Hate Parenting Scripts But Can't Look Away? Here's Why

Parenting scripts can be seductive to post-traumatic parents. They offer this impeccably worded, gentle “script” to talk your child through anything. Kid doesn’t want to leave the playground? There’s a script for that. Five-year-old is tormenting their three-year-old sibling? There’s a script for that. Kindergartener—or preteen—doesn’t want to get on the school bus? There’s a script for that, too.

We learn parenting by observing parenting, by attempting parenting, but mostly, by having been parented. John Bowlby, the father of attachment theory, called this our “internal working model.” Our internal working model is the template we have of the world, of relationships, of ourselves. It’s also the template we have for parenting. But what happens if that internal working model feels broken? What happens if we never experienced good attachment, or despite good attachment, trauma interfered with that? I call this “learned insecurity” and it’s what happens when trauma interferes with our internal working model.

Our working model tells us about the world. How safe is it? How predictable is it? Will someone come and soothe me when I’m in pain? Can I count on others to help me, or will they harm me, or inconsistently help and harm? When I’m feeling vulnerable, do I have a place of safety to return to? It also tells us how competent and safe we can feel while navigating the world. Trauma can interfere with that sense—even if we experienced good attachment, trauma can undo that. I had an attachment figure I could count on—and then they died. Or got sick. I felt safe in school—and then there was a shooting, or I was bullied, or my learning disability set me up to feel like a failure. Such learned insecurity can impact parenting even at the most basic levels.

Research has linked the speed, intensity, and duration of our stress response to our attachment style. Anxiously attached individuals become overly stressed more easily and have a harder time self-soothing. Managing our stress response is a key component of “self-regulation,” our ability to notice when we’re becoming stressed and calm ourselves before that stress reaches critical levels. Self-regulation is a core component of “co-regulation”, which is when a parent calms themselves and their child down in a reciprocal process. By self-regulating, the parent can both share their own calm and also help the child feel safe and soothed. If we can’t self-regulate, we can’t co-regulate.

Enter parenting scripts.

For parents who feel like their internal working model is broken, parenting scripts feel helpful. The thought is, “I don’t know how to parent. I lack that ‘parenting instinct’ that other parents seem to have. I know what I don’t want to do, but I’m not clear on what to actually do. This lady on the internet has a lot of impressive-sounding initials after her name, and she sounds confident, like she knows what do to. So I’ll do what she says to do.”

As a starting point for parenting—things to emphasize and things to avoid—that can be helpful. Starting with validation, saying things like, “Oh, you’re so sad right now. You really want to stay in the park for longer,” can help a child feel...felt, like a parent is attuned to their emotions and gets that they’re in distress. It definitely lowers a sense of being alone with big emotions, which is one of the most aversive aspects of childhood trauma.

Here's your permission to go "off book." In parenting, the actual words of the script don't matter - despite us often feeling that they do. Instead, it's about 'implicit scripts' and attunment. It's not Shakespeare. It's parenting!

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Normalizing is another useful aspect of parenting scripts. “Sometimes, when we’re jealous of our sister, those feelings get so big, they come out in pushing,” helps a child feel less shame about acting on their big emotions. They understand that a parent gets it, that they’re not “bad” for being aggressive, and that the adult is there to problem solve, not to punish or shame.

Another useful aspect of parenting scripts is how developmentally appropriate they are. They’re worded in ways that children can get. A parenting script for a three-year-old sounds very different from one for an 11-year-old, even if they’re both about hitting or school refusal or reluctance to end screen time. This helps parents who weren’t parented properly themselves start to adjust the way they speak to their children, becoming more aware of how much a child’s brain can comprehend, at a given age or stage.

The problem with parenting scripts? The words!

I find that parents become so dependent on the script, on remembering the words correctly, they forget that it’s not about the words.

This is not a play. This is not Shakespeare. You can ad-lib. You don't need to remember the exact words. There's no magic in the words. Has anyone ever heard a five-year-old having a meltdown in a store say, "Upon mature reflection, your logic has swayed me. All right, mommy, I do not need the candy and the randomly shaped bit of plastic action figure." No, right? Because it's not about the logic, it's about a felt sense. "I am with you in your big emotions, I get you, and I’m here for you. I’ll help you through this."

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But Aren't Attachment Scripts Research-Based?

There’s research about how attachment scripts can help at-risk parents—those living below the poverty line, those who never experienced good attachment themselves, and those who are living with multiple stressors—improve their parenting. But, it turns out, those ‘scripts’ are implicit scripts, simply teaching parents about attachment, about concepts such as "proximity maintenance"—staying close to a child to soothe them, being a "secure base" from which the child can go out and explore the world, and being a "safe haven" when the child is stressed—those implicit scripts can really impact parenting.

But implicit scripts—how to speak in a soothing manner, remaining close to an infant or toddler, soothing them with co-regulation, using developmentally appropriate language and strategies—these are all about behaviors, not words.

In fact, at their core, these implicit scripts are about attunement, the building block of attachment. Attunement is about neuroception—sensing the child’s emotional state and then soothing the child. It refers to the parent's ability to be emotionally responsive and connected to their child's needs, feelings, and cues. It involves being attuned to the child's emotional states, understanding their signals and nonverbal cues, and responding to them with sensitivity and empathy.

If we’re entirely focused on parenting scripts, it’s not our child we’re attuned to—it’s the script.

If the goal is attunement and attachment, the parenting script—the actual words—will interfere.

So please, let’s put parenting scripts in perspective. As a jumping-off point, they can be helpful. But as a clinical psychologist, here’s my permission to go “off book” and just speak from the heart. At the core of attunement is authenticity. And we can’t do that using someone else’s words.