Episode 8 Play, Rupture and Repair - Part 1

 This week, we are exploring how play relates to the concepts of rupture and repair within relationships, particularly focusing on the bond between an adult and a child. When we refer to rupture, we mean a moment of disconnection in the relationship, which can manifest differently depending on the child's age, whether they are a baby or a toddler.

We will also discuss the distinction between guilt and shame, emphasizing how harmful shame can be for a child. Additionally, we will highlight the importance of parental support, or scaffolding, when children and young people experience intense and overwhelming emotions.

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Transcript

This transcript is created in the editing suite, and at this time, we don't have the time to make corrections.

Rupture, repair and play

Philippa: Welcome to this episode with me, Philippa.

Julie: And me, Julie. This time we're going to be thinking about how play fits into the concept of rupture and repair within a relationship. And we'll particularly be thinking today about repair within relationship between an adult and a child. And Philippa, I wanted to start off by asking you can you tell us what you think of when we say the word rupture? If you're imagining a parent and a child, just give us a couple of examples of what you mean by rupture

Philippa: so I think it's where there's a little bit of a disconnection in the relationship. And I think that looks different depending on the age of a child or a baby or a toddler. So it might be for a baby, they are hungry and they [00:01:00] cry a bottle or whatever it is. And the parent respond immediately because maybe they have to go and Warm the milk or, put down what they're doing to be able to pick them up to breastfeed. And there's a moment where, the baby's needs not being met and it's quite stressful for them. Then the picks them up and they get what they need. For a toddler or a young child, it might be that they're sitting in a high chair and they're waiting for dinner and they're dropping their toys over the side the high chair and you pick them up a few times and then you think actually I'm not playing this game anymore mate and you take the toys away and then they get upset and you then might feed them or you might sit in the lounge with them and play with them. For a toddler ish 4, 5, 6, it might be that you've said don't go down to the bottom of the garden or don't jump in those puddles and actually those puddles are way too exciting not to jump in and the first thing they do when you've said [00:02:00] don't do it is actually do it. then you tell them off and you say, I said don't jump in that puddle so you're now going to have to hold my hand. And so those kind of things, as you get into the teenage years, it might be that they shout at you or they are demanding things or they are staying up late. And there's a moment where there's a disconnection between your relationship and theirs. And what I think is, is that that happens. all relationships, quite often throughout a day,

Julie: Um,

Philippa: big ones where you're telling them off for jumping in puddles or nagging them to do their homework and they don't want to and you're getting into that battle. There might be other moments where your six year old is saying, Daddy, at my picture.

And you're in the middle of cooking tea or having a chat with somebody else and you don't look immediately. For that child, there's a moment of, Oh, my daddy's not interested in [00:03:00] me. And there's a rupture in that relationship. And it's not that they're not interested. It's just that at the moment, there's something a little bit more pressing.

And when, you've mashed the potatoes or finished your phone call, You then go back and you say, Oh, what was it you were showing me, Julie? Let me have a look. And you the relationship. And those happen, don't they? all the time throughout our lives and are really important as long as a repair to the relationship. And what we want to talk about is that concept of these ruptures and repairs.

Julie: And what happens when the ruptures inevitably happen in all of our lives, adult to adult, child to child, adult to child, ruptures are happening all the time in small and big ways throughout life. It's part of being human. And without rupture, actually, I wonder If we're having the full human experience, life [00:04:00] has ups and downs.

It's what the game snakes and ladders is about. There are constant small and big ruptures going on in life. And part of our role as adults, as educators, as therapists, as parents, is to help children navigate and accept and know and normalize rupture. It's part of everyday life. We fall over and we hurt ourselves.

We have an expectation of something for tea. And it doesn't come. We want to go to somebody's party, but we end up being sick that day. So ruptures as well as disappointments, but the ruptures involve two people. I think that's what we're saying. It needs to involve at least two people because it's about a break in a relationship.

It's more than a disappointment. It's about some wobble, some absolute severing Of a relationship and [00:05:00] everything in between. So I often imagine a string between me and another person. And sometimes that string is very thin and sometimes it's very, very thick. Sometimes it's very flexible. Sometimes it's very solid.

And a rupture would be a cut into that string. Sometimes it might just weaken it and sometimes it will actually. Break off or connection. So I think we're both thinking, similarly about what a rupture is. It involves a relationship being wobbled or being broken and what happens. When a rupture is not repaired, I know we haven't talked yet about what the repair might look like, but I, my, it's interesting, my brain has gone straight to what happens when there's a rupture and there isn't a repair, [00:06:00] where the bad feeling, where the disconnect is kind of left lingering.

And perhaps the child has been sent to a different area of the world. the home. Perhaps the parent has walked out. Perhaps there's been a complete ignoring of the fact that there has been a rupture. It's almost like sometimes it can be not noticed. Like both parties have felt it. One or other party just sort of shrugs their shoulders and says, okay, so what should we have for tea then?

Hang on, we've just had a big argument. And is that a repair or is that a A sort of sticking plaster or, an ignoring. But I, I think what we want to move on to is thinking more about what do you see in, in repair? We've, we've established [00:07:00] that ruptures are fairly normal within all human life, small and big.

What is the action of a repair?

Philippa: well I wonder Julie if we maybe should go back to when it doesn't happen I would just. slightly disagree or maybe put into context that sometimes I don't think everybody does know that there's been a rupture and that parents sometimes aren't always aware. ruptures, like I said, can happen for babies if their needs aren't met. Now, sometimes babies can be left in rooms on their own or without nappy changes or without their needs being met, like being fed and those sorts of things. And parents or whoever's caring for them may not always be aware that need is there because they can't meet it, but that is a huge rupture in that relationship because you're not building that trust. You haven't got anyone that's looking after you, and then it can carry on. Sometimes children may [00:08:00] have had their early life. Maybe as a baby or all their needs were met, but then maybe something happened in the family and they're, they aren't having their needs met in those ways, both relationally and on that very basic level. Maybe parents have become ill in some ways, or maybe your parents left the house or there's, Drug use or alcohol use, which means that there's big, heavy ruptures in those relationships that are happening consistently.

And what I'm going to go on to say is this is, this isn't about just, once a day that, you let your kid cry for a few minutes longer than maybe you'd want to because you're a bit stressed or dinner's on or somebody else is having got the need.

This is about consistent, ruptures that are not repaired, where the children's needs aren't being met and that there's [00:09:00] No adult helping the child, the baby, the toddler to make sense of what they're experiencing. And I think that that's what a repair does. And we'll

Julie: Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence.

Philippa: And if you can't make sense of it, the only thing that you can think is it's because there's something wrong with me I am bad. I am unlovable, I am awful. And this is then held. And then internalize this shame really and the rupture and repair and does help, move us on to guilt. we don't get those rupture and repairs along with everything else and making sense of what's going on, we end up sitting with shame. And then a guy named, I think we've talked about before,

[00:10:00] whole of you.

children, young people, teenagers who are just stuck with shame because they haven't had parental scaffolding to manage these big feelings that can come once, once you start to develop.

And it ends up, he talks about the shield of shame, which is deny, minimize, blame, and then rage. So put link to this in the of the

Julie: Um,

Philippa: But basically it is, say Julie, you have eaten my packet of Skittles that I've got saved in the cupboard downstairs.

Julie: No, I haven't.

Philippa: There you go.

Julie: Straight into denial.

Philippa: deny, deny, deny. So the first thing is deny it wasn't me. It 

was 

Julie: It wasn't me. No.

Philippa: me. Yeah. I didn't do [00:11:00] it. But Julie, I can see all the colors of the Skittles on your fingers and around your mouth.

Julie: Yeah, but I only had the orange ones because you don't like the orange ones.

So is that minimizing?

Philippa: you

Julie: Okay.

Philippa: now what we're doing.

Julie: Okay.

Philippa: But Julie, I think you've got some green there. And actually the packet's empty and it was full 

Julie: yeah, but you didn't give me enough. You never give me skittles, and you've been promising me skittles all the time. Is that the next stage?

Philippa: So that's blame.

Julie: Oh, so I'm now putting it on you. Well, you left them there for me. You should have hidden them. You were tempting me. It's your fault. So that would be the blame.

Okay, I get it, I get it.

Philippa: is it. So deny. It wasn't me. Minimize. There was only, only the orange ones. Blame. It's all your fault because you said you were going to give them to me. And then if I going and saying,

Julie: Yeah, [00:12:00] you never understand me. It's all your fault. You never give me sweets. I've never had sweets in my life and I'm going to storm out and slam this store and you're the most awful parent ever. Would that be the rage?

Philippa: That's the

Julie: Okay. Okay.

Philippa: that is because the feeling of shame is so bad, it's so horrendous, we just never, never, never want a child to feel shame. Really, we don't want them. People ought to feel shame, but definitely not a child because it's all about I am unlovable. I am unworthy. I am horrendous.

And if Phillipa knows that I have taken these skittles she's not gonna meet my needs anymore. She's not gonna want to be around me. She'll see all this blackness inside me. So the only thing I can do is put this shield up and see if I can deflect it away.

Julie: And so shame is about a feeling of unworthiness, a feeling of awfulness within the whole of me. [00:13:00] even though that incident was about one little packet of sweets, it then becomes about the whole of me hating the whole of you and feeling that I'm unworthy of a relationship and love from you. So that's, is that what you're saying about shame?

Is that all pervading fit? So tell us then about the difference between shame and guilt.

Philippa: Yeah, so guilt would be that you and I are playing with our train track and I ram the train down and I hit it into your fingers and you

Julie: Gallop, huh?

Philippa: that really hurt, yeah. And then I would say, oh, Julie, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your fingers. Yeah, and so I can apologize. Maybe when I'm four, I might not say I'm sorry, but you know that you hurt and you can accept that my action hurt your fingers

Julie: Yeah. And I could say, yeah, that did hurt me. I wish you [00:14:00] hadn't done that. I've got a really sore finger now, 

Philippa: And I might say let me kiss your finger or let's put a plaster on it. And I want to repair. But it's only about the action. It's not about me. I can separate me from the action. I can think what I did was not okay,than who I am is not okay. that starts to happen, you know, I talked about that baby's in the high chair.

I think this is for me, how I start to understand it. So the baby in the high chair is dropping the toys on the floor. And I keep picking them up. And then I think I'm not picking them up anymore. So I take the toys away so I can take the toys away. And shut them in another room and say, you know, we're not doing that anymore. Stay there and shut the door. So this baby then is left with that big [00:15:00] feeling and doesn't have any understanding about it and is overwhelmed by it. They've got that big feeling. big feeling in their body, they might be crying, they might be sobbing, or they've learned that actually there's no point, you know, that I'm just going to sit here feeling this horrendous feeling in my body and know that nobody's going to come and help me with these feelings, with this thing, because I am bad, because how, at 12 months old do you understand, or even eight months, you can't understand any more than that, can you? Where is it? When we start to move into guilt, is that we playing the game of picking the toys up off the floor and say, Oh, we're just going to put those away, but let's have some food now. Well, let's go and sit in there in the sitting room and, and play with some toys on the floor. So we disconnect for a moment because we take really nice game that they're playing. So there's a moment of those feelings, that sadness them by going into the the sitting room and [00:16:00] sitting on the floor and starting play again so it's like oh that was really bad they did oh okay they do like me so that was not okay but this is okay yeah i am still lovable i am still worth playing with i am still worth feeding they didn't like this bit, but they love me. And that's the difference. One is you're on your own. There's no repair. You're left. the only way you can understand what's going on is the shame that goes inside Versus the I don't like what this this game that you're playing But i'll play this game with you So we're not going to do this because it's not great to drop your toys on the floor, but this is okay Let's play this together. With shame, we go into the survival brain, which we've talked about in previous episodes. So we go into the defending. So that fight, fight or freeze, I'm either going to fight, which is, I'm going to argue with you anyway to stop this feeling from happening. I'm going to go [00:17:00] run away and hide. And you see teenagers, certainly teenage girls, I work with that, go into shame really quickly and they've got this really long hair and they flick it over their head And it covers their whole face or they've got the, the hoodies and they pull out the hoodies over their faces, like I just need to hide away so you don't see this inside me. Or the freeze of I don't know what to say right now. And parents all say, he just stands there and looks at me. It doesn't say a word, it just stands there looking at me. And it can be misinterpreted in, they knew they'd done something wrong.

That's why they didn't have anything to say because they knew they'd done it wrong. And it's just, it's way more than that shame, it's, I am going to die now because these people aren't going to meet my needs anymore. They're not going to love me and, and, Where is guilt? You can find a way back from it might be a bit harsh for a moment and there might be a bit of a moment of oh how are they going to react but once [00:18:00] they see that you are like it hurts but don't worry about it they can move into The action, the word that it's about this one tiny bit that it wasn't okay.

And I need to make a repair, but I am still okay. I am still I am still going to be played with. I'm going to have my needs met. Whereas shame is they're just going to disconnect and not give me anything again. I think when you're playing. With children who experience shame because they haven't had those repairs often enough. Play can feel more tentative or more controlling because they need to control everything not to feel the shame, to make sure that everything goes right because if they do something wrong in the play then they may feel the shame that comes up with it. I think shame doesn't feel as [00:19:00] in, in the moment of play. There's maybe children that don't experience it so pervasively. Sometimes the rupture is used as a punishment. You did this, so go away. I'm not going to speak to you. I'm not, you know, the rupture is used as the consequence for the action rather than, we just need a break for a moment.And I think it's about how you frame that, isn't it? And about that this is a feeling that you've both got. Oh my we have got so many big, big emotions. I remember once my son drew All upstairs with his friend. It was my fault. I had left him and his friend, he was only a little, it was about, I say a little, about six, playing upstairs without checking them because my son's friend's parent [00:20:00] is also my friend, so we were sitting downstairs chatting. They were upstairs we'd newly painted upstairs and he drew, drawn. All upstairs, making it into a pirate ship. And on the wall, in the bath, permanent marker, he'd drawn pirates and buttons to press. I mean, literally all over the house. On wardrobes, on rocking chairs. Honestly, I was speechless.

I was speechless when I saw it. I was so mad. I was so, so, so mad. And he clearly could see how mad I was and then was really upset, but I couldn't comfort him. I couldn't do anything in that moment because I was furious. And if I'd said anything, what I'd said would not have been appropriate for the age of the child he was, or really that actually it was my fault.

I had left them for like, ages and a good hour or [00:21:00] so upstairs and they'd had the best time in the world but driven with this permanent marker everywhere. So I had to say to him, right now I am so mad and I'm really sorry that I'm so mad but I, I am really mad that I can't, I can't talk about this. So I just need you to play with something to do something that's okay for you. And I am just going to have to go downstairs until I'm not so much. And we had, I had to have that separation because honestly, Julie, I would have killed him if I'd said anything or, or started down the route and it wouldn't have been helpful for any of us. So definitely we needed that space, but it was I was owning. my things. He was upset so I did give him a snack. I let him play on his PlayStation, and I guess some people could see that I 

was rewarding thatit wasn't about rewarding it. I, I [00:22:00] needed him to be okay because he was my son and I love him and I didn't want him to be distressed and I know that I needed to deal with the behavior. But it wasn't that time to deal with that behavior in that moment, and I didn't want him to feel shame. feeding him, so I did feed him, I didn't say very much to him, but I gave him some snacks. I let him play with the PlayStation, then I went downstairs, and phoned a few of my friends and vented all the things that I wanted to say before I went back and dealt with it. Yeah, I can still remember the feeling of wanting to kill him.

 well, he knew that he shouldn't draw with permanent marker on the bottom of the bath.

Philippa: draw on the, on the wardrobes or my nana's, rocking chair. Oh, oh julie, he was, you know, he was like six I'm sure he didn't. suppose this is about cognitions. I'm sure he wasn't thinking me. Mom won't like this. I can't do [00:23:00] it. But he knew that drawing in the bottom of the bath with permanent mark. And that stayed there for years with the permanent marker slowly faded over time. Do you know what I mean? But he knew if he thought about it, but that, that cognitive, I think what you talked about that linking them up.

If I do this, this is going to happen. sure he didn't think that. That had never happened before and, it wasn't an everyday thing. Some things can be everyday, especially if you've got children in shape, and they're responding like that every day, and it can wear you down, can't it? Your emotional resilience becomes less and less and less, and it becomes threatening and hard. But I suppose I'm just aware that, coming to the end of this, but I suppose for me, of the things that I think is super important is that as adults, we model the repair, the responsibility is ours [00:24:00] we've taught or modeled for our children, this is how it's done and this is how it's safe. And I think another really great podcast is about when repair isn't safe because there's sometimes where repair isn't isn't safe to do and and actually we're better staying in rupture and in chaos than we are in being in relationship 

with somebody generally i would say responsibility for repair, even when we've got teenagers, because the whole thing about the teenage brain resetting and being very emotional is, ours as adults. And eventually, slowly, if we model that for our children, start to be able, as long as they've got guilt and not this shame, they start to then slowly be able to do the repair for themselves until they become [00:25:00] adults and, and hopefully, can do the repair more than, than they don't. For me, it's our responsibility. and it might never involve words, involve revisiting what you did, what, what happened because the rupture was minor and it just moves on and your relationships just 

carried on. might be that actually it was too big and And you can't or don't want to at that moment have a conversation about it, but you repair the relationship by cooking your 

child's tea sitting and thinking, I can't talk to them right now. I am still mad or I am still really hurt because they've hurt me, I can sit and watch Endgame with them or, you know, Big Bang Theory or whatever it is and eat a bag of popcorn, but I can't talk about it. I can't. Maybe even look at them, I can repair the relationship by being next to them 

and with them.

So repair looks [00:26:00] doesn't it? And like for teenagers, they never say anything, but they might come and ask you a question or, you know, give you a piece of information like, to information from teenagers, I think is like gold dust. and that it can be their way of repairing about saying, I am still in this relationship with your mom, dad, granny, whoever it is. but I'm not going to talk about why I slammed the door or why I didn't do my homework or got detention, but I'll tell you that, got a C in maths and that's my repair I'm not sure we talked too hugely about play in there, but I think rupture and repair in play happens all the time, doesn't it? And it's a good way of practicing it, how the vet says sorry to the dog or how the granny says sorry to the lollipop lady if you're playing out play and things like that. I'm sure that those happen through, through playful means as well.