Transitions are hard, and this is especially so for our kids. As we transition from the less structured freedom of summertime to the regular routines of school, there is a good chance that you and your child will need some extra grace for this adjustment period as there are bound to be plenty of big emotions around all the newness.
During the summer, we had been focusing this blog post series on the topic of connection, but as we transition into the school year, the importance of connection continues to play a pertinent role in the life of your family. Staying connected during times of transition can act as a buffer during the storms of change to help your child adjust to the new normal. By giving them the gift of your presence, it can help your kids feel a sense of stability amidst the chaos and mitigate some of those overwhelming feelings with new teachers, schedules, classes, homework, tests, and deadlines.
In the previous posts, we talked about the importance of eye contact, playful interaction, and voice quality in facilitating moments of deep connectedness with our kids. In this post, we’ll be diving deeper into two other elements of connection that have the power to foster deeper trust and bonding between a caregiver and a child.
Matching Behavior
Matching behavior is often overlooked when it comes to relating to kids. When we match our kids, we send a nonverbal message that builds connection. By becoming mirrors for our children, through behavioral matching, we help our kids to know themselves better as they see us reflecting themselves back to them.
When we see our kids sitting crisscross while playing on the floor, matching behavior looks like us getting down on the floor and sitting crisscross with them. If they are quiet, we’ll be quiet with them. If they’re more excited, we’ll match their excitement.
This could look like following their lead with whatever activity they are doing — if they are painting a flower, we follow their lead and paint a flower too. This shows them that they have meaningful ideas which help build confidence and attachment in the relationship.
We can also match our children’s behavior on an emotional level. Whether it’s participating in their joy by mirroring their delight or appearing concerned when they come to us with a hurt, we want to help our children feel understood, accepted, and that we’re with them. This doesn’t mean we overreact by upping the emotional intensity and it also doesn’t mean that we downplay their emotions by minimizing or dismissing their emotional experience. It looks like naming the emotion they’re feeling (if you get it wrong, that’s okay! Be curious about it and seek to understand what it is they are feeling), validating their experience, and offering your presence in the midst of it. When we do this with our kids, it invites connection and builds their sense of safety. We want to communicate to our kids that we are the older wiser adult who can handle their big emotions and help them navigate dealing with them in a healthy productive way.
Character Praise
It’s so easy to go throughout our day and forget to tell the people in our lives that we are closest to what they are doing right. Oftentimes we are running from work to school to sports practice to home squeezing in where we can eating, homework, bedtime routines, etc. Life feels crazy and the last thing on our minds is praising our kids for who they are or who they are becoming. If you’re like me, it’s easy to see what’s going wrong, but hard to remember to point out what is going right. But our kids desperately need that. Beyond validating their behavior, they need our validation that we see them, and we love them for who they are, not just what they do.
Our kids are hungry for validation, and so often they are looking to the wrong sources to fill that hunger. When we can be the voice in their life that says I love you, I’m for you, and I accept you no matter what, that helps create a sense of internal regulation inside of them where their bodies can finally rest in the comfort that they don’t have to keep hustling for their worth. Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, I would love to praise my kid, but all I see them doing is not listening, not respecting me, not obeying me, not taking responsibility, etc. These are valid concerns, and of course we want our kids to be respectful, conscientious, responsible human beings, but growing into that kind of a person takes time, maturation, and repeated experiences of consistent nurture and structure, and the first place to start with building that is with the relationship you have with your child.
Character praise looks like statements like:
• You are so much fun to be with!
• I love being with you!
• That was so kind of you to open the door open for that person.
• You worked so hard on your school project. I am so proud of you!
These ways of deepening the relationship with you and your child might seem simple, but they go a long way in instilling a deep sense of togetherness and connection in your times with each other. By matching your child’s behavior and giving character praise, your child will begin to instill messages that will not only build their own sense of self but which will also go a long way in developing the skill of empathy with others. Stay tuned for our next post in which we’ll wrap up this series on connecting with our kids by focusing on healthy touch.