Today I wanted to share more about a concept that I mention a lot, but haven’t devoted much space to unpacking: ‘felt safety’.
Picture this: it’s ten to fifteen minutes before dinner. Your kid asks for a cookie and you give the Kid Food Instagram sanctioned line of ‘kitchen is closed’, or even just the logical reply of ‘no, dude, dinner’s almost ready’.
And cue an outburst of the most epic proportions. Tears, screaming, kicking, throwing and other behaviours that might feel disproportionate to the situation. If you’re noticing these kinds of behaviours a lot around mealtimes and food, it might be a sign that your child isn’t just being a bag of dicks for the sake of winding you up, but its their way of trying to tell you that they don’t feel safe coming to the table. Remember that behaviour is communication.
The term felt safety was developed by a developmental psychologist named Dr. Karyn Purvis. It means ‘that adults arrange the environment and adjust their behavior so children can feel in a profound and basic way that they are truly safe in their home and with us.’
Felt-safety is a subjective experience and will look different from kid-to-kid. Critically, the absence of physical dangers and immediate threats in the environment does not mean that kids automatically feel safe. This may be because they have stored body memories that are being recalled, even though those threats have been removed. This is particularly true for foster and adopted kids. And kids with brain-based differences such as Autism or ADHD, feeding-differences like PDF or ARFID, or sensory processing differences may also experience a lack of safety around food. Even neurotypical kids who are otherwise pretty confident eaters may experience a lack of felt safety from time to time (for instance, eating at a friend’s house for the first time, eating in the school cafeteria).
How we experience safety depends on our neuroception. Neuroception is how we unconsciously distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life-threatening. In the example given above, the child registered the adult’s requests to wait until dinner as a threat; perhaps that they weren’t going to have enough to eat, and therefore risk starvation, even though that wasn’t the case.
Kids who are neurodivergent or who have experienced traumatic events may experience situations or people as unsafe, even when they don’t pose any threat to that child, there is still a sense that something’s not quite right, so we may need to work harder to create safety for those kids. Our brains have 'protection' and 'connection' modes. Protection is the older, more body-based, ancient part of the brain. Connection is higher brain functioning, which is sociable, flexible, and rational. When kids feel threatened or unsafe they move into 'protection' mode. This shuts down their ability to think rationally and instead they operate from the protection part of their brain. When it comes to food and eating, this can look like running away from the table, crying, distress, throwing, shaking, and big reactions to seemingly small things like waiting ten minutes until dinner. It’s important to understand that this isn’t willful ‘misbehaviour’, but a protective mechanism in response to a perceived threat.
So, how do you know that a child feels safe at the dinner table? Generally speaking, they will be calm, connected, and able to engage with you (whatever that typically looks like for your kid). They may show an interest or curiosity about food, and they may tell stories or jokes. They’re in their window of tolerance.
