Connecting with Children: Unlocking the Power of 'In-Between' Moments in Parenting

Connecting with your child can feel like a daunting task and it can be tempting to engage in lengthy 'sit-down' conversations with them. The ticket to connection is those 'in-between' moments, such as walks or car rides. These are the situations that can make a world of difference in your parenting journey. 

To support this, I chat about where  eye contact and physical touch play a part in fostering a relationship of listening, as well as the art of positive, meaningful interactions without 'buts' or 'ands'.

As an added bonus I chat about how books aren't just for bedtime.  Incorporating books into other parts of your day can facilitate open conversations with your children, helping them express their worries and thoughts. I reveal my strategies to balance the use of books for creating a dialogue with your children and ways to foster genuine relationships that don't rely on costly activities or outings. 

Let's confront some  uncomfortable truths about parenting, from the importance of when and how we communicate with our kids, to the critical role of positive reinforcement. In this episode we'll tackle some tricky conversations while unravelling the complexities of parenting together.

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You can also submit questions directly to me at info@taragratto.ca or by heading to our website HERE

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The music for this podcast is written and produced by Jazlyn B with the guidance of Sabine Ndalamba

Note: This podcast is created for educational purposes only. Any references links, resources or content are not intended as a substitute for medical or professional mental health advice.

Transcript

Tara Gratto: 0:49

All right, it has been a journey recently and it has impacted my ability to show up regularly to record things like Tara's take, and I think one of the things I just wanted to do is sort of pause for a minute and reflect on what kinds of things have been going down. So if my voice sounds a little bit wonky today, I am getting over epic illness. The back-to-school germs were not kind to my family or me and I went down hard and it's not surprising I run myself ragged sometimes, I admit it. I think that resonates with a lot of working parents. We overextend ourselves in a lot of spaces for a lot of different reasons. My house went up for sale mid-August. We're making some big life changes. It's funny, though, different life changes than where we started in the process of what we thought we were doing, to where we are now, but it's been a really interesting situation, and part of that was decluttering my house, which led to a lot of aha moments about a lot of things. And also, if the sound a bit echoey, it's because I don't have curtains anymore and I don't have all my books in here anymore, like half the amount that I usually have, so the sound is definitely a little bit more echoey than usual. But one of the things that has come out of this journey, out of this space, is a real awareness around parenting and parenting in the moment and parenting in the big picture. And what does that look like? And a few days ago I posted a quote on threads and I'm just going to read it because it's really resonated with a lot of people. It's been shared by a lot of people and this is the quote some of your most important conversations with children will happen in the spaces in between on a walk, a car ride, after dinner. Don't be so busy or let the distraction of screens mean that these spaces no longer exist. So one of the things that I have noticed as a parent and when I used to work with children, and something I talked about in the last episode about why I use books so extensively to support building skills with children right. How I support them with navigating tricky topics, how I support parents and their children with developing feelings, emotional vocabulary, why conversations alone are not helpful and where they can be helpful right. And there's a lot of people who are like I connect with my children so much, I don't understand why they don't listen to me, I couldn't be more present than I am. And no, so the research has said it we are the most present parenting generation in history, but we may not always be present in the most meaningful ways, and so here's an interesting thought to consider. So something people will ask me is why doesn't my child listen? Right? And I have a whole sort of workshop on this, getting children to listen. But it comes down to a couple of things. When we want them to do things they don't want to do, right. When they need to do something like pick something up, come for dinner, right, do some kind of chore, turn off some kind of screen? Those moments need to be moments where we are it within eye contact distance, where we are within body distance. Because if you're shouting from the other room, shouting up the stairs which I do, I admit it, I do it and then I have to like check myself and be like shouting up the stairs, they are tuning you out, and kids nowadays are often in their headphones. It's funny. I was reflecting the other day on why I'm louder than I used to be. I'm louder than I used to be because people are plugged in, so like I'm trying to over, talk the headphones. And again remembering, reflecting on how do we connect with children. Well, for connecting with them, to give them instructions, they have to be. What Jonathan Adler sort of coined is this idea of look to listen. They have to be able to see you, they have to, you have to be able to touch their shoulder, yet to be within sort of communication distance. So if you have a kid who's not listening, first thing you got to ask yourself is am I making sure I'm having conversations with them, versus yelling at them from the other room, versus constantly nagging and saying the thing over and over and over, without eye contact, without body contact, without right? If you find yourself in a repetitive cycle, the very first thing you need to do is how am I giving the instructions? Where am I giving the instructions and what does that look like? Because when people say to me my kids are ignoring me, they are, they are ignoring you. If you're yelling up the stairs, like I do sometimes, yeah for sure, because you're not telling them something that they want to hear and you're not making it sort of you know a reason to listen. Now, the part B of this is you can't only talk to your children, to correct them. You can only make eye contact or be in that close space without also having positive conversations Just for the sake of positive conversations. Not, I love you, but you did an amazing job. But kids read right through that stuff and I mean my kids are in middle school so they'll like actually call people out of me out all the time and they'll be like why do you do the fake nicety before the real thing? Right, like, we all know that the but the and isn't helpful. So if you want this strategy to work for listening, you have to make sure that sometimes you just connect with your child and say nothing but positive, like zero. Anything else that is that positive. Now let me get back to my quote. What does my quote mean? Cause it's actually two parts. There's this part, the instruction part, the follow up part, the like I feel like I'm nagging too much and then there's the connected conversation about hard topics, about personal questions, about. Those conversations I think actually go pretty terribly. When you're looking at somebody eye to eye, I actually think, when you're sort of getting into some tricky conversations about emotions, about challenges, about how someone's day is going about, that when you're staring down each other eye to eye that kids don't really want to share doesn't resonate, and somebody actually commented that on my Instagram when I shared my thread forward. They literally said my child actually said to me I love having conversations with you in the car because I don't feel as pressured, it doesn't feel like like on the spot, it doesn't feel like a lecture, in other words. So I think one of the things that people are having a hard time with is they can identify lots of places where they're connecting with their child, but the meaningful connection spaces are kind of dissipating. Right, we're in the car. Kids are on their screens in their audio books. I'm listening to music. They're listening to music. Right, cars are an amazing place to have connected conversations. So how are you making sure there's five minutes of sharing before or after Go outing for go outing, go out for a walk, right On a walk, have a conversation? This is where some great conversations around tricky moments. So people will say to me I can't, I don't know how to sort of tackle these big feelings my child is having or in the moment they'll do a tons of talking. Right, I'm like using logic and rationalization to power the way through and they're like I don't know how to do that in a common connection. It's because we have to get intentional about the common connection. And the common connection probably isn't a space where you're looking at each other. It's not a dinnertime conversation, right? It's a side-by-side on the couch reading a book conversation. It's an out-for-a-walk conversation, it's a commuting-in-the-car conversation. So I think there are two ways to think about connection and listening with your child. When I'm giving instructions and I want them to follow through on something they don't really want to do, how am I connecting with my child? With some eye-to-eye contact, some body-to-shoulder contact, and am I also doing positive? And then the part B is for those more emotional, those more difficult, those more in-depth type of conversations about feelings, about challenges, about things not going well. Where am I facilitating those conversations? In non-stairdown places where we're not like looking at each other and feeling judged or feeling like it's a lecture. Instead it's just a conversation. I mean some of my best conversations. I can't see the person, right If you think about like back in the day when we used to make phone calls. Right, when you talk to the person you're not looking at them right. And when you're walking or you're sort of it's not as common that we have to look at people to talk. So I think there's different ways to approach connected conversations and this is one of them. So I just wanted to chat today about the difference between getting your child to listen by looking to listen and having connected conversations. And where can you follow up in some of your tricky, challenging moments? And where is common connection? I use that phrase a lot. You need to build skills in common connection. So where are your calm and connection moments, and are some of them being replaced by screens? Where this is not like screen bashing? This is, have screens replace some of those moments, those in between moments, and that's one of the reasons you're not finding the ability to connect with your child, because they're watching something while you drive somewhere, you're listening to a podcast while you get somewhere, you're out for right. So where can you go for a walk? How can you sit side by side on the couch, and this is one of the reasons, especially with young children. Books are brilliant for this. Don't just save them for bedtime. Do them before dinner. Have a little sit down before dinner and read a book on a topic that you need, that you know needs a conversation, and when you get good at this and when you start to do it, a lot children will actually bring you books on topics that they know are bothering them. I have so many examples. I can tell you so many stories of whimsy's heavy things being something I've taught over the years to parents from my preschool and then in my consulting business. One of the things I've shown them how to do is to read that book, and I'm doing a lot more of that in my one-on-one work. How do you read a book to support a child? How do you do that? What does that look like? What does that experience feel like? How can you really use books effectively to support conversations? But one of the things that's come out of that is a parent will say to me and this has happened multiple times or a parent will be like my child randomly brought me XYZ book and whimsy's heavy things is one that's been used a lot. I'm like it's not random. They want to have a conversation with you about their worry, thoughts and they don't know how to bring those words together. So they're using the book as their tool, as their sort of avenue for conversation, so you can sit side by side and you can have a little conversation and nobody's staring each other down and you're looking at some, some illustrations and you're having some conversations with the book. Now, there's a balance in how you do that. That's a whole other conversation for another day, but this is sort of the thing I want to talk about today. What does common connection look like? How do we build authentic relationships? And it doesn't need to be hours a day and it doesn't need to be big, expensive outings. It doesn't even have to be a little tiny outings. It can be as simple as a walk, a car ride, a bus ride, going to and from sitting on the couch to read a story before dinner, not just saving it for the end of the night. Right, there's so many different places. We just need to build them into our routines.