You Are Your Child’s Favorite Toy

Posted by Susan Epstein on August 2nd, 2010 at 01:42pm

If you are like most parents have more than you can handle on your plate. You may work outside or inside the home, housework, laundry, shopping, yard work, carpools, doctor appointments, paying bills, child care, supervising your kids and on and on. It is very probable that a day has gone by where you didn’t spend time with one of your kids. I don’t mean a two hour mommy/child play date…how about reading them a story or having a 10 minute conversation about something that is important to them? Over the years I have provided many hours of family therapy to my clients. They have told me, “thank goodness we came today, it’s the only time we have stopped and paid attention to each other all week.” A few weeks ago, I challenged you to make eye contact with your children at least 5 times a day. I hope that this small shift in your behavior has made a big impact on your relationship with your children.

This week, let’s try to take 10 minutes out of each day to STOP and pay attention to what each of our children/teens is doing or saying and just watch and listen. I want you to practice being fully present. No phone, no TV, no computer, just you and your child.  Post a comment on how this is going for you!

Tags: activities, calm parenting, communication, parenting, parenting powers

Under Children+ Family+ Teens/Tweens