If you want to really connect with your kids, I learned that it’s not enough to just take them to the playground and watch them, you need to play with them (that’s the engagement part)! Although it can feel tiresome to play with your kids after a long day, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. During this time, your child needs to have your full attention, and to get really connected, your full engagement. Pam suggests that kids need at least 10 minutes of daily connect time with at least one adult to feel safe, connected, and loved. Today – I am going to focus on ways to fill up your child’s love cup. A lot of her suggestions for keeping the hurts cup empty are covered in our E is for Empathy post and F is for Friendly posts. Pam uses the analogy of kids having a “love cup” and a “hurts cup.” Kids feel loved and happy (and joyful!) when their hurts cup is empty and their love cup is full. This book focuses on ways we can connect with our children and help them feel loved. Pam describes her approach as being an extension of the “attachment parenting” theory I often tried to follow when Onetime (my 2.5 year old son) was an infant. In reaction to these feelings, I picked up a book by Pam Leo called Connection Parenting. I started to wonder how I could fit in more of those precious minutes where we really connected, giggled, played, and felt close. Sometimes it seemed as if the whole day was taken up with changing diapers, feeding my son, cleaning up after eating, then driving somewhere to do something, then back again to diapers, feeding, cleaning, put him to sleep, and repeat over and over! The times when my son experiences the most joy are the times when we are together, playing and laughing, and somehow in-sync with each other.Ībout a year ago, I realized that although I was a stay-at-home-mom and spent all day with my son, there were still times when I’d be tucking him into bed, and we’d be having our nightly chat about what we did that day, and I would realize that we hadn’t really emotionally connected that day. On days when my son is cranky, whiny, and demanding or wild, hyper and reckless, I have come to see that these are cries from my child to connect. When I got thinking about joy and where it comes from, I immediately thought about connection. This week’s Teaching Kids About Character: An Alphabetic Journey topic is J is for Joyful.
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