22 March 2024

Hi everyone! Easter holidays are upon us – well done parents of South African children, term one done and dusted! In the words of Fat Amy… Acabelieve it! (And if you don’t get this reference then you have never watched Pitch Perfect. And that means you have some more movie-watching homework. Not for children.)

Anyway, I digress.

I was sent this cool personality quiz for kids by my friend, from a website called https://knowandlove.com/

I had fun with my two children taking the quiz and comparing our results. There are 8 personality types, based on the Myers-Briggs personality tests. They’ve made it child friendly by assigning an animal to each type, it’s beautifully illustrated and relatable.

Why not take a bit of time this holiday and do the quiz as a family connection activity, have fun exploring your similarities and differences. You can read a description of each of the 8 animals here. And you can take the quiz here. It’s suitable for children from 5 years old.

It’s good to remember that no personality test is 100% accurate because every single one of us is completely unique. There will be parts of our “type” that resonate and parts that don’t. It’s all about deepening our understanding of ourselves and loved ones that helps our connections to grow and mature.

I wish you and your family a beautiful and blessed Easter.

Photo by Cdoncel on Unsplash

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The need for ritual and ceremony is universal. We have daily rituals; that first glorious cup of coffee in the morning, or the blanket we always sleep with. One helps us start the day and the other helps us finish it.

Rituals mark time, bringing comfort or reassurance into each day. But they can also be very practical and necessary; like opening the curtains every morning or closing them at night.  Rituals soothe and anchor us.

Ceremonies can be formal or informal, a wedding, a prize giving, a birthday party. Rituals and ceremonies are a symbolic representation of dynamics that are happening in people’s lives.

Our family had an informal but significant ceremony, really part of a rite of passage, recently. Our son turned 13! Adolescent boys in Western culture lack rites of passage and ritual that help them to mark their change in development, so, we decided to create one.

We gathered family and good friends who have known our son his whole life to speak words of affirmation to him. We asked people to prepare and write their words down to give to him to keep, so that significant blessing was not lost in the moment and if he felt overwhelmed, he would at least have a copy to read afterwards. It was so good. It was affirming and blessing who he is and who he is becoming in a time when it certainly isn’t easy being adolescent.

As parents, our message to him was that this group of people are part of his “village” and that if he couldn’t talk to us, he could talk to one of them. Most importantly, we all told him he is loved and cherished. It was quite beautiful.

I encourage parents to find their own unique family rituals to do together. It can be fun; like having an “eat dinner with your fingers meal” once a month (we’ve been there, done that but it didn’t appeal to the more tactical sensitive in the family!) Rituals can be established around your unique family interests, needs and ages.

When each of our children turned 6 they went on a “6 year old adventure” with their dad and grandad. We still talk about those adventures! Rituals make memories, even if things didn’t go according to plan! One child’s adventure ended in a stomach bug, but they still have very fond memories of the trip!

Be child-led as far as possible. Ask your child for their input and ideas. For example, before the 6 year old adventure, we asked our children to think about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do. It was an overnight trip, one child chose the mountains and the other the beach. They chose the evening meal and treats.

There is an intention in a planned ritual that communicates deep connection and belonging. The time and commitment involved on the part of the adult tells the child they are important. The ritual places the child inside a bigger story, with their trusted adult(s).

Let me know if you already have family rituals, or if you plan to start one!

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Co-regulation is when a parent or caregiver uses their voice, facial expression and bodily posture to communicate love, acceptance and understanding to a child in a moment of need or when they are experiencing “big feelings”.

Self-regulation is defined in the APA dictionary of psychology as

n. the control of one’s behavior through the use of self-monitoring (keeping a record of behavior), self-evaluation (assessing the information obtained during self-monitoring), and self-reinforcement (rewarding oneself for appropriate behavior or for attaining a goal). https://dictionary.apa.org/

More simply put, self-regulation is about managing our thoughts, feelings and actions. Self-regulation is a learned skill. Children are not born self-regulating beings, they learn how to self-regulate over time with trusted, consistent adults. This journey is called co-regulation.

The ability to self-regulate is built on ongoing experiences of co-regulation.

Dana, 2020.

Co-regulation is when a parent or caregiver uses their voice, facial expression and bodily posture to communicate love, acceptance and understanding to a child in a moment of need or when they are experiencing “big feelings”. This enables a child to feel heard and understood, to feel they are not alone in that moment and that someone is available to help contain their overwhelm.

When babies grow up with moments of co-regulation during moments of stress, such as when they are struggling with strong feelings, they begin to internalize and conceptualize strategies for self-regulation and self-soothing – in their brains and in their minds.

Costa. https://www.nichq.org/insight/childrens-social-and-emotional-development-starts-co-regulation

As parents, we tune in (or attune) to our child so that we can recognise their changing needs, emotional states and ways of being as they grow. We respond by offering moments of connection that build a shared sense of safety (Dana, 2020).

I remember helping my child prepare for one of his first orals, to be presented in class. Standing up to talk in front of his peers at the age of 8 was a terrifying prospect for him. The night before, he most definitely did not want to do it. He struggled to come to a calm place within himself at bedtime in order to sleep. After giving reassurance, he had worked hard on the oral, and talking through some coping skills, we stopped talking about the oral completely and my husband and I focused on simply being present with him in his room. Back tickling, joke telling, and talking about his passions were ways we helped to offer co-regulation so that he could eventually calm and fall asleep.

We could have told him to “suck it up and deal with it, everyone has to do orals.” You know, tough love style. But this would not have been regulating for our child. Just because everyone is expected to do certain tasks does not make them any less daunting. What we were helping our child with that night was learning that in spite of an anticipated stress, he can use coping skills to bring himself to calm. He can do hard things that he doesn’t enjoy, and the world will not end. Four years on and orals are still not his favourite thing, but he has learned how to self-regulate himself through them.

The need for co-regulation with others continues throughout the life course. Adults still need others who offer a calm space to talk and be heard.

Co-regulation continues to help us self-regulate and very importantly, connect. When we don’t have co-regulating relationships, we are more than likely not having opportunities to wholly connect with others, and we may have feelings of isolation and loneliness. This can make parenting a whole lot harder.

It’s important to think about your own emotional health journey in relation to self-regulation and connection. Can you self-regulate in healthy ways? ie: exercise, talking to someone, journaling, praying, having fun and playing. Or do you need to numb in order to feel a sense of calm? ie: excessive drinking, overeating, mindless social media scrolling or even leading such a busy life that you simply don’t have time to stop and think.

If you feel you need help with practising co-regulation or self-regulation, get help from a trusted wise friend or two that you know are regulating for you, or a mental health practitioner who can help you on this journey.

It’s never too late to take this journey of connection!

The Beyondtrauma podcast on co-regulation at https://beyondtraumapodcast.com/2021/10/co-regulation-ruac-ep-29/ may be a helpful tool if you want to learn more.

Book reference: “Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection” by Deb Dana. 2020

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Children can tune out our words faster than we can say “Tidy your bedroom”, but they are invested in all of the bits between our words even when it doesn’t look like they are.

Sometimes we don’t appreciate a person’s presence until they are not there. As we wind down to the end of this working year, I am anticipating many goodbyes in different areas of my life*, related to professional and personal worlds I am part of. I am thinking about different people and the presence they carry, and what I will miss about them.

During a conversation this week, it was so aptly said that someone’s presence is all the “bits between the words.” I love that because it somehow encapsulates the intangibles that make a person who they are, in how they move around, their quirks and mannerisms, their habits,  the emotional tone they carry, and all of what you can come to expect of how they are in the world between their words.

This also has me thinking this week about who I am and how I am perceived in between my words. Do my actions/habits/quirks match my words so that I am aligned and integrated inside and out? When is my presence welcomed and when is it not so helpful?

Our children are especially attuned to our presence. They can tune out our words faster than we can say “Tidy your bedroom”, but they are invested in all of the bits between our words even when it doesn’t look like they are. When we are their safe space, our presence can be very comforting and nurturing for them, a place to regroup after a hard day out there on the school playground. They’re sub-consciously always checking where we’re at and assessing their place in our presence, are we approachable to them, are we going to listen, do we look like we’re in the mood to understand? And most importantly, are we actually there – physically and emotionally present.

In our bits between our words, we need to make sure we’re creating space to be available, especially to our most loved ones. Parenting is not the sum total of barking orders and issuing sage advice and instructions. Presence comes first, and then when the time is right, well-placed words that align with who we are. The human being, not “doing” part of us.

What are the “bits between the words” that you carry? What would people notice that is missing when you’re not around? What are the bits between the words that your children are responding or reacting to daily?

Have a wonderful weekend. And here’s to hoping there are bits of sun between the rain!

*(Don’t worry, I will remain in Howick, practicing play therapy!)

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Cultivating friendship in the adult years can be surprisingly tricky. But parents need play dates too.

How many play dates have you made for your child in the past year? Probably not as many as in a usual year, granted. But I am willing to bet for most of us we’ve spent a good deal of time sorting our kids social lives, but not our own.

I invite you to reflect on the state of your friendships. Not how many you have. Not how many social occasions you get invited to. But do you have at least one friend with whom you can share the good, bad and ugly of who you are, and they can do the same with you?

Cultivating friendship in the adult years can be surprisingly tricky. For many years through our childhood, adolescence and young adulthood we are in spaces where we are thrown together with others our own age, playing team sports together, going through more or less similar experiences. Primary school, high school, tertiary education and first jobs are quite uniting as we progress together. Once we run out of these shared spaces that keep us together, we start to discover the people we really want to make an effort to build friendship with. Often what can happen at this point is we prioritize romantic relationships and sometimes even sacrifice friendships in the process.

“If you prioritize only your romantic relationships, who is going to hold your hand through a breakup? Relying on your spouse to be your everything will definitely undo your marriage. No one human can meet your every single emotional need. If you only prioritize your kids, what happens when they’re grown and living far away, wrapped up in their own lives? Or if you only prioritize work? Wow, that’s too sad to even contemplate.”

― Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

Once the functional aspect of a friendship falls away, when whatever it was that brought you together is gone, what is left? Real, deep friendship should be built on something beyond convenience and proximity. Friendships of substance take work, like any good relationship, and surprise! a desire to spend time in one another’s company!

“Just as there are conditions for creating a Big Friendship, there are also some ways to make sure it stays big over many years. Emily Langan, the professor who applied attachment theory to close friendships, told us that staying attached to a close friend can be boiled down to three main things: ritual, assurances, and openness.”

― Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

Here’s a little challenge for you. If you’re happy with your friendships and their depth and how you are in them, then wholly and fully celebrate that, and let those friends know! Tell them what you love and appreciate about them.

If you’re not happy with where your friendships are at, then think about what exactly you’re not happy with. Is it something you could work on, or are you putting effort in the wrong places?

What are your friendship goals for 2022? Write them down, think about how to go about achieving them. Who do you want to deepen your friendship with in the next year? Who do you simply want to spend a little more time with? In what ways can you be a much more intentional friend to others?

This is also dedicated to one of my newest friends Sands, who has been proved to me that friendships don’t have to be long in years to be deep and meaningful.

PS: Yes, I know I can’t seem to stop referencing Brene Brown. These are not sponsored mentions, I promise!

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A very simple top tip for increasing connection with your child; write them a note. Or draw them a picture. Hearing you say “I love you” is wonderful, having it written down to look at again and again is amazing.

I remember very vividly on certain days when I was in primary school opening my lunch box and finding a surprise handwritten note from my mom in her beautiful cursive writing. “Good luck for the gala today” it would say “Love, Mum”. The fact that I can remember the feeling, and even the look and feel of my mom’s notes is significant. She let me know she was thinking of me, that something important was happening that day (galas were my best thing in school!), and most importantly that she loved me.

So, a very simple top tip for increasing connection with your child; write them a note. Or draw them a picture. Hearing you say “I love you” is wonderful, having it written down to look at again and again is amazing. Especially for those rainy days when you’re not getting on so well… or maybe that’s just in our family?

The wonderful thing about notes is that they sometimes come back around to you from your children! When they do, take them seriously and respond to them.

This note made my day!

And some notes are strictly business! This one was to dad around pocket money negotiations.

Special thanks to my mom for writing me notes, even as a grown up. I love you too. (It’s just a pity I didn’t inherit your beautiful cursive handwriting!)

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One of the things I most often advise parents to do more of, is simply spend more intentional time with their children. Often if a child is acting out in some way, their  “love tank*” is empty and what they may be looking for is connection. Reassurance-seeking behaviour rather than attention-seeking behaviour as I talked about here.

Here is a little idea for some dinner time conversations for families of almost all ages. What you need is

Dinner time and all TV and devices switched off so that you can look at one another’s faces

Most people in the family need to be relatively calm – this won’t work so well if parents are stretched beyond their limits and the toddler is in a bad mood

Curiosity. Living in one household doesn’t mean we know everything about one another. Set out to be curious about what you can learn about and from your loved ones.

Kindness. These conversations need to focus on the positive, kind words only please!

What do dinner time convos help to achieve?

Learning how to give and receive positive affirmation

Increasing thoughtfulness and empathy

Connectedness through the shared experiences, memories and positive vibes! = full love tanks!!

Enjoy! And do let me know if you play the game!

*Love tank = the space each of us have inside us that needs to be filled with love.

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