Be Present

Another wonderful class tonight. The main part was about listening, but I'll write as my notes went.
* When growling your children, you will need to speak differently to boys than to girls. Boys need it short and sweet (minimal words) and their consequences louder and clearer.
* Divide your time not your attention.
* When the same thing keeps happening over and over again: How can I do it differently to get a different response?
* If there is no time before school for consequences, then tell them the consequences will have to happen after school.
* The end of the school term (especially in winter months) brings tired kids. Be mindful of this when they are more grizzly or contentious than normal.
* Take the power from you and give it to the clock. When you are needing to go, show your child that when the big hand is on the 6 we have to leave. Younger kids don't understand "a few minutes", Christmas is soon, 5 minutes is soon. Use a clock with hands to help them understand time.
* If it's time for dinner but your child is in a very creative space (e.g. doing art), instead of saying "come now", take a moment to look at what they are doing and perhaps give them a bit more time to finish. Creativity is something to be encouraged.
* A woman talks to solve the issue herself (saying it often solves it without any input from someone else). A man thinks if she's talking to me she wants a solution. So gives one.
* Practice being the parent that can say to their child "I am completely unshockable by anything you tell me". By practice will also come non-judgement. There is no quicker way to shut a teenager down than to judge them when they tell you something. LISTEN with patience and calmness. Reacting - especially negatively - will close the communication door.
* Kids know how to be "present" in the moment. Watch them follow a ladybug for ages.... Sometimes because they are so in the moment, they will not hear you. (And here I was thinking Leah was just deaf! Instead I learn that she probably IS just really being present).
* You like to unload at bedtime to your darling, kids like to unload too. Take the time to put them to bed, perhaps with a story, turn the lights out (leave the hallway one on) and lie with them and listen to them. You will hear things you didn't know.
Most parents want their own time in the evenings and just want the kids to go to bed, but you can have both, just make their bedtime 15 mins earlier and factor listening time into the bedtime routine. Kids will often sleep better when they have unloaded.
* Listening = 100% listening, not thinking of your own response, being non-judgemental, not interrupting, being present in the moment.
* Give your child a moment in each day when you are present with them. Stop. Listen. Pay attention. Especially to the big things in their lives. You will learn what is a big thing, and when to pay all your attention, or just some of it. Kids don't mind if you don't stop your world for them on the little things, but love it when you tune in to their big things.

Lisa has a book with all her notes for the course in it. She is presently updating it and I am going to buy one when she is done. At first I thought it would be good for the kids to read when they embark on being parents themselves, but hopefully this will be a change in the way I parent that will become the norm for them and become all they know anyway. We parent like we were parented. Hopefully they won't need the book. But I'll buy it anyway.