Talk To Me!

Parent: “How was your day?”
Child: “Good”
This kind of response from their child often frustrates parents. “How can we get them to talk to
us?”, parents plead.

There are many parts to the answer (more later), but first, change the climate of your interactions. Avoid
having the child feel interrogated. For example, share something about YOUR day and YOUR
feelings first.  “Gee, it was so hot today, I found it really frustrating driving in the traffic and found it hard to be patient.
What was it like for you at recess? Did you play around the trees, or were you on that hot
playground where there is no shade?” Your child’s response will likely give you another
opening to continue the conversation. Continue with an observation, personal memory or empathetic
response to your child.

Remember:

• Don’t just ask questions
• LISTEN with undivided attention
• REMEMBER the details for future encounters

PS Parents of older children often say “yes, I have tried this and it didn’t work”. The older your child
when you begin active encounters, the longer and harder you have to work at it. Sorry! Don’t give up!

Inviting Conversation

Parent: “How was your day?”
Child: “Awful. I hate Suzie. She was mean to me”. If you are a normal parent you might feel like saying:
“what did you do to Suzie for her to be mean to you?”, or “you shouldn’t hate Suzie, that isn’t kind”,
or “you should be nice to her and then she will be nice back”.

Don’t. Parenting requires discipline (of the parent!). Of course, you want your child to be caring and kind. But, paradoxically, if you allow your child to express difficult and hurt feelings *she will then be free to get in touch with her natural kind and generous feelings. While the difficult feelings are swirling around, with no outlet for her true experience, all other feelings are blocked. Remember that the expression of ALL feelings is healthy for your child; it does not define who she is as a person. In the meantime you are learning more about your child and how she feels and experiences her world. Your values are not being attacked or jeopardized by a child’s honesty.
Life in the school playground is tough. It is often unfair and sometimes mean. Your child needs you to listen to her point of view and to feel understood.
Remember:

• encourage all feelings
• you don’t have to solve the problem, you just have
• to listen
• don’t take it personally

*substitute he/his for your son

Impressive Lives

Relationships are hard work but hard work usually brings results, and with our loved ones, a sense of connection and intimacy. Parents today lead busy lives; managing our children’s many after-school activities and chauffeuring them to and fro can be enormously time-consuming. Looking after the practical aspects of their lives can sometimes feel like a full-time job. It is easy to forget, in the day to day bustle, that the relationship between you and your child is the most important thing.

We want our children to talk with us so that we know what is happening in their lives and can support them with their decisions and problems. But we also want them to feel cherished and loved. This requires trusting encounters with parents in order to provide our children with a solid foundation for secure and expressive lives. We talk with our children when they have problems, when they require instruction, when they ask us questions ……but in order for a child to feel nurtured, we must initiate individual time (it doesn’t have to be a lot) to talk or play with them on their terms. We must communicate that we choose (among the myriad tasks of the day) to be with them.

Giving them our undivided attention and understanding their perceptions and feelings makes a child feel safe and strengthens the bond between the two of you. (If your child is feeling more restrictions or stress than usual in day to day life, extra close time with you can help diminish frustration).

Remember:

• initiate individual one-on-one time with your child
• give undivided attention and contact
• understand their feelings and perceptions

School

I am astonished at how many of my students find school boring and often unfulfilling. Children are naturally curious and creative and it is infuriating to see these attributes often diminished in our children as they go through school. Their ability to live up to their potential and experience the joy of their own increasing intellectual and emotional development are jeopardized.

On a practical level, employers are increasingly wanting young people who are independent thinkers and can bring enthusiasm and originality to their work rather than valuing the now old-fashioned attributes of learning rules, obeying superiors, and regurgitating information.

Of course schools encourage socialization; especially for sensitive children, the stress of always accommodating others, working in groups and pleasing the teacher, can be high. Parents tend to idealize youth and forget that difficulties are part of life from day one. The push/pull of individuality versus socialization, resolving inevitable conflicts with friends and playmates, surviving a teacher that doesn’t like them, enduring playground taunts and tussles, are all part of life at school.

Parents need to find ways to reduce these tensions. The more space and time a parent can give a child to explore *his individuality and creativity outside of school, and the more time a parent can give to listen to their child’s troubles, the more freedom the child has to discover and explore himself and his own interests.
*substitute her for your daughter

Guidance

Some of my women friends complain about the distribution of household chores and parenting duties. Even when husbands are able to participate fully, women acknowledge that it is not satisfying when they have to ask their spouse to do something; and it is enormously satisfying if the husband instead takes the initiative to carry out a task that he knows requires doing, without being asked.

Similarly, it is frustrating to constantly have to nag a child to do something when the child is old enough and responsible enough to initiate carrying out the task himself. Initiative comes with independence. When a child feels secure and is mastering tasks appropriate for *his age, he feels good about himself and his march towards independence. This independence allows him to be actively “present” and to live life with a purposefulness as opposed to merely performing tasks by rote. Whereas obeying rules and following instructions were once extremely important in schools and the workplace, creativity, imagination and initiative are now the attributes that are highly valued.

As parents (and it also applies to teachers) we have the tricky task of providing guidance and instruction to our children, but not too much. There must be enough room for our children to learn by experiencing their own mistakes and by discovering what motivates them. When children have too much external pressure they do not have enough room to discover their own natures and interests. All expressive mediums (writing, drama, art, dance), contribute to the process of individuation and self-discovery and consequently enables our children to act with initiative.

*substitute her for your daughter

Resilience

I watched a lot of Barack Obama’s inauguration day. There were many moments when I could see the audience on television getting teary-eyed and I got teary-eyed a couple of times watching Sasha and Malia. Their natural delight and excitement moved me—the innocence and honesty of children often do. These two little girls seem comfortable in their own skin. They have obviously not been coerced to be like little adults, just themselves, and their bright smiles seemed genuine. Donna Brazile, a political commentator, told a CNN announcer that she had a wonderful seat, close to the little girls. She asked Sasha in a mock-stern voice if she was doing well at school. She smiled back and said “you’re not my Mom”.

Cheeky? I don’t think so. I prefer to think of it as spunky. (With a good sense of humour).

It seems fitting, in these times of global crises that affect every one of us, and can shake and alarm our sense of stability, that we consider what makes our children resilient. Obeying rules without question? Fitting in and going along? Learning because they have to get a job sometime? Ignoring conflict?

No. The ability to bounce back from adversity requires a person to be able to be creative, imaginative and flexible. It requires a person, when necessary, to feel deep insecurity and perhaps, from time to time, grief, loss and fear. The strength to endure these emotions gives us the strength to move through them.

The more we allow our children to feel, think, and speak, the more they can revel in their own unique selves.
However, as both a parent and a teacher I know that this is not an easy task. To invite a child show her varied colours does not always please us. But then a child should be free to use her energy to discover her being, rather than only to please others.

Creative expression (writing, acting, playing) gives our children a much-needed additional outlet in this process of self discovery.
*substitute he/his for your son

Initiative

Some of my women friends complain about the distribution of household chores and parenting duties. Even when husbands are able to participate fully, women acknowledge that it is not satisfying when they have to ask their spouse to do something; and it is enormously satisfying if the husband instead takes the initiative to carry out a task that he knows requires doing, without being asked.

Similarly, it is frustrating to constantly have to nag a child to do something when the child is old enough and responsible enough to initiate carrying out the task himself. Initiative comes with independence. When a child feels secure and is mastering tasks appropriate for *his age, he feels good about himself and his march towards independence. This independence allows him to be actively “present” and to live life with a purposefulness as opposed to merely performing tasks by rote.

Whereas obeying rules and following instructions were once extremely important in schools and the workplace, creativity, imagination and initiative are now the attributes that are highly valued.

As parents (and it also applies to teachers) we have the tricky task of providing guidance and instruction to our children, but not too much. There must be enough room for our children to learn by experiencing their own mistakes and by discovering what motivates them. When children have too much external pressure they do not have enough room to discover their own natures and interests. All expressive mediums (writing, drama, art, dance), contribute to the process of individuation and self- discovery and consequently enables our children to act with initiative.

*substitute her for your daughter

Recognizing The Clues

In my last year of school I seriously considered going to university in order to become a Laboratory Technician—one of those people who test blood and urine and other “liquids”. What was I thinking?! The idea now seems absurd and I feel a little frightened that I could have considered taking a direction in my life so against my interests and nature.
I was not good at science, but I had a chemistry teacher, Mrs Offenburger, who decided that she was going to get me to pass my School Certificate (the New Zealand public examination) Chemistry Examination with an honourable mark, something that would not have happened if she had not given me her devotion and time.
I will never forget her generosity and careful and thorough teaching. I felt cared about and was immensely grateful. But how terribly misguided it would have been if I had pursued a science career. The only reason I could have contemplated it is because I didn’t take myself seriously: I was generally not aware of my own feelings about my school work (my primary goal was to be successful, not to satisfy my own curiosity or determine what ignited my passion) and if I was aware of my feelings, I did not attach any meaning or significance to them.

I can now look back on my high school years and remember the deep attraction to reading, writing, words, biographies (people’s lives), drama and stories. I disliked art class enormously but I remember the class when we were first introduced to a loom and were taught how to weave. I decided to make a patchwork skirt of vibrant colours, and those colours brought me to life and are seared into my brain. I also remember the visceral pleasure when I was travelling with my family and would see a particularly beautiful night sky or marveled at the Kauri forests in the Coromandel Peninsula which I now recognize as a deep love of nature.

Did I ever consider any of these things when I was thinking about a university education and a career? No. I went to Secretarial School, one of the common and acceptable jobs for women “back in my day”. I was successful in my business career and when I moved to Vancouver eventually became General Manager, Office Automation division, of the company I worked for which has definitely helped in my teaching today. However it wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I realized that my deep love of children, stories, drama, literature, andpsychology were where my passions lay, and where I could more clearly express my own creativity and therefore hopefully unique perspectives.

As parents we must be alert to the clues our children give us about their interests and desires. For the elementary school student, this means listening attentively to their pleasures and their whines and inviting responses, whatever they might be, about school and extracurricular activities. The high school years can be very stressful for teens as they experience pressures from parents and schools to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. They often—mostly—don’t know. A way to help, without adding stress, is to encourage the sharing of their innermost feelings and ideas without judgement. Hard to do! I wish I had had adults at my boarding school who had helped me get in touch with my true loves and had validated me. I wouldn’t have wasted hours thinking about chemistry labs or had to find the courage to change careers midlife.