The free parenting workshop, entitled "How to Get Your Kids to Listen and Cooperate: Connect!", which was held at the Lutheran School of Venice on Tuesday, May 19, 2009, was a great success.
A large group of parents turned up to hear parenting expert, Vickie Holland, provide tips on how to improve their parenting and gain more cooperation from their children. Parents identified a lack of cooperation from their children and their own resulting frustrations as areas in which they hoped Holland would be able to help them.
Holland was an engaging and entertaining speaker. She invited audience participation and engaged in role-playing to illustrate her point.
Connecting with children based on their emotional needs
With a great sense of humor, she started off by highlighting that children have four emotional needs: to feel (i) powerful, (ii) heard, (iii) important and (iv) loved.
And she defined three levels that parents tend to connect to their children on.
Low level connecting involves neglect.
Medium level connecting is when a parent is present with their agenda in mind. For example, when the parent takes the child grocery shopping, or when a parent is cooking and the child is playing nearby. She expressed that a "lot of life is here" meaning that parents necessarily engage in a lot of medium level connecting because of their varied responsibilities.
High level connecting involves being present with your child's emotional agenda in mind. Holland states that a few of these moments a day can help tremendously in cutting down misbehavior. This is the ideal.
A guide for connecting at a high level
According to Holland, parents must take eight steps to engage in high-level connecting with their children.
The first and most important step is for parents to create positive energy by setting their intention to connect peacefully and at a high level. One can do this by using self talk or breathing techniques to get into the right frame of mind. Furthermore, Holland recommends building a "reservoir of peace" by taking at least ten to fifteen minutes each day to do something to nurture yourself, emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually. Doing this allows one not to resent the constant care-taking that a parent has to undertake every day.
The second step is to make warm and loving eye contact so that the child feels important.
Third, get on the child's level when speaking to the child, creating a balance of power in the relationship through your body language.
Fourth, a loving touch should be applied. Fifth, deploy that smile.
Sixth, and rather unexpectedly, Holland recommends using fewer words to get better results.
Seventh, parents should ask questions that involve the child in the decision making process, so that the child feels some ownership with regard to what he has to do. Holland recommends getting out of the habit of giving out orders.
Finally, the parent should give the child information about the situation and get information from the child, so they can respond appropriately.
Measuring your success
What made Holland's workshop interesting was that she answered parents specific questions, and illustrated how to implement this eight step strategy by role playing, which also made the presentation more entertaining. Most importantly, however, she advised implementing her strategies in small steps. And with great insight reminded parents that they know their children best and should implement strategies that work for them. "I speak as if this is truth" Holland said, "But it's up to you to decide what is true. You know your children best."
