Communicating with your child

On Thursday, April 7th of last week we had a quest parent speaker come to Browne to talk about communicating with your child/ren. Our speaker was Dr. Rene Hackney, who started Parenting Playgroup’s in 2004 to help educate parents and children on the importance of communication. Her workshops are provided for parents to come learn and practice their skills under her guidance, she also created a website equip with a blog, audio workshops, and a Q&A board. Please check out her information at www.parentingbydrrene.com

Dr. Hackney, fondly known as Miss Rene or Dr. Rene to her younger students, started her workshop with us by passing out the framework for her discussion. Below I have provided to you some important notes included in this as well as my own thoughts throughout her talk.

Communicating:

*The foundation steps to Positive Discipline:

• “I Messages” allow us to show positive intent

• Example: “I felt let down” instead of “You broke your promise”

• “You messages” show blame and formulate guilt

• Empathy vs. negating emotions or logic

• Positive intent

• Putting our rose colored glasses on in order to see the positives

*Ask what they already know

• When you say to a child “did you just take that toy away from your sister!?” you are setting them up to lie. Instead ask the child “I see that you have your sister’s toy…”

• If you don’t see what happened, start with what you know

• Example: as you enter the room, two children are screaming over a ball and each is yelling they had it first. Asking “Who had this first?” is often treading water. You likely get two versions of the story that leave you back at the starting point. Instead start by saying what you know, “I see you are upset about using this ball. I am going to hold on to it for a minute while we figure out what to do next.” Then focus your effort on helping them problem solve and move forward.

*Using your own stories and storytelling

• Dr. Rene talked about watching events take place between her two daughters on the play lot and turning them into a “story” during bedtime. You can make your own story, and it can be very similar to whatever the situation was that you want to address

*Small conversations scattered across time

• Instead of having BIG conversations with your child, spread out the topic so that the child can digest it over time.

• Examples of big topics: sex, drugs, separation, divorce, personal safety, school shootings, and death.

• Don’t forget to have follow up conversations

• “Hey, remember when we talked about that school shooting that was in the news? That was a really difficult topic. I felt sad talking about it because …”

• Remember to know your child’s developmental stage when having these discussions

*Decision making, Responsibilities, Freedoms

• It’s a balancing act

• Look up the Fairfax County guidelines on supervision (http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dfs/childrenyouth/supervision_eng.htm)

• Understand that when a child is 16 they are granted a drivers license, meaning that they could be alone for a longer period of time

• Decisions, responsibilities, and freedoms should be gradual not all at once

*Family time

• 1:1 pairs-once a month

• Couples time-twice a month

• Me time-once a week

• Taking a shower, going for a quick job, running an errand, etc.

*Open talk time

• Dr. Rene encouraged parents to have time where their child can share or ask them any question they want too

• Practice CALM responses

• Use Mantras, know triggers, look up calm parenting resources

*Limiting news media

• Understand that a child has little or no concept of time, space, or reality depending on their development/age

• In the news they play one event over and over again, to a young child it seems that this event is continually occurring (even if you explain otherwise!)

• No news media for children under the age of 7 years old

*Tantrums

• Walk away and ignore

• Practice empathy and help them- if that doesn’t work then walk away and ignore

• Helpful notes: sit behind them and rub their back, tell them “I know this is hard…”, let them cry it out

*talking with kids

• Girls: open body, sitting in front, sitting on ground

• Boys: shoulder to shoulder, sitting next too, playing a game, walking

-Listening games to play with your child/ren:

1. Crazy directions- giving children a series of two, three or four step directions and seeing how many they can keep in order.

2. Example: go across the bridge, jump in-between the set of swings, run around the play lot backwards, and come back to me with a high five

3. Robot

4. Example: You can only move your left arm during dinner

-Books for: EVERYTHING! Dr. Rene had a healthy list of books for a variety of different topics. Please visit her website for more information: https://parentingbydrrene.com/childrensbooks/

-If you are interested in joining her playgroups: http://www.parentingplaygroups.com/