I’ve been selling my kids tear pads for a few months now and I keep thinking of those parents who’ve bought them.
Are they using the pads?
Is it helping them to have more conversations around feelings?
What else can I do for these families . . . knowing that they need help in supporting their kids and their feelings?
The tear pad is a great tool but it’s only one and I believe we need a toolbox FULL of great tools. Especially today where our kids are growing up in a totally different world from us. They’re being exposed to things and issues we didn’t experience until we were much older.
Through the feedback I’ve been getting, I know the kids tear pads are creating conversations between parents and kids that the parents didn’t know they needed to have. It makes me smile knowing this tool has the capacity to open up relationships and guide parents in how to support their kids when feelings are overwhelming them.
And so I keep thinking of these families and how I can give them more . . . more tools for their toolbox and more strategies for supporting their kids and their feelings.
By wanting to give them more, I want to give you more too! Cos we’re all in this together right?!
So I decided that sharing what I know and what has been working for my boys, would be the best place to start in giving you more.
I LOVE Dr Shefali Tsabary’s work around conscious parenting and her words stick in my mind when I think of sharing with you . . .
“A child’s behaviour is just the expression of their needs, which fall into two categories: connection and learning.”
“Connection happens at the feeling level. They learn when they feel connected to us.”
With her words in mind, here are five tools that are helping me to connect with my boys and support them in their feelings, in a way that’s best for them as individuals:
1. Connection Time
I’m trying to make it a habit that every single day both my boys get at least 10 minutes of Present Mum Time, doing something that they choose to do.
This is just one strategy I learnt from If I Have To Tell You One More Time by Amy McCready. She calls it Mind, Body & Soul Time and it’s a connection tool for increasing your child’s feeling of belonging and significance.
It’s such an easy thing to do but as parents we struggle to make it a priority. I know I do. But what I’ve noticed though, is that the days I make Connection Time happen, I have less fight-back from my boys when I ask them to do something and the family unit functions on a more peaceful and team-like level.
2. Understanding Feelings
This is where my therapy sessions and personal development really help.
I’ve learnt that when anger and aggression show up in my boys, it could be a sign that something underlying is going on for them. With anger, it could be fear, shame or frustration that they’re feeling but the way they know how to express it is through anger.
So when big feelings are showing up for our kids, is it actually a sign that something deeper is going on? We’ve got to peel back the layers! This is when the kids tear pad comes in handy. Learning to have positive conversations around feelings is super important.
You can buy the Kids Tear Pad here.
3. Love Languages
We all feel love, and feel loved, in different ways. It could be through:
- Words of Affirmation
- Acts of Service
- Receiving Gifts
- Quality Time
- Physical Touch
Knowing this about your child is such a tool and a gift.
My 7 year old’s love language is words of affirmation. Knowing this, I make sure that I’m recognising him daily through the use of words. I use all the other love languages with him too but I make sure to emphasise the words of affirmations with him as I know this is what makes him feel most loved.
4. Intuitive Reading
This may be a bit Woo-Woo but I recently had a reading with a friend who ‘talks to dead people’.
My 6 year old had been telling me how ghosts have been talking to him. I believe that children have a thinner veil to ‘the other side’ than we do (thanks to years of conditioning) and so I wanted to see if these ghosts were contributing to his challenging behaviour.
I got a huge amount of value from this reading!
The best part for me was coming away with an understanding on how important it is for me to nurture and support my boy’s amazing imagination, magical curiosity and his creativity. This understanding has hugely impacted the way I connect with him during Connection Time too. GOLD!
5. The Game Changer . . . Human Design!
Understanding my boys energy type has changed the way we parent them.
So much so, I created posters for our fridge to remind us how to support and nurture them on a daily basis. The boys love these too and are quick to remind us when we slip into old habits LOL.
With this knowledge, we’ve been able to recognise and side-step triggers of certain behaviour more quickly, and as a family we have boundaries, or agreed expectations, that have been guided by their human design charts. And it works!
I’m such a geek with Human Design now (I’m studying it at the moment!) that if a parent is struggling with their child’s behaviour, I ask them if they know their child’s energy type. I strongly believe there are clues in our human design charts to how we can live more aligned and a life that’s more us.
If you want to know more about Human Design, please get in touch. I’d love to tell you more about it LOL.
Also, I offer posters similar to my boys ones which you can purchase here. Using their birth details I can give you tips on how to support and nurture your child’s energy type.
So, those are the things that are working right now. Parenting is such a journey and I have no doubt that this list will evolve as my family does.
Being Mum to my two boys is a privilege that I take very seriously. And yes, I put a lot of pressure on myself around this and I’ve had people tell me that I’m doing too much . . . that I need to let go.
Through my own personal development I’m learning to believe that good enough is good enough when it comes to being their mum. I’m a work in progress too and so I’ll keep working on that LOL.
For now though, I’m doing my best to make sure my boys grow up with their own personalised toolboxes, full of strategies on how to deal with feelings and manage life when it gets tough . . . so that they’ll have a range of tools to use as they navigate teenage life and adulthood.
It’s really important to me that my boys grow up loving who they are and living a life they love.
I know that it starts in the home and right now. And so as I help them to develop their toolboxes, I’ll keep filling mine with as many tools as I need to support us all.
How about you? What’s in your toolbox and working right now for you and your kids in regards to feelings?
