You might be familiar with the I Spy books where children read simple picture clues and rhyming riddles to try and find the hidden pictures on each page. It can be just as fun as a good game of hide and seek. And let’s face it, there’s nothing cuter than those moments when your child points to the newly discovered hidden key and then searches your eyes for a moment together of shared delight.
Where the I Spy books help to strengthen a child’s observation skills, the Circle of Security® roadmap helps to increase caregiver’s observation skills. Using the Circle roadmap, we are better able to shift our attention away from focusing on the child’s behavior, and onto what is Hidden in Plain Sight.
When we focus on behavior we tend to think about either reinforcing the desirable behaviors or extinguishing those we don’t like. While having consequences for behavior is useful, when the limits don’t work, or the changes don’t last, or worse yet, the outcome is not what we wanted, there is a tremendous pull in us to make the intervention bigger, stronger, longer, louder, etc. Can you think of a time when this might have happened to you? Did your parent ever threaten to ground you until you were 18?
The Circle of Security® is about switching the focus of our attention away from the behavior and onto the relationship needs that are always there, Hidden in Plain Sight. We use the Circle to focus on meeting children’s needs so we can find caring ways to help.
Because the Circle of Security® is always Hidden in Plain Sight, learning to read the Circle roadmap offers caregivers a quick, no-nonsense, straightforward way of tracking relationship needs. Using the Circle roadmap, we are able to solve the riddle of what our children really need from us and see that it is always Hidden in Plain Sight.
Learn more about how to use the Circle of Security® roadmap by watching our video animation featured on our website.
I invite you to share with me your comments, reflections, Circle stories and individual experiences with facilitating the COS-P program and in your daily life. Your submissions may be used in future blog posts, with all identifying information excluded, unless you specifically request to be identified. Contact me at deidre[at]circleofsecurity[dot]com
