Ep. 113 - How to profoundly connect with your child (in just 15 minutes a day) with Joanna Fortune

Parenting
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This week I’m delighted to welcome the lovely Joanna Fortune to the podcast. Joanna is a clinical psychotherapist, an attachment specialist, and the author of the brilliant series of books, ’15 Minute Parenting’. Joanna has been working with children and families for over 20 years. She came up with the fantastic concept of ‘15 Minute Parenting’ after hearing from parents over and over again that, often, they only had 15 minutes of quality time every day to connect with their children.

The books centre around how we can use play to connect with our children, underpinned by Joanna’s years of experience in psychotherapy and attachment theory.

We had such a great conversation, exploring self-parenting and taking care of our own stuff as the caregivers for our children. We also talk about our inner critic and relationship with shame – and how to be aware of when we might be passing this on to our children. And towards the end of our conversation, we talk about play and some of Joanna’s 15-minute parenting ethos that can help us connect with our children in just 15 minutes a day.

I really enjoyed our conversation and hope you will, too. As always, we continue the conversation over on Instagram, so do come and join us there.

You can download a transcript of this week’s episode here.

Key takeaway’s from this week’s episode:

The Language of Play Series:

  • The first book, 0–7 Years, looks at the early childhood years.

  • Joanna feels strongly about the second book, 8–12 Years, because the middle childhood years are under-discussed.

  • The third book about the teenage years is coming out on October 23.

Why Parenting Starts with Introspection:

  • You discover your unresolved issues as you transition from being a child to a parent. (06:34)

  • Your children are important, but Joanna does not advocate that they be the most important thing in your life. (07:46)

  • Ask yourself: ‘When is the last time I did something that was truly, authentically for me?’ (08:55)

  • You can only be the parent your children need you to be if you can take care of your non-parent self. (09:15)

Parental Self-Audit:

  • To parent outwards, you need to go inwards first. (10:50)

  • Not only do you need to ask yourself hard questions, but you also have to answer and revisit them. (11:22)

  • Reflective functioning involves recalling past experiences with a new perspective. (12:22)

  • If the recalling brings up strong emotions, then the experience is still unprocessed for you. (12:47)

  • You need to look at these unprocessed experiences with a qualified professional so that they won’t play out with your children. (13:06)

Processing Your Past:

  • It’s about speaking our experiences, learning from them and moving forward in an informed way. (15:45)

  • Carl Jung said if we wish to change something in our child, we should see first whether it is a change that needs to happen in ourselves. (17:00)

  • When we snap at our children, it’s not because of what they said or did but because of what got activated in us. (18:07)

  • We have a compulsion to repeat our experiences in a bid to make sense of them. (19:10)

Attachment Theory:

  • In the ‘fourth trimester’, a baby doesn’t yet know they are separate from their mother. (21:08)

  • When you look at your baby with love, they interpret it not as ‘I love you’, but as ‘I am lovable’. (21:31)

  • Once their world expands, they look for people in their attachment network who reinforce the view that they are lovable. (21:48)

  • How we make sense of our sense of self starts in the first few months of life. (22:24)

Attachment Repair:

  • Repairing ruptured attachment is possible. However, it’s not easy because you’d have to venture to the dark corners of yourself. (24:12)

  • Theraplay uses playfulness as a language. (25:03)

  • Dyadic developmental psychotherapy is talk-based but also incorporates play. (25:52)

What Happens When You Flip Your Lid:

  • When you snap, the neocortex or the rational, reflective part of your brain goes offline. (26:24)

  • When the neocortex is offline, your amygdala is at work. Stressful or threatening situations trigger your fight-flight-freeze response. This is how our brains keep us safe. (27:00)

  • If you are in this state for a prolonged period, the area of your brain that regulates your motor functions is also affected. (27:50)

  • You can sink further into your trauma or stress if you don’t have resources to recover and get yourself back online. (28:26)

  • Attachment focus work is communicating with more than words, which is the essence of using play as a language. (29:31)

On Shaming Others:

  • Certain situations with children make it so easy for parents to lose their adult selves and become a child again. (29:48)

  • When we shame others, we are projecting our own shame. (30:48)

  • We need to distinguish between shame and guilt. Guilt enables us to change our behaviour. (32:29)

  • Many parents end up acting out when their child does something that triggers their shame. (33:15)

  • Before losing your adult self before your child, remember this: our inner voices are shaped by the generations before us. It will be the same for your child. (33:39)

Making Sense of What Doesn’t:

  • We don’t have control over the heightened moments we experience. (35:04)

  • If we come from a place of curiosity and wonder, we seek to understand and interweave a narrative with the other parties involved. Shame is a result of doing the opposite. (35:29)

  • Our inner critic is developed throughout generations, and it’s vital to do the work and unpack it. (36:36)

  • All it takes is contact with a child-minded adult to break the cycle. (38:10)

Learning from Our Mistakes:

  • Being a good enough mother is good enough. (39:10)

  • When we strive for perfection, we don’t give ourselves room to make mistakes from which we could learn. (39:29)

  • You need to apologise and make sense of what happened so that your child can also learn. (40:25)

  • It can take people their whole lives to work out that we do and say things because of our thoughts and emotions. (41:27)

Creating Boundaries:

  • Cause and effect thinking skills don’t develop until children are around four years old. Thus, it’s up to parents to help their child link their thoughts, feelings and actions. (42:06)

  • It’s essential for children to have choices that are still within parental boundaries. (42:44)

  • Boundaries are measures that create safety, reassurance, security, and healthy attachment. (43:21)

Perfectionism in Parenting: A Response to Trauma:

  • Being a parent means understanding the important role you play and that you will not be perfect. (44:22)

  • Perfection is a trauma response—it’s about having control. (45:03)

  • Your children will experience pain because it is part of life. What makes a significant difference is if you have healthy, nurturing conversations with them about trauma and healing. (45:59)

We All Have a Playful Capacity:

  • Parents often tell Joanna that they’re lucky if they get to spend even 15 minutes to play with their children. To help them, she gives them activities they can do in 15 minutes every day. (46:45)

  • Doing something little but often makes you predictable for your child, and being predictable allows for a safe and secure connection. (47:31)

  • Joanna believes we all have a playful capacity. We just have to find a way to access it, and parental self-audit can help you in the process. (48:15)

  • Listen to the full episode to discover how you can connect with your child through play!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

About Joanna

Joanna Fortune is a clinical psychotherapist and attachment specialist. She has been working with children and families for over 20 years with a specialisation in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Joanna is a theraplay practitioner and has trained extensively in all areas of attachment work. She works with parents and their children in sessions.

You can connect with Joanna on Instagram. You can also buy her books to learn more about 15-minute parenting.

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