Episode 31: From Behaviour to Reaction: How to Manage Parent Reactions through Parallel Processing in Child Therapy with Cindy MacMillan

Welcome back to your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch podcast. I’m your host, Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, Cindy McMillan, licensed clinical social worker, will share how to manage parent reactions through parallel processing in child therapy.

Hi, Cindy. Welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Cindy, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice journey.

Sure. So I am a clinical social worker. I have a private practice, a brighter future counseling located here in New Jersey where I work with caregivers and their children around big feelings and big behaviors.

I specialize in play therapy and infant mental health. And so really, my work with caregivers and their young children really focuses on helping them sustain change that doesn’t come from just their child coming in and fixing their child and their child’s problems. So it comes from strengthening the parent-child relationship, and any problems going on within that relationship.

But before this I was working in nonprofits. I’ve held various positions as usually we all do in the clinical field. I’ve run a program for offenders with mental illness and I’ve done lots of supervision around that. And now my clinical journey has led me to working with other therapists that work with children too.

Amazing. And I’m really excited to talk about today’s topic because it is definitely something we have not spoke on the podcast about before. So I know off air you’ve shared a concept called reflective functioning.

How do you define reflective functioning and how can it help clinicians support parents who are feeling overwhelmed, exhausted. Maybe they’re reacting to situations that are happening.

Sure. So reflective functioning, we sometimes call it parental mentalization. It’s really the capacity to pause and consider what might be happening inside ourselves separate from what’s happening inside of our child. So for parents, that might be something like. Right now, they are feeling the need to correct their child or to yell at their child. And it’s pausing for a moment to recognize that and what it’s bringing up for them. And because they’re seeing maybe big reactions from their child throwing items or hitting right.

So research in the infant mental health area shows us that reflective functioning is actually one of the strongest predictors of secure attachment and healthy emotional regulation in children. So when parents are overwhelmed or they’re frustrated, or they’re exhausted, as we all get, that shuts down and that’s normal, right? That it shuts down.

So what we wanna do is help strengthen that through our clinical interactions with parents. So clinicians really want to think about this through parallel processing with the parent. They wanna help the parent slow down their automatic reactions so that they can reduce shame and respond with more intention to what’s happening within their child.

That’s really helpful. Can you walk us through what parallel processing looks like between a therapist and a parent and why it’s a powerful tool for building a parent’s reflective capacity.

Absolutely. So parallel processing refers to the dynamic that is happening between the clinician and maybe the parent in therapy and how that translates into the parent child relationship.

So you wanna think of it like this. If you have a parent coming in for therapy. And within you certain emotions are coming up. We want to recognize that’s happening so that we can address that because t’s probably happening within their relationship with their child.

So when a clinician can pause and reflect on their own internal experience, rather than acting it out right or reacting immediately, they’re modeling reflective functioning for the parent.

So it might be something like them saying, I notice, I’m feeling a little stuck right now, and I’m wondering if you feel that way with your child. So this is so powerful because reflective capacity isn’t taught through psychoeducation. It’s a felt experience and it happens through the relationship. So the therapist’s ability to actually stay curious and regulated in those moments helps them to then reflect and build their own reflective capacity.

That’s so helpful. Could you give a few more examples on, how we can incorporate parallel processing and reflective capacity into the relationship? Are there other specific statements that we can say, or things that we can integrate to help this process?

Absolutely, I would love to. So you wanna think about if you are experiencing this with a parent, that is how the child may be experiencing it with a parent.

So simple statements to help them reflect on that would be very helpful to build the reflective capacity. So if they’re maybe discussing a moment with their child saying something like, wow. What do you think your child was feeling in that moment? What do you think your child needed from you? How were you feeling that was different from how your child was feeling?

And then when we talk about parallel process, you wanna think about it just as it sounds, right? Like you’re walking alongside and you’re giving the parent the experience of being seen, heard, understood, listened to, that maybe they didn’t get as a child, and maybe they’re not able to give to their child in this moment, right?

And so as you’re having that experience with the parent in therapy, then they’re able to take that and internalize it and provide that to their child.

I love that. I know sometimes therapists may struggle with helping parents separate their emotional experience from their childs. How do you teach clinicians to guide parents through that differentiation?

Absolutely. So I think it’s the skills that is foundational for us as therapists that we need to lean on the most because in the end, connection and relationship matter the most. And so as the parent feels heard and understood and validated with their feelings. Then they’re opening up more.

And then we can invite curiosity into it and meaning making, what are we making of this child throwing things, right? You bring up that your child is always hitting or throwing things. What do you think that means? For some parents, that is gonna mean my child’s being disrespectful or my child hates me. And they’re personalizing it. So, as clinicians, we wanna help parents to separate their own thought process from their child’s thought process.

This is totally normal because as parents, we’re activated by certain things based off of our own history and based off of our own experiences with our parents. And so being able to slow it down and notice the patterns that are happening and help parents reflect on that.

That’s amazing. So when parents come into therapy, how can clinicians create an environment where parents feel safe enough to reflect rather than react?

Absolutely. And reflection can only happen in the context of felt safety, right? So I love Steven Porges work around the polyvagal theory. And really what he says is connection is the therapy. This is the key. And so we want clinicians to be able to connect with the parents and slow them down, reduce the shame position the parents as partners and not the problem in the parent-child relationship.

So it really means focusing less on what the parent’s doing wrong and more on why their reactions make sense given their stress, histories and nervous system state.

So what I want to make sure, as clinicians that we understand is simple practices that we use of being able to lean into curiosity, tolerating those silences, naming how people are feeling without trying to fix it right away are going to help the most.

I love that you brought in the connection is key because even when we separate the child care relationship. We know that’s a key contributor to all therapy that we do regardless of, the population, the niche, and so forth. So when we think of that connection, research shows that’s an important part of the relationship.

And I know that this is not my other podcast, the Designer Practice podcast, but in case anyone is thinking about, starting a private practice or in a private practice, connection is also one of the key pieces of retention as well. If we think of people who want to continue to see us long term especially if it’s clinically appropriate, of course. It is that connection that is going to keep them booking with you and working with you, and then of course, seeing the progress with you. When the connection is not there, you’re gonna see people, maybe come for a session or two and then they’re gonna stop coming. And it doesn’t mean that you know you or what your providing isn’t valuable, it just may not be a fit. And just like in, real life, we sometimes make connections with some people and we sometimes don’t with others, and it just might be fit.

But I love that you identify that connection is key because I think from a clinical standpoint and from a retention standpoint, it is really the bread and butter.

Yeah, and it’s funny to me because some clinicians that I work with will come in and want to be very sterile, very formal with their clients, and I can appreciate it and understand it, and we wanna think about how we are forming a relationship with them because change only happens within relationship.

And so whether it’s parents of children with big behaviors or not, anybody, this change of behaviors can only happen within relationship to another person.

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. So what are some practical ways therapists can help parents practice reflective functioning outside of sessions, especially when they’re in the heat of the moment with a dysregulated child.

Yeah, absolutely. In the heat of the moment, reflective functioning has to be simple and embodied. So they have to practice it outside of the heat of the moment to get to that point. So I do encourage therapists to work with parents on practicing it over and over when it isn’t in the heat of the moment to begin with. So that it comes more naturally.

So some simple tools are short reflective prompts. So things like, what is my child communicating to me right now? Some body-based cues that you’re noticing. So as a parent, my tension is rising. I am feeling my muscles tighten up. I’m feeling my heart rate increase. Noticing those and grounding myself. And then use just a simple, repeatable mantra that you could reflect on. So this behavior is communication. It’s not defiance.

So I want to emphasize that reflection is just as important in the heat of the moment as it is after the moment has passed. And so sometimes we need that post-event reflection to happen so that we can build the neural pathways needed to access being more reflective in the moment.

So I also know that many therapists listening are also parents themselves and may shift from being the calm regulated clinician in the therapy room to suddenly parenting a dysregulated child at home. How do you help therapists parents understand their own need for co-regulation and reflection as they switch between these roles? And what support do you recommend for managing that transition?

I love it. I am myself a parent too, and so moving from the therapy room into the home there needs to be some kind of transition. But even before I get to that, I wanna say Knowing so many therapists, I know how incredibly compassionate they can be with their clients, and oftentimes I find them harder on themselves than anybody else. I’m a therapist, I should know better. I shouldn’t do this. And so really being self-compassionate and saying, this is a hard moment for myself too is okay. So what I’d like to say is that transition between the office and going home needs maybe a longer time of regulating yourself, grounding yourself. That means that they also, as therapists need co-regulation. They need rest, they need reflection just as much as the families they’re serving do.

And so I encourage therapists to build in intentional decompression rituals between work and home. Whether that is writing in a journal before I go home. Feeling like I can set things aside at work before I’m entering into the house, taking a couple deep breaths and then obviously seek reflective supervision or consultation too for yourself and practice that self-compassion for yourself often.

Absolutely. Cindy, you have a free resource. Can you tell us what it is and how it could help listeners?

Sure. So I offer a bunch of free resources, but one free resource I’d like to mention is designed to help parents pause and respond more intentionally during moments, a big feel of things and big behaviors.

And so it is a simple, Reflective Pause Plan For Parents and they could find that at my website at brighterfuturecounseling.com/reflectivepause, and that will help them move through some brain-based tools to stay grounded in those moments.

So to get access to Cindy’s free resource, the Reflective Pause Plan, check out a brighterfuturecounseling.com/reflectivepause

Also, it’s one L for any of our Canadian listeners, or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Also, Cindy, if there’s listeners that would like to connect and reach out to you, how can they?

Yeah, so the best way to reach me is through my newsletter, actually. So if you sign up for my newsletter, I’m always reading the replies for that.

And that’s at a brighterfuturecounseling.com/newsletter.

Also, I’m on Facebook and Instagram as a @brighterfuturecounseling, and you could follow me along on YouTube.

Fabulous. Cindy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to manage parent reactions through parallel processing in child therapy.

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure being here, and thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.