Easier Said Than Done - Connecting With Your Child Emotionally

Are you a successful, career driven, boss mum and got everything under control? Do you, too, stumble sometimes?

How do you handle the step change from your work mindset to emotional connection at home? Does it come naturally and intentionally to you? Or do you sometimes bring your boss mindset home with you and try to keep everything under control?

It’s great to be that kind of role model, the solutions finder, the optimist, the myth buster or the cheerleader. We all need someone who tries to positively encourage and get through struggles. With an adult that might work. 

With a friend or a co-worker you can cheer through a rough patch or rationalise a problem. But for children nothing could be worse.

Here’s a story from my life and how my daughter and I had a beautiful breakthrough when I intentionally switched from solutions mindset to connection mindset.

My daughter started having panic attacks at drop off at kindergarten recently. Everything from crying, clinging on to me and breaking out into screaming, up to an anxious panic.

The same scene repeated every day that week. Some days for 15 minutes, some days nearly half hour, with more and less intense screaming each day. Everyday the same story. Once I was gone she calmed down quickly. Also the rest of her day was normal, fun, as always.

One day my daughter asked me whether I was scared too when I was her age. I thought it was best to show her to be brave. So I told her I wasn’t – and that there is no need for her either. My intention in he moment was to solve – and I missed the part where I should have connected, too.

I wanted to deflect her fear and by doing so I failed to acknowledge her fear.

When this panic attack cycle continued all of that week, I knew I had to change strategies. I tapped in the dark, it was trial and error time. Something had to work, we tried different approaches, incentives, change of person who does the drop off…

Spoiler alert: nothing worked. From an outside view there might be ideas popping into your mind and I’d be very keen to hear what you’d do in such a situation. In my case I was at my wit’s end. 

Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself.

I couldn’t bear to see her suffer like that anymore but at the same time I didn’t know what else to try – I just knew I had exhausted all of my knowledge and I had to get another perspective.

Before going to the final resort of consulting a child psychologist (I thought this MUST be a delayed reaction to her parents’ divorce a year prior), I had one more ace up my sleeve. Listening to a parenting podcast. I know, how millennial is that??

My friend had done coaching with a now well known psychologist and book author, the Dr. Becky Kennedy a while ago and recommended her podcast. Her business and her book is called “The Good Inside”. I listen to her podcasts and watch her reels every now and then. I’ve found that she always offers a really straight forward and effective way of dealing with situations. I’ve applied her methods here and always felt it worked. So I turned to her – again. 

I found a podcast from her on the topic of Separation Anxiety – perfect! She explains that children look for 2 things in those panic moments: Connection and Leadership. 

Happy mums can make the world a better place.

Connection in the sense of, I felt that too when I was your age, what does your fear feel like, how big does it feel, as big as the teddy bear or as big as the house? And leadership in the sense of, explaining what’s going to happen; I will drop you to kindergarten where you are safe with your teachers,we’ll say a quick goodbye and I’ll go to work and pick you up later. And not allowing for the feelings and fears to circle with endless reassurances but to rather reassure once before drop off, once during and then go.

She compared it to a pilot who flies through turbulence. Imagine us parents as the pilot and the kids as the passenger. If you had a pilot who said, “I know there is turbulence, I’m worried too but let’s hope it’ll be ok soon”, compared to one who said, “I know you’re scared but I also know you are safe and I’ll get us to the airport safely”. 

Which pilot would you feel more comfortable with? That kind of blew my mind because rationalising, explaining, empathising and so on are all techniques that work with friends or at work. But with a child they seek reassurance. They seek someone who is in control and who helps them understand and handle their feelings.

I’ve then applied the technique to my daughter the next morning. Starting with asking about the size of her fear and then dropping her off with the explanation that she’s safe and I need to go. There were no tears. Sure, there was still some resistance and whiney but it was quick, not traumatic (for neither of us) and it was a turning point. For her, me, and for our relationship.

Next time your child goes through a tough time, try to switch out problem solver mode for connection mode. 

Try to really understand them, connect with them and don’t deflect their fear for the hope to make it disappear that way. If they see you being able to handle the fear, then they will feel like they can too. They will also feel less alone in their struggle and you help them build resilience. 

Have you experienced something similar? Who do you turn to for parenting advice? How do you connect with your children when they are scared? DM me – I can’t wait to hear from you!