A therapist is sharing her top parenting tip — that she learned from her own dog.
Dr. Eli Harwood, otherwise known as “The Attachment Nerd” on Instagram, admitted that in her more than 15 years of being a family therapist, her best parenting advice isn’t something she learned in grad school or in clinic.
Instead, she learned it from a dog.
Harwood posted a video to Instagram — which has garnered 480,000 views and 22,700 likes — explaining “what dogs can teach parents.”
“You know that thing they do when you come up, actually they do it when you walk in the room,” she said, while by shaking her body like an excited dog.
“Do that. With your kids. When they are young,” she emphasized.
“When they walk into the room, you light up,” she said. “And when they see you light up, what happens inside of them is they feel delightful.
“And when we feel delightful, we feel worthy and we feel confident and we don’t get stuck on as many of the parts of ourselves that are imperfect, because we know we belong,” she continued.
Harwood again stressed that it’s important to do this when children are young, because when kids become teenagers, “they turn into cats.”
“You can’t be a dog anymore with a teenager because you scare the cat away,” she continued on her metaphor.
People in the comments loved the advice.
“I still do it when they’re teenagers and they secretly still love it,” one person admitted.
“This is true. I’m 30 and my parents literally look at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world,” another added.
Dr. Eli Harwood posted a video to Instagram explaining “what dogs can teach parents.” Instagram/Attachment Nerd“I did this with my 9-year-old without knowing it was a thing — I was just genuinely excited to her,” one mom shared. “She’s definitely got some serious confidence now and I’m so glad to hear it’s going to pay off even more in the teenage years.”
“This is how I was raised and I’m so thankful for it, it created a feeling of unconditional love and even after my moms passing I feel such confidence because she made me feel so capable, important and loved,” someone commented.
“I have always done this, and I can tell you now that they are all grown, our last one just left the nest for college, and ALL SIX of the kids are kind, considerate and polite to their family and strangers alike. Stealthy acknowledgement I call it, is a huge self worth booster,” a parent chimed in.
One person even shared what it was like growing up in a home that didn’t do this.
“When I was a young child, every time I walked into a room, I was made aware that I was interrupting, annoying, exhausting or otherwise bothering the adult I was approaching. It takes a lifetime to get your body to unlearn that feeling,” they wrote.
