I think this is a topic that is not often discussed, or at least that's my impression. How we interact at home between parents and children. Needless to say, the pace of daily life doesn't usually leave us much time to share together...
How many families see their children from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM? Or even less, if the children have any after-school activities in between.
Those 4 little hours we have together are not just for talking, enjoying ourselves, and catching up on all our things, but there are also homework to do, showers, dinners, etc. etc.
In addition, that very short time we are together is when we are already tired from the whole day, both parents and children.
And in the end, life goes by, and time slips through our fingers without us realizing it. Children grow up and little by little they stop being so young...
That's why I think it's important to address two topics in this regard:
1. How to "scratch out" time to enjoy together:
a. Try to wake up 10 or 15 minutes earlier to spend 20 or 25 minutes having breakfast without rushing. I assure you it's worth it. In that short time, we talk about what we dreamed that night, we talk about the things we have ahead of us during the day, and we wake up and get going in a kinder way to start the day on the right foot!
b. The way to school is also a good time to share together. If we walk, we can chat calmly. We go by car and also share a pleasant time listening to our favorite morning radio show that always makes us smile and offers us cool conversation topics to get us energized and start the morning laughing (Buenos días Javi y Mar, if you go to school by car, I recommend it... my children ask for it as soon as they get in)... Is there anyone else here who has this custom?
c. Try to do some activity or game together when you get home. I confess that now with the little one, this is the most complicated part because I'm usually alone with all three and with her one year old, she demands my full attention... but the ideal is to be able to make time to do some craft together, play a board game or simply sit down to listen to a song or tell each other something that happened during the day. Trying to dedicate that little time is essential to "make family" and not just share a space!
d. Do not overload afternoons with extracurricular activities. This would make for another post, but I think it's essential to select them very well so that they focus on something and are not a senseless coming and going of activities. Having time to be together seems like the best extracurricular activity in the world, and I mean it!... After all, they already spend many hours at school doing a lot of things...
e. During dinner is another family gathering time. Try to make it a pleasant time to share things that happened during the day, to play small games, riddles, etc... Let it not be a stressful moment of "eat that now" but a cool moment all together before going to sleep!
f. My older children already read on their own, but sometimes we still gather before bed to read. One of us reads, and we comment and share what we read. Another moment to enjoy :)
2. How to make that time together a time where we enjoy and strengthen our emotional bond and not a time where we only manage fights, squabbles, and so on:
a. Take advantage of the little time we have for it to be a time for talking, laughing, good vibes... it's true, it's easy to say but sometimes it's not... it depends in part on us, on how we manage it, so it's important to keep in mind that yelling, punishments and threats don't usually help much.
b. Limit screen time a lot and set aside moments when we don't have technology at our disposal. Breakfasts, dinners, the moments we share together should be with all five senses and not with our eyes fixed on the mobile... Knowing how to manage this seems very important to me today because the mobile allows us to have so much information and entertainment at hand that sometimes it's a great temptation, and if we are attentive to the mobile, it is much easier to get nervous and more impatient with the little ones.
c. Be very careful with language. Words have a lot of power, and even more so with children. Always try to make communication more positive than negative and that the words and phrases we say to them very often come from affection. Yelling doesn't help. They won't pay more attention to us just because we yell. We can be firm without losing patience (sometimes it's not easy, but it's possible).
d. Encourage dialogue and debate in the family, so that we don't just talk about the usual things, but also put interesting conversation topics on the table to share as a family. The game I designed, the Talent Cards, has this purpose. It proposes interesting conversation topics to get to know each other better, share our values with our children and connect with them, to talk about feelings and emotions and to develop imagination. It is not essential to use this tool but remember that it is good to try to get out of the usual questions.
e. Having a Family Meeting at home if there is a problem that deserves more attention is also a good option!! There you can calmly talk about things, away from the daily hustle and bustle. You can reflect a little more and we can all give our opinions and express ourselves...
It is true that not every day we have the same time and it is not always so simple!. Sometimes it is inevitable that there are moments of stress because we have to arrive on time at school, or at the pediatrician, because there has been some after-school activity in between and there is no time to tell each other things.
For those stressful moments when one of your children wants to tell you something important, I want to leave you a trick we use at home. I read it once online and loved it, and now we apply it. I leave it for you to end this post:
We have a magic word that we use in those moments when I can't listen and pay attention to what they say as they deserve. Ours is SUPERDAY and when I say it, it means that whoever wants to tell me something has to keep it well in their memory and tell me later. In fact, I usually say: superday car, or superday dinner, or superday walk... which means that I can't attend to them at that moment because it's impossible for me, but that when we are calmer in the car, at dinner or on the walk, I hope they tell me with all the details and then I will be all ears :)
I think it's a beautiful pact, because the message we send to the child is that what they have to tell us is truly important to us.
What do you think of this trick? Do you have any others to improve family communication?
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