I was called in to help Ferne with her daughter Sunday (age 3). Ferne was struggling with Sunday’s tantrums and knowing how to peacefully help Sunday through her feelings. All of us have been there where your child has a meltdown out of the blue and you are struggling knowing how to deal with them (just for the most of us we don’t have camera’s following us around filming these tantrums.)
We spent 3 hours together talking about conscious parenting, discussing how most of the way we parent is closely linked to the way we ourselves were raised and we also spent a considerable amount of time playing in Sunday’s play room and talking about how we can engage and interact with our children when playing.
Many parents are really desperate for children to independently play so they can get a break or get on with adult tasks and jobs however there are so many great benefits to dropping down and playing with our children even just for 5 – 10 minutes!
When children ask us to play they are asking us to connect with them. Children don’t say I have had a hard day can you be with me they say “Mummy/Daddy will you play with me?” It’s their way of inviting us to be in their presence.
During the time playing in Sunday’s play room we watched Sunday make some fantastic creations (a frozen tower which she spent lots of focused time constructing and carefully piecing together – she’s a very creative child). Ferne was encouraged to point out the things she liked about the tower moving away from blanket statements such as “good job” or “that’s amazing” – instead really letting Sunday know she was paying an interest by pointing out the colours, the design, what part of the tower she really liked. This encouraged a dialogue between Sunday and Ferne and allowed Sunday to really feel ‘seen’ and her efforts acknowledged and appreciated.
It was evident that Sunday really enjoyed this connective time and it also allowed time for Ferne to really step into Sunday’s world and see things from her perspective. After about an hour it was then clear Sunday was tired and needed ‘down regulating time.’