About the Parenting by Connection approach

Want stronger, sweeter connections in your family?

Parenting by Connection brings more than 30 years of research and experience to help you enjoy your parenting, and the fundamental cornerstone of this approach is a simple one - listening.

Parenting by Connection is founded on the idea that connection is vital to us as human beings, and particularly to the developing minds of young children. When children feel connected they can enjoy life, bringing their intelligence, curiosity and kindness into each moment. Day by day, a child's sense of connection can be easily broken, and when it is they signal to the adults around them in one of two very clear ways. Either they release the emotional tension they are feeling due to the disconnect, by crying, tantruming, sweating or laughing, or they display off-track behaviours, effectively giving parents a large red flag that says 'help me!'.

Parenting by Connection provides five proven strategies to help families connect well both during these difficult moments and as a preventative measure.

Staylistening involves simply listening to an upset child, without trying to fix things or stop her crying or tantruming, through until the very end of the upset.

Setting Limits provides an inroad to helping children offload their tension when their behaviour is unworkable. Kindly and firmly holding a limit, with few words and lots of love, helps a child access their sadness, grief or fear, so that they can begin to cry or rage.

Playlistening is a wonderful pre-emptive method for helping children release tension. Following their giggles by taking the less powerful role in play allows them to feel listened to in a very profound way.

Special Time is a daily dose of loving connection that can really help your child to stay on track. By setting aside a set period of time, and allowing your child to take the lead in how he spends it, you give your child an invaluable gift.

Listening Partnerships are a parent-to-parent listening tool that make all of the above possible. With emotional support for yourself it becomes more and more of a delight to offer the gift of Staylistening, Settling Limits, Playlistening and Special Time, and to watch your children blossom and your relationships strengthen.

Learn more by listening in to the first season of Belynda's podcast, produced in partnership with four other Hand in Hand Parenting Instructors from around the world - Tales from the Toolbox. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

Comments

Welcome

Welcome hard-working parents and carers! I want to take this opportunity firstly to say thank you. Thank you for the hard work you do as a parent, for all the love and care you give to your children. You are just the perfect parent for your child, and you deserve so much support for all the work you do. As we move into a new year, and I begin a new venture in the form of Parenting by Connection, I hope you'll join with me in reflecting for a moment on the incredible job parents do. We are routinely unpaid or underpaid, with a million different job titles in any one day. In our society, parenting is not given the respect or the support it deserves. Parenting by Connection is an approach that aims to change that. By finding the resources and support you need, you'll be more able to offer your sweet children the connection they crave; and thanks to neuroscience we know that they don't just want this connection, they need it! Kids' brains are hard-wired to seek out ...

Setting Limits with Love

Parenting is full of challenges we may never have guessed at. Today some of the limit setting I faced included my children swearing at one another, throwing a shoe on the roof, and refusing to eat the dinner I had cooked. Despite feeling like crawling under the couch and letting someone else deal with all this craziness, I know that what my kids need when they are having an off track day like this one is connection. On a good day, I approach these signals they are sending me with a wish to connect and with a wish to help them with whatever is driving their behaviour. On a harder day, and at times today was that, I lecture them and appeal to their sense of reason until I literally scream! In my many and varied conversations with parents, a common thread is how frustrating it is that we spend much of our day appealing to logic and reason in order to change behaviours. We say, 'No, please don't do that!' over and over again. We give good solid thinking around why not to beha...

Your child is having a problem, not being a problem...

Your child wants to feel good, connect well, play and learn. When things go off track for her, you can feel confident that this is NOT a choice she is making. To learn more about why it isn't a conscious choice, a little brain science may be helpful. What we know about brain science is that there are three key parts to our brains. The brain stem governs life processes such as breathing and is in charge of the well-known fight or flight response. The limbic system, or middle brain, is our safety monitor and the seat of our long-term memories. This is the part of our brain that is engaged to determine connection, that tells children 'Yes! All ok here. Learn and play, share and have fun'. Finally, the prefrontal cortex is our higher brain, where our executive function happens. When the limbic system sends the message that all is well, this is the part of our child's brain that helps her reason, organise, play well, be considerate and think well. From Unspl...

Parenting by Connection with Belynda Smith

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