Category Archives: Stories about Listening Tools

Child with brown hair sits facing away from the camera looking at bright colours on a large TV screen which is out of focus.

Switching off the Screen – How to Set Limits Around Screen Time

Is screen time and television at the end of the day a challenge for you and your family?

In this family, my friend and her son arrive home. They’ve been out all day, and everyone is a little spent and disconnected after separate days out in the world.

several school bags dumped in a cornerBen (who is 8): dumps his bag down by the door and jumps on his screen, logging into his favourite streaming platform to watch cartoons.

Mum (my friend), asks: “How was school today?”

Ben (now engrossed in cartoons), replies: “fine.”

Mum (a flash of irritation), thinks: “I wish he wouldn’t get stuck on the computer so fast.  Anyway, I’ve got better things to do than try to extract anything from him now.”

In the perfect world, it would be great to do some Special Time at this point. It’s a great way to reconnect, and (with younger kids at least) much more effective than asking questions (-;  But most of us find it hard at that time of day to be organised enough to manage Special Time.

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Children sitting in playground with backpacks

How was school today? Using Special Time to get the answers you need

When our kids first start school, it can be so infuriating that they often aren’t interested in telling us much about their day. (And as the parent of a teen, I can tell you that it is often the same when they get older!)

Patty Wipfler, founder of Hand in Hand Parenting, explains why you don’t get much of an answer when you ask the question “How was school today?”. She explains how to use Special Time to reconnect – with young children, and those heading into adolescence. Continue reading

Upset teen girl sits, head hidden, blocking us out.

A Little Bit of Special Time Goes a Long Way

It’s easy to put off Special Time.  After all, family life is busy, and in some ways gets oddly busier when we have older children.   But Special Time it brings rich benefits when we do it.  Most importantly it builds emotional safety.

Even when it is “pretty basic”, as this mother puts it, Special Time refreshes and renews our children’s sense of our confidence in and for them, and reassures them of our love for them.  This is what our children need in order to begin offloading the emotional backpacks they are carrying around.  As they get older, those backpacks are more tightly buckled down that they used to be.  Our children learn to “suck it up” and hold it in for fear of social death if they let their feelings show.

So after Special Time, this mother finds her 11 year old daughter’s grumpy mood dissolves, and out rolls a big upset.  It can be hard to know whether to go or stay when our children tell us to go away.  At least sometimes, however, it’s worth staying, and listening it out… Continue reading

Tween using mobile phone/cell phone to text. Photo by Carlssa Rogers, https://flic.kr/p/9qQCYc

When she must have a phone…

Sometimes, holding a limit on something – so long as we are pretty sure the limit is reasonable –  can open up a whole lot of feelings about other things. This is as true of our pre-adolescent and adolescent children as is is of our younger children. In fact, as young people internalise the message that they shouldn’t show their feelings, a well-held limit can provide just the opening. Here’s how it worked for one mother and her daughter: Continue reading