Parenting Blog

"Here, in this over-privileged country, are children so over-scheduled that they hardly know what it is to daydream, so institutionalized that they rarely know the contentment of surrendering to the arms of someone they can depend upon absolutely -- for whom nothing is more important than giving them the love they need." -- Anne R. Pierce

Do you feel sometimes like you have to be a super-parent? So often we feel pressure to prove we’re good parents by bringing perfectly decorated cupcakes to the class party, having a perfectly organized house, or rushing to get an impressive dinner on the table every night. These may be rewarding tasks, but they have nothing to do with parenting, since your kids would rather have scrambled eggs and raw carrots for dinner if that kept you in a better mood. But even if we rise above that pressure, there isn’t a parent alive who hasn’t felt the urge to enroll her kid in one more activity "to help him develop his potential."

But kids actually suffer when they're overloaded with organized activities. What they need most is time to explore their imaginations and their environments -- and time with you. Does that sound like work?  I think it's the opposite of work because it's all internal -- more of an attitude you commit to.

The patience to listen, the big-heartedness to see it from their side, the self-discipline to not take your bad mood out on your child, the willingness to embrace your child's full emotional life while helping her make wise choices about her actions, the motivation to keep doing this every day when no one else really understands what it takes out of you.

Great parents actually don't "work" hard; they just show up. They give up on perfection and nurture themselves so they have something to give their kids. They courageously let go of doing what looks good and start doing what feels right. They shut out the interrupting world and create sanctuary.  They sit on the couch whenever possible, and focus on the invisible tasks of parenting:

Creating engrossing dinner table conversation...Reflecting their kids’ feelings...Tummy time with the baby...Floor time with the toddler...Bedtime snuggles with the elementary schooler...Couch time with the tween...Walks with the teen...Family game night...Helping kids think about the world and explore their emerging passions... Supporting kids in solving their own problems...Tickle battles...Star-gazing...Listening.... Laughing...Lighting candles...Connecting....Making miracles.

"Do you run through each day on the fly?  When you ask "How are you?" do you hear the reply?
When the day is done do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head?
You'd better slow down. Don't dance so fast. Time is short. The music won't last.

Ever told your child, "We'll do it tomorrow"  and in your haste, not see his sorrow?
When you run so fast to get somewhere, you miss half the fun of getting there
When you worry and hurry through your day, it’s like an unopened gift...Thrown away.
Life is not a race.  Do take it slower.
Hear the music
Before the song is over."
-- Dr. David L. Weatherford

Most people with grown children say they wish they'd been closer to their kids.  Most parents of teens say they wish they'd had more "important" conversations with their kids when they were younger and more willing to listen to their parents' views.

It's never too late to repair and rejuvenate your relationship with your child.  And it's never too early to start building the kind of relationship with your child that you'll both treasure for the rest of your lives.

How?

1. Place a premium on relationships in your family.  Make it an inviolate rule to turn off your cell phone when you're with your kids.  I promise the world will not fall apart and you can check your messages later.  Have dinner at the table where you can talk with each other rather than in front of the TV.  Make Friday night into Family Game night and have fun together instead of sitting in a darkened living room or movie theater watching a screen.

2. Every child needs "connection time" with each parent, each and every day.  With toddlers, connection time is floortime, when you get down on the floor with them, in their space and in sync with their energy level, and connect in their world, whether it's building a train track or playing pretend.  When they're ten, connection time will probably take the form of snuggling with them at bedtime while you chat about their day at school or their favorite song.  The point is to give each child at least fifteen minutes of unstructured, non-directive time to connect physically and share what's on their mind, every single day. (Those nice things you do with them like bake cookies or help with homework are structured time, so they're great but don't count toward connection time.)

3. Remember the 5 to 1 ratio.  Try as we might, all of us sometimes have less than optimal interactions with our children. Research shows that each interaction that leaves anyone feeling bad requires five positive interactions to restore a positive valence to the relationship. These can be little – a warm smile or a pat on the shoulder – as long as you make sure they have a positive impact.

"No amount of 'parenting skills' can make up for the lack of a close parent-child relationship. Kids accept our guidance because of who we are to them. Without that relationship, it’s very hard to parent. A close bond not only makes our kids want to please us, it gives us access to our natural parenting know-how. Welcome to the work of parenting.  But it's where the rewards are, too." -- Dr. Laura Markham

We've almost completed the ten steps of Heal Our Ability to Love Unconditionally.  Step Eight is:

Deepen your connection to your child so you always see things from his or her point of view.  Your unconditional love will flower.

Loving our kids unconditionally means we accept and appreciate our child -- this separate, increasingly autonomous, immature, sometimes challenging person -- without needing to make him into someone other than who he is.  It means we SEE who he is, and love him in the way that he can best feel our love -- which is different for every child.

To do that, we need to see things from our child's point of view.  But to meet his long-term needs rather than just his immediate wants, we also have to provide appropriate parental leadership.  How do we do both? 

1. Cultivate deep connection.  If you stay deeply connected to your child, you'll automatically see things from her point of view.  Then all this becomes natural. Instead of having to bite your tongue when your daughter is rude, you'll feel her pain and know that something must be very wrong for her to be rude to you like this.  You'll know that your child doesn't take in your love when you say it in words, but feels deeply loved when you cuddle or hold her.

2. Stay connected when your child is upset.  Instead of giving your child the message that her strong emotions are too scary for you to handle by sending her away "to calm down," stay with her, and stay connected.  Let her rage or grieve.  Empathize and validate her feelings without adding to the drama by losing your own calm. We don't help our child by having a meltdown along with him. Our job is to empathize but provide a steady shore, not to flail in the water alongside him.

3. Make sure your child knows you're on his side.  That doesn't mean giving him everything he wants.  It means saying Yes whenever you can, and validating his feelings of unhappiness when you have to say No.  Children can accept not getting what they want in a given moment if they get something better -- complete acceptance and appreciation of who they are, including those sometimes difficult, messy emotions and desires.

Being close to your child takes work. But it's your child's emotional foundation. It's also the foundation of the close relationship you're hoping for once he's an adult. The rewards, at every step along the way, come from connection.

Loving unconditionally means it's not all about us. It's all about love.

Webster’s dictionary defines Quality as “excellence”.  So when we talk about quality time with our child, what is it that is excellent?

I think it is our presence that is excellent, that turns that time with our child from ordinary time to quality time.  Many times in life we bring less than our excellent presence to the situation.  Maybe we’re rushing to get out the door and we’re not paying attention to what our kid is telling us.  Maybe we’re busy paying the clerk at the store, or checking our email, or watching TV, or making dinner. Maybe we’re simply exhausted.  In all those cases, we could say we aren’t fully attending to our child.

So what is full attention to our kids? I think we all know when we do it.  We have to be calm enough ourselves to not be distracted, to bring our full presence to the situation.  We give our child our full attention, so we notice and respond to what they need.

So what’s quality time?  We can certainly be playing a game, but to whatever degree the game distracts us from what our child needs in that moment, that’s lower quality.   We all know parents who get caught up in the game, rather than focusing on the relationship with the child.  The point is never the game.

We can also be teaching our child, but again, that’s intellectual learning, not emotional engagement.  Kids need our emotional nurturance more than they need our intellectual teaching.  Once they have high EQ, they're curious and love learning.  The EQ comes first.

So is taking your kid to the movies or Disneyland quality time?  I suppose it could be, but more likely it is a distraction from real quality interaction.  It might be a fun thing for all of you to do, but lets not confuse it with good parenting.