Building Mutually Respectful and Effective Relationships With Your Children

Adult-Child Relationships Are Strained

Today I want to talk about something that might be impacting your parenting in a way that you didn't realize. I've been having a lot of conversations recently with exhausted parents. With frustrated teachers and educators. I'm also hearing a lot of stories about people needing to take leaves of absence, kids who are just not listening. I'm getting correspondences from people who are expecting that parents have really strong relationships with their children. And one of the things I'm noticing is those relationships aren't there in the ways they need to be to support you with having some of those tricky conversations that educators and other spaces are demanding of parents.

Over-Present Parenting is Exhausting 

And one of the things that I know to be true is this generation of parents is trying their best.

You are working extremely hard to show up for your child in so many ways. Now here's the thing. In some ways we're a bit over present in spaces that we don't need to be. And we're under present in other spaces that we should be. And it's so tricky. It's so complicated. We are busy. Most families have a long work hours. Children are in daycare from very young ages. There is so much complexity. I've talked about this in my extracurricular podcasts and other pieces along the way.

On-Call Parenting 

Today, what I want to talk about is connection because parents say to me on repeat, I couldn't be more present for my child. I just don't understand how anyone can say I need to be more connected. So here's the thing. You are super present and your child just assumes that's what you're supposed to do. You are what I call the on-call parent.

You are what I call the on-call parent. What that means is you're so present and you're doing so many things, that there's an expectation that you should always be there, whether you're present in their space or at 'beck and call' through a phone depending on the age and stage of your child. So what's happening is we kind of have a generation of children who have very high expectations for adult presence.

And there are so many reasons that this has evolved. But one of the challenges here is that you're giving all this time to a relationship that is not being accepted the way you think. It's not being built in the way that you think it is because the other person at the other end of this relationship is just expecting you to do it.

Now, here's where this is problematic. It's leading to kids who basically sort of have you at their 'beck and call.' And it's also leading kids who don't listen as well, because they aren't building a respectful dynamic, so if we're moving away from the idea that you must listen to me because I'm an adult and you're a child. We have to do some legwork in, 'Hey, we need to build a connected relationship.'

Using Language to Effectively Build Connection 

Now, one of the things I share when I work with parents one-on-one and in my group program is something I call intentional connection. And that means how are we using language with our child so that they clearly and transparently understand that we are showing up to connect and build a relationship with them that in that time and space we are doing things one-on-one with them or in a group, it could be the whole family.

It doesn't have to be sort of like. The idea that like one parent does this thing with the kid and the other parent does this and that's the only way to do it.

As someone who does a lot of parenting on my own, that is not a system that would have ever worked or could work for our family because my partner is not home that much. So we have to maximize our family experiences when he is home. And so the idea of swapping off and having special brunches and things like that was never an option.

So what I am suggesting though is five to ten minutes a day, where we're building up a relationship with our child built on intentional connection. Where we're doing favorite things together, where we're finding things that we enjoy doing together. But most importantly, we are communicating very clearly about that relationship and we're using very, very, I call it stating the obvious, transparent language to support building that relationship.

And here's why that's important. We need to move away from our kids. Just expect us to do a thousand things for, and with them to, our kids, understand that we are making a sort of space to do things with and for them and that part of that also means that I, or you are developing your own spaces for you to do important things. Right. So the idea of like, No loss of sort of individuality. How do we coexist and how do we foster independence simultaneously?

Now, one of the things we have to do here is build out that relationship in such a mindful way so that kids don't expect adults to constantly be there doing things for them. It's about intentional connection and being mindful of building that in such a way that kids become less reliant on the, you will always be there fact.

Mutually Respectful Relationships

Also on the idea that we're going to build a mutually respectful relationship so that kids are more likely to listen to adults and kids are more likely to understand how to communicate their needs in a way that can be heard by many people. Where their needs are not more important or less important, that we all have needs and when we co-exist, those needs all matter. This doesn't mean that because we have the loudest voice, we're the one that gets our needs met. The ones with the quietest voices also need to have their needs met. They're not as good about communicating with their voices to get those needs met. It doesn't make those needs any less important.

So how do we do this?

My Favourite's Game

I'm going to give you a quick example of my favourite game. I was sharing it with a couple of clients this week.

My favourite game to get this conversation started is:

My favorite thing to do with you is... what's your favorite thing to do with me? And you go around the table. So if you have a family setting, you can do this with grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, like you can imagine that this could be used in a lot of different ways.

And what you're trying to sort of start is a dialogue around how do we enjoy spending time together? So that's a little like game you can play. Can happen in a car commute, it could happen on a walk to school, it could happen at the dinner table, and I know not everybody eats together. So there's other spaces you could have this. My favourite thing to do with you is... what's your favourite thing to do with me? And everybody gets a turn. So if you have a family of four, everybody's going to get a turn with every single person that's really important. No one person to one person, it's everyone. So that's one.

Language for Connection

The other thing you're going to do is when we're doing. Time with our child, connected time. We're going to be really intentional about our language. You don't have to do this forever, but you do have to do this in the outset. And what that looks like is, you know, one of my favourite things to do is cook with you once a week. You know why I like it because... and you're going to give a reason why you are spending time.

Or when we're going to sit on the couch and we're going to read a story, let's say, that's something you do every day. Did you know that one of my favourite parts of my day is when I sit with you and we read a story together. I really enjoy it. What's one of your favourite things to do with me every day?

So what are we doing here? We're now putting a narrative or putting some language behind I'm showing up to have a connection time with you. Versus my job as your parent is to read every day. My job as your parent is to cook every day. We have to take some of those pieces and build them out.

And then you can also use it for the flip so you can get, imagine the idea here would be, you know, I find it really frustrating when everyone's watching TV and I'm making dinner. It would be helpful if you would do this and this, and I will do this and this, and then we can all enjoy dinner together. We're using effective communication and we're starting to pull out that inner voice of resentment.

The Inner Voice of Resentment

So those parents, especially, I've heard it from a lot of moms recently that inner voice of resentment about all the things you do. You know, the mental load, which is such a very popular catchphrase right now. How do we pull those things out? And use them as a part of conversation to get more respectful interactions happening versus well, you're my parent, your job is to make my food.

And the only way they can build skills as if from the get-go they are somehow involved in the process.  It's very easy to hand them a screen or hand them independent play time or whatever the case may be but one of the sort of consequences of that is when my parent cooks for me and I will be occupied.

All right. For now I'm going to leave it here. Cause what the next thing that I want to talk about is how we treat mundane tasks and how we use those mundane tasks to build respectful, responsible relationships.

How do we take that piece? But today, today, I just wanted to focus on the idea that like, Are we to over present? Are we using language effectively? And are we authentically connecting with our children or are we building an expectation that we are always there? We are the on call parent.

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