing yourself working together in harmony.
Carol: Yeah. And then, do that figure-eight technique. And that figure-eight technique will then create that energy bond that was not established those first few hours or even days if your child didn’t have presence with you.
Anne: And I think also giving yourself room to understand that your connection with your children may look different depending on their Types and just the uniqueness that they each are. And I think find the joy and the beauty in the unique connection that you have with each of your children.
Carol: And if you’ve got unresolved issues with a parent of the same Type as the child you’re having issues with, join the healing center. I’ll help you clean all that up because that’s definitely a player as well.
Anne: The parenting practice for this week is to think back to your child’s birth. And if you want to just start with one child that you’re having presenting issues with, start there. And is there residue that is affecting your relationship, use these techniques that we’ve shared to create a closer connection with your child.
Carol: Thanks for listening. For more support, go to thechildwhisperer.com where you can purchase the book, subscribe to our weekly parenting practice email, and find a transcription and audio of The Child Whisperer” Podcast.
Anne: If you’re listening on iTunes, thank you for leaving a review. If you have a parenting question, please send it to [email protected].
