Three sides to every story
Parenting our children from a three dimensional view
Resources and Reflections: Three Sides
The summer after I graduated from college, I worked on an urban farm in a major city. I had volunteered in a nearby elementary school during my college years, and started a children’s garden with my students as a literacy project. I was eager to keep working in this historic yet challenged inner city neighborhood, and I jumped right in. My first day on the job I met my supervisor, Preston, a wise yet troubled Vietnam war veteran. What very quickly began to unfold was a challenging summer full of conflict and growth, as Preston and the executive director overseeing him fought like an alcoholic father and a subservient son. One day, after I ended up in the middle of the most recent explosion of conflict, Preston drove me to the subway station in his beat up green pick up truck. As I went to open the door, he gave me a piece of wisdom that I have carried with me ever since.
“My grandfather always told me that there are two sides to every story, and three to the truth.” Although I didn’t quite see Preston putting this same wisdom into practice, it landed with me and has served as a compass for navigating human relationships throughout my life.
In Attachment Matters Season 2, Episode 2, we introduce the three sides of the story of Dr. Neufeld’s model of maturation. This post will serve as a recap of the context for maturation, and then a review of the fruits of maturation, as well as the processes through which nature works to get us there.
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Seeing the Context - The Forest
Before honing in on maturation, let’s look at the forest - the big picture of the attachment-based developmental approach. This approach is what can be referred to in the shorthand of “the Neufeld approach.”
This big picture model has three aspects as well, which Dr. Neufeld refers to the three keys of his developmental model. The three keys are:
Maturation: Nature’s design for the unfolding of human potential - the acorn tree becoming the oak. Maturation is spontaneous, in that it cannot be “taught,” but not inevitable - sometimes impediments get in the way. We all grow older, but we do not all “grow up.”
Attachment: Dr. Neufeld uses the analogy of the roots of a tree growing under the soil to give a visual picture for his six stage model of attachment. In this sense, attachment roots are the connective tissue of our capacity for relationship and intimacy that is essential to our existence but often hidden from sight.
Vulnerability: Vulnerability is the state of having a soft heart, which allows us to “feel” our emotions rather than being defended against them. This is the third key to Dr. Neufeld’s developmental model, as the ability to have a soft heart is required in order to unlock the potentials of both maturation and attachment.
Season two of the podcast will look at all three of these keys, starting with maturation.
Maturation
Now let’s break down the three sides of the story of maturation, looking at both the fruit and the processes of growth that produce it. If it is helpful, you can visualize a two dimensional triangle with each of these along one side. Long time listeners of the Attachment Matters podcast will have heard some of these before!
Fruit: A separate being
The first fruit of maturation is the growth into a separate being, who is able to stand on one’s own two feet, capable to functioning separately from attachments, a unique and viable human being. Some of the theories Dr. Neufeld has synthesized here include individuation and differentiation. The process by which this fruit is developed is called the emergent process. We will focus Episode 3 on exploring this process!
Fruit: An adaptive being
The next fruit of maturation is to be an adaptive being, a person who can be transformed by what one cannot change. This is what Dr. Neufeld calls the “sh*t to fertilizer” concept. When we come against the losses, lacks, and limitations of life, are our hearts soft enough to grieve them? This is the centerpiece of the Neufeld construct of “futility,” the tender feeling that comes when we come up against that which we cannot change, and our tears are able to flow.
Fruit: A social being
The last of the three fruits of maturation is to become a social being. For those familiar with the Neufeld material, this may seem like a contradiction, as much of his work warns against the perils of our culture’s obsession with socialization of children with their peers. However, it is not through peer socialization but rather through the integrative process - the development of the prefrontal cortex - that we are able to be together with others without the loss of our separateness, and separate without the loss of our togetherness. The integrative process is characterized by inner conflict - the tension of developing mixed feelings and the ability to see “on the one hand, and on the other hand.” This inner conflict is the fire of growth from which we become “tempered” - able to hold on to a sense of self while existing in relationship to those around us.
In Summary
To wrap up, remember that all human beings are born with the inner potential for maturation, and for the emergent, adaptive, and integrative processes to unfold. Whether a child has autism, a disability, low or high IQ, giftedness, or any other factor to contend with, these inner potentials are there, and as Dr. Neufeld argues, they are what we should be looking for in order to gain insight into how our child is doing as they grow.
It is in our nature to mature. As parents, our role is not to be the sculptors, but instead to be the gardeners, cultivating the conditions needed to allow nature to do the work of helping our children’s full potential to unfold.
Resources
Neufeld Resources
Neufeld Intensive 1 Course Preview Part 1 is a 13 minute video, and offers clips from the beginning video sessions of the Intensive 1 Course.
Becoming the Answer a Child Needs is a 1 hour 20 minute keynote address from the Neufeld Institute Conference in 2021. The keynote covers this material from a slightly different entry point, with the focus on how to provide for what a child needs in order that they reach their full potential.
Attachment Matters Podcast Resources
Episode 4: Holding On and Letting Go
Episode 5: Q & A Part 1: What does maturity look like?
Episode 7: Finding Faith and Rest In Nature’s Design
Thank you!
If you have gotten this far, thank you for reading! I hope this content has been supportive for you. We will see you soon!
This summary is very helpful
Thanks for the summary. Even after listening to the episode, it helps to have the concepts reinforced. The material feels so new that it takes repetition to help anchor it in.