Parents regularly spend nourishing, meaningful time connecting with their children. When you get your child up at the kitchen bench to make play doh, or you play a game of hide and seek, or you chatter away together in the car, this important connection is consolidating your child's feeling of being seen and heard, and literally builds her brain.
The thing about these everyday experiences though, is that they are interruptible. At any moment you may need to answer the phone or attend to another child. Your sweet little one can really benefit from a short regular burst of your attention where she can feel confident that your attention will remain with her for a given time.
Conversely, you can really benefit from a short period of time where you are free not to be thinking about the dishes, or work, or how to fit in a quick trip to the shops. Knowing that Special Time is timed actually gives this tool a great sense of freedom - you know that you only have to be enthusiastic about Lego for three minutes, or romp around the room crazily for five minutes, or draw together for ten minutes. The fact that it is timed helps us bring our whole selves to this moment.
When we do bring our full attention, our children sense that special extra something and can use this time well to work on areas that are troubling them. As the younger, smaller boy, my 5 year old often uses Special Time to set up situations where he can defeat me, or push me around. He gets to work on his feelings of powerlessness, and he gets a chance to feel strong and in charge. Your child may ask for pretend play ('let's play going to the Doctor! I'll be the Doctor and give you a needle!) or might want to rough house or she may want to do something quiet and ordinary like reading a book together.
The thing that really makes it special? Your good attention and your enthusiasm. You bring your whole self to that limited time period with your child, one to one. You don't answer your phone, drink a cup of tea, or pick up around the house as you play. You focus wholly on your child, using this time to delight in him. When he suggests dancing together, you respond with unbridled excitement - 'What an awesome idea! Let's go!'
It involves you taking the following steps.
1. Set aside some one on one time with your child: tell her, this afternoon after school you and I are going to have ten minutes together doing whatever you want.
2. Letting her name it: ask her, what would you like to call this time together? And use that in future when referring to this Special Time.
3. Announce it: "Ok it is time for Mama and Sarah Time!"
4. Timing it: set the timer for the amount of time you decided on.
5. Bringing your attention: this means no cups of tea, no answering your phone, and wherever possible ensuring that you don't have any interruptions. It means you are enthusiastic about whatever she wants to do (a water balloon fight - yay! Barbie play - yay! searching for bugs in the rain - yay!).
6. Allow for feelings. Your child may find the sense of safety she gets from Special Time to be irresistible, and big feelings may erupt over small injuries or hurts. Attend to these opportunities well and see them as a chance to empty her emotional backpack of tricky feelings she has been carrying. You don't need to fix or change anything - just observe with love and interest everything she brings to this special time together, even her big upset feelings.
I think most parents understand the value of one on one, focused time with their children. It can work miracles, and I've found it works most effectively when used in balance with the other Parenting by Connection tools. When you build a sense of safety, your child can use your attention to work playfully on the things bothering her, or she can use that feeling of safety to really attend to her stored hurts and have a good cry. By balancing play and listening to her hard feelings you can help your child shed the difficult feelings that can clog her thinking and make her rigid and unhappy.
The logistics of Special Time can also be a barrier for some parents. 'How on earth do I find the time for more in my day?' you may be thinking. I started this week with our usual dose of Special Time, and very little patience for my boys' arguing. I noticed this and decided to add in a Special Brothers' Play Time each day where we play together. Just this one extra dose of ten minutes each morning, having a rip roaring pillow fight or doing some wild dancing, saw each day improving until by Thursday, things were going very smoothly. By investing this small amount of time I saved oodles of effort in dealing with unhappy kids!
You may also find it hard to keep other children occupied. The ideal situation is to have another adult around to help, but if that isn't possible there are lots of other options - use audiobooks to keep other children quiet; ask a teen over the watch the other kids; get a grandparent to read a story over Skype to the other kids. Lots of creative ideas can work. Brainstorm with a friend or Listening Partner.
Special Time can also work exceedingly well with teens, but it may look a little different. You may want to state 'I'd love to spend some time with you. Could we hang out on Saturday afternoon?' and be less explicit about using a timer. If your teen isn't very keen when the time comes along, you could say, 'OK, well I'd really love to be with you so I think I'll just sit here and watch you play video games for ten minutes.' You can then use that time to really notice your teen; what he looks like, how he sounds, what he excels at in the video game... his limbic system will register your warm attention and over time safety and trust will build between you.
In a study done in the US, a stunning 80% of college students stated that they did not believe their parents loved them. Knowing parents well, I'm sure this simply isn't true. But in our busy lives it can be difficult to show our love to our kids in ways that really land in their hearts truly. Special Time is a magic ingredient in our parenting toolkit for precisely this reason - kids feel so loved, valued and important to us when we actually schedule them in, name their special time with us, and follow through regularly. It can feel a little clunky at first getting out the timer but it is absolutely worth experimenting with.
I hope you can make time for Special Time in your day today, and see the connection and warmth in your family flourish.
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