parenting

I started this blog to share the message that listening to tears helps our children to fully express their feelings, so that they are free of the upsets that cause all those off-track kinds of behaviour, such as aggression, whining and all the other challenging behaviours we have to deal with as parents! But I should also mention laughter. Laughter is also part of the way we naturally release stress and tension from our bodies, and there are many physical and emotional health benefits too.

When my daughter was 16 months old, we had a busy time travelling back to the UK for Christmas. We ended up all being ill and the travel combined with the illness meant I didn’t spend much time connecting with her.

When we arrived back home she started fighting me over everything; getting dressed, nappy changing, and going in her buggy. I assumed it was because she was getting older, and I was nervous about how things would become more difficult and challenging as we neared the ‘terrible two’s.’

But I’d also learnt through Hand in Hand parenting, that ‘off-track’ behaviour is a sign that a child is feeling disconnected from us. it is their way of telling us, ‘’I need connection!’’ From this perspective our children are naturally, good, loving and co-operative, it’s just that sometimes upset feelings, can get in the way of their feeling our warmth and love.

I knew that reconnecting with my daughter would help improve things, but I was still feeling exhausted and recovering from being ill. The first thing I did was call my listening partner. A listening partnership is a scheme where two parents exchange listening time with each other, without offering advice, telling their own stories, or trying to fix things. The idea is, that when someone truly listens to us in a warm and supportive way, without interrupting to ‘help,’ then we can release our negative feelings. Anger, stress, and exhaustion all evaporate when we can really talk to someone about how we are feeling. I’m always amazed that often just five or ten minutes of listening can restore my energy, enthusiasm, and patience for being with my daughter.

Now I was all set to try some playlistening. This is play where we take on a less powerful role, and try to get our children laughing (not the involuntary laughter of tickling). Laughter releases some of the stress, tension and frustration that can accumulate when children feel powerless. It’s ideal for dissolving toddler power struggles. Children often laugh when we try and fail to do the things they’re trying to learn, or when we make ‘mistakes.’

That morning while I was putting on my sock, I pretended to struggle with it, and then ‘pinged’ it across the room and acted surprised. My daughter laughed a lot at this so I repeated it. I kept struggling to put on various items of clothing and she kept laughing. Then I started to walk and fell over again and again over. My daughter found this hilarious. I tried to hang some washing up, and kept saying ‘’oh no!’’ as it repeatedly fell down. Then we were playing on my bed, and my daughter would laugh gleefully, as she threw some clothes off the bed, and I would keep trying to retrieve them, only to have her throw them off again. At naptime, I chased her around the house, and she kept laughing as she managed to ‘escape’ me!

Understanding what makes our children laugh is a hit and miss thing, and sometimes my attempts would fall flat, but I kept trying, using my intuition, to see what would work. We had a really laughter packed morning, as if we were making up for all the playlistening missed while we were on holiday. When she took her nap, she fell asleep much more easily than normal. I was also feeling much more relaxed.

After this morning my connection with my daughter was much better. She stopped fighting me about everyday things. She happily went in her buggy, and let me change her nappy without a fuss. This is something that’s happened many times, that what I think is her getting older, more difficult and ‘toddler-like’ is actually just a period of disconnection that we can overcome by using the Hand in Hand parenting tools. And I’m happy to say that the ‘terrible twos’ never did arrive! Instead thanks to Hand in Hand parenting, they are actually quite terrific!

Check out my Giggle Parenting Archives for laughter based solutions for all your family challenges. And if your struggling with something that’s not on the list, leave me a comment, or send me a message via this contact form and your challenge can be the subject of my next blog post!

Are you looking for more playlistening inspiration? Playful Parenting By Dr. Lawrence Cohen, is packed full of playlistening ideas.

Patty Wipfler says that setting limits can be like a gift to our children. Here’s one example of how the Hand in Hand Parenting approach to setting limits works.

I am a full time mum to my 2 year old daughter, but occasionally I have to go to an all day meeting for my freelance work as an editor. Yesterday was one of those days, and my friend would be babysitting her. She has a daughter the same age as mine and they are ‘best friends.’ Before the day I’d talked a lot with my daughter about how she was going to the zoo with our friends, to prepare her, and check in to see how she felt about the separation. She always had a big smile on her face when I talked about it. When we met my friend to drop her off my daughter was so excited, and when I strapped her into my friend’s car seat, and continued chatting for a bit, my daughter pushed me away and said ‘bye.’ It was clear she wanted met to go so she could start her adventure! I felt so relieved.

When I got home in the evening my daughter was happy and animated, telling me about everything they’d done. It was clear she’d had a great time.

Then she started asking if she could play with my mobile phone, which I’ve been letting her do recently for our special time. She seemed really desperate to have it, and often I notice this desperation, when it’s not really about the thing she wants, but the feelings behind it. I decided to set a limit, and told her that she couldn’t play with my phone now. I felt like we needed some time to reconnect free of technology! She started to cry, and my husband picked her up. She started saying she wanted the phone, but then as she continued crying, she said, ”I want my mummy.” It became clear the feelings weren’t really about the phone, but I assumed because she’d missed me a bit in the day. I held her and gave her lots of hugs till she felt better.

Thanks to learning about the Hand in Hand listening tool of setting limits, I could see when I could say no to something, and it could be like a gift to her, helping us connect so she could show me how she really felt. It had been a great adventure for her to spend the day away from me, but I guess because it was something new and different she had mixed feelings about it too. We felt close and connected for the rest of the evening, and I spent lots of time, reading books, playing and laughing. This morning she was joking about mummy saying bye bye, so she could go off with her friend again!

I’m really grateful to have learnt the Hand in Hand parenting tools, to know that releasing feelings is a natural part of helping our children grow in confidence so they can take little steps away from us as they grow older.

Here’s some tips for helping with separation anxiety.

Prepare your child beforehand. Even if they’re young, talk about where you’re going and how long the separation will last. If it’s an unusual separation that doesn’t normally happen you might want to start talking to them a week or so in advance. Sometimes hearing about the separation might bring up strong feelings. Listen to your child – Hand in Hand calls this staylistening) to help them release their anxiety. This can help your child to feel confident about the separation by the time it comes around.
Have a long goodbye. It’s common that if our child gets upset when we separate from them we may be encouraged to rush off, and hear from the caregiver that they stopped crying once we left, and were fine. However we may find, that our child continues to get upset when we leave, or shows other signs of separation anxiety such as clingyness. If we take the time to listen and have a long goodbye with our child, then they can fully release their feelings, about how it feels to separate from us. Once their mind is no longer clouded by feelings of upset, they can think clearly, be confident we will return, and feel okay with us leaving. You can read more about the long goodbye here.
Be Prepared For Feelings When We Return. Even if our child was fine with us leaving, they may have some feelings of upset that come up when we return. As in my example above these feelings may be projected onto a ‘pretext’ that masks the real reason for the upset. If our child seems to have strong feelings about something small there may be a deeper reason for the upset, we can try to set limits, and listen to the feelings to help our child heal.

Separation anxiety can make us feel powerless or guilty. We often feel like we have two choices. Either we stay with our clingy child even though we desperately need some ‘me’ time.

Or we rush away , feeling bad about our child’s protests about our leaving.

With Hand in Hand Parenting there is a third way, with setting limits and listening to feelings, we can both be at peace with separation.

Learn more –You can download a free setting limits booklet, from Hand in Hand parenting. There are also online self-study courses on Setting limits and Say Goodbye To Separation Anxiety.

You can also check out the separation anxiety chapter in my book Tears Heal: How to listen to our children