When Your Heart has Left the Relationship: an introduction to blocked care

It’s 7:00 in the morning, you’re in the kitchen making coffee, and you hear your child coming down the stairs. You may be tired, but your heart feels warm and you smile at her as she comes in the room. You move toward her, arms open, to give her a hug.

Or maybe not.

It’s 7:00 in the morning, you’re in the kitchen making coffee, and you hear your child coming down the stairs. You feel your stomach tighten, you clench your jaw, and you steel yourself for the moment your child enters the room. You wonder if she’ll criticize you or worse, yell at you about all the things that have gone wrong that morning and how it’s all your fault.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but situations like this seem to happen all day long.

The thought goes through your mind, “I can’t wait for this kid to turn 18 and move out.” Or maybe you feel nothing at all.

The first scenario is what motherhood should feel like, right? There’s a flow in your relationship with your child. You enjoy them and they feel warmth and safety with you.

Of course, there are days when you’re tired or stressed and you lose your cool, but when you see the expression on your child’s face, or you witness him folding his arms and turning away from you, something in you wants to reconnect and make it right. The disconnect doesn’t feel good in your body.

In those moments, your nervous system registers the lack of attunement, the sense of being “in sync” emotionally, and you’re compelled to apologize, touch your child’s cheek or hand, and connect again.

If you’re parenting a child who joined your family after experiencing trauma and adversity, the second scenario may have hit differently. That feeling of dread when your child wakes in the morning may be familiar. You may share the accompanying shame that washed over me when I felt this way.

An Introduction to Blocked Care

Let me offer a high level introduction to blocked care.

As I wrote in my book, Reclaim Compassion,

Blocked care is a self-protective mechanism in a parent’s nervous system activated by excessive stress. This suppresses the higher brain functions needed for caregiving and the accompanying loving and empathetic feelings. As a result, your nervous system develops a defensive stance toward your child.

You are still providing good care to your child, but your heart seems to have left the relationship.

Blocked care can happen to any parent under excessive stress. This could be due to a medical crisis, divorce, or natural disaster. It may also happen when a child has extreme medical needs or neurodivergence making it hard to build connection. There are numerous causes, but the bottom line is your nervous system is protecting you from what it perceives as a threat. This leads to a loss of compassion for your child and yourself.

Blocked Trust

If your child joined your family through foster care, kinship care, or adoption, you may be at higher risk for blocked care. Due to early trauma, your child’s nervous system may be guarded and self-protective because they didn’t experience the presence of a safe, nurturing adult in their early years. This can lead to what Dr. Daniel Hughes and Dr. Jon Baylin term Blocked Trust.

As with Blocked Care, there are a variety of factors that put a child at risk for blocked trust. I’ll circle back to that in a future post.

The good news is you can overcome blocked care and find your way back to the parent you long to be.

Overcoming Blocked Care

To overcome blocked care you need to care for your nervous system by addressing three key factors:

Your internal world - your body and mind

Your external world - the environment around you

Your relational world - connections with people, and I would add, most importantly with God

Caring for your nervous system and your soul within a supportive and loving community is the pathway to reclaiming compassion, shedding shame, and finding joy in parenting again.

My communities, the Hope Circle for moms, and Steadfast Dads, were created for this very purpose. We recognize the hard and celebrate the beauty of adoption, foster care, and kinship care. You’ll be seen, supported, and understood.

Please don’t walk through this alone. We’re here for you.