Instead, I held the mindset of a great detective and remained calm, rational and objective. I took charge of both of our feelings, including my ego. I didn’t want to make assumptions and continued to ask probing, granular questions. By this time I had become good at it. It was not the first time I had felt the sudden slap of my child’s sharp honesty. I can still remember the day he revealed, “Daddy is more fun than you”. I wanted to shout, “Are you kidding? I’m the good time Mum! I dance and sing and organise just about every awesome event you’ve ever experienced.” I wanted to convince him with epic stories of how many times I’ve made him laugh and scream with delight. But I didn’t. I stopped myself from reacting and switched into loving detective mode, recognising that for some good reason, at this moment, there was a perfectly valid reason for him to prefer his daddy over me. Again, I breathed in and said with a sparkle in my eye, “Tell me about the fun that Daddy has with you” and “Teach me more about how you like to have fun.” I quickly realised I would never be the Mum who flips him in the air and flings him down onto a bed but there were still many things I could do. It’s because of these intimate conversations, we’ve created “dates” together where we explore what a perfect day of “just us” could look like; we plan for it, then make it happen. I also never forget to end the evening with a, “How did this date feel for you?”. My version of creating a positive mental “Save as,” both for him and me. I tell these stories to share how I’ve tried to invite my kid’s opinions forward and share something much deeper about their reality. When we parents create trust and intimacy consistently with children, we are able to calm our kids down, get kids to listen and encourage them to share everything about their life openly and often, without boundaries. When this occurs, we have the privilege to witness the intricacies of their fears, passions, hurts and hopes and intuitively we know something magical is occurring. So before I share some secrets to creating this kind of openness, I need you to imagine the most heartbreaking, stressful situation you’ve had with your child. Here are some examples of what children say: “I hate myself.” “I hate you.” “I hate my brother/sister.” “I don’t like school.” “I’m not good at that/anything.” “You like (insert sibling) more than me.” Perhaps it’s something they did, such as: hit people or you break things in the home continuously do things that annoy you throw things tantrum in public storm upstairs screaming. When these happen, we may feel panic, desperation, anger or even sadness. Immediately we want to fix, defend, argue, question and then feel tension, anger, frustration or sadness in our bodies. So do our kids. What happens next will determine every future interaction with your child. In that crucial moment, a parent’s response has the power to close the conversation down and unwittingly restrict their openness and future honesty with guilt, shame or blame. However, there is a better way. Try a new move. No matter what your child says, believe in your heart and mind it’s 100 percent justified and reasonable. They may say or do the most outrageous, horrible, frightening or hurtful thing. Still, trust there is some kernel of truth and validity to what they said, felt and did. .....
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 07:06:52 +0000
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