Our family was on vacation at a beautiful resort hotel. My 3.5-year old son Henry took his balancing bike with him. One day, Henry and I were 
touring the property. He was riding his bike. He started to go down a fairly steep hill. I wondered if he could handle it or if I should move closer. Unfortunately, the bike went faster and faster, and started to wobble. I couldn’t reach him in time, and he took quite a fall on his face (he wore a helmet). I was in shock and ran over. Henry was crying really hard. I sat down on the ground, pulled him into my lap and started to listen.
His mouth was bleeding pretty hard. He was swallowing some blood. I got the sense that he was quite scared. From previous experiences, I knew that the mouth tends to bleed hard easily and that is was not common to stitch inside the mouth. People were rushing over to offer first aid and ice. I said that we might need it later but that we were fine for now. Some of the people looked at me with disbelief and what I interpreted as negative judgment but I decided to focus on my son. I really wanted to try to listen & be present, as I had heard beautiful stories of how that could benefit the emotional & physical healing process.
I saw Henry’s lip swell quite a bit and darken in color. I got a little bit scared and nervous, as it looked quite intense to me. He also swallowed quite a bit of blood. I put those thoughts aside however and kept listening to him. People continued to approach us and shared their thoughts about what needed to be done. I felt that they thought I was a really bad mother as I was, in their eyes, not doing anything. I kept guarding Henry and our connection, and I focused on us. Henry was still crying really hard.
The bleeding had stopped. It was reassuring to notice that all his teeth seemed to have stayed intact. Henry started making requests while crying. I listened to him and responded that for now, I just wanted to listen. Once in a while, I said “You fell off your bike,” or “You hurt your lip.” The crying went on for about 20 or 30 minutes. Towards the end of his crying episode, the most amazing thing happened: the swelling of his lip went down and it turned back to almost its regular color. I could not believe my eyes. If I had not witnessed this process myself, I would have had a hard time believing that this could happen. At some point, Henry was done crying.
I suggested that we continue our walk. Henry said that he wanted me to carry him. I acknowledged what he said and then suggested that he try to walk. He started to walk. Then I said, “If you want to, you can go on your bike.” He said, “Yes,” and proceeded to get on his bike. It was amazing.
The people who observed us looked positively surprised. I wondered what they were thinking now about my parenting style, and I felt pleased with myself. In the afternoon, Henry and I went for another walk and he went down the same steep hill, this time with grace. My heart warmed up with gratitude. His lip looked almost normal, and healed entirely within the next 2 to 3 days. I felt I had just experienced an almost miraculous solution to helping my child with physical hurts.
-A Parenting by Connection mother in Los Angeles
raspberry noise. This annoyed his brother, my 9-year-old, who shouted, “Be quiet! Stop that noise!”
noisemaker was dying, making an unpleasant noise which Lucas didn’t like. He tried to make it stop with his hands, but he couldn’t. We couldn’t do much about it because the noise maker was sewn inside the monkey.
My 2.5 year old son had just transitioned to a new daycare. He had been there three days, and he had done very well with the transition. He was asking excitement in the morning to go to see his new friends at his new daycare. The teachers reported that he was playing well with the other children, eating and sleeping well, and seemed to be in a good mood throughout the day there.
extra person would change the easy-going relaxation day I had planned, into something different. There would be scheduling issues to deal with: drop off’s, pick ups, coordinating with her parents, etc. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do and felt very agitated and resentful about the whole thing. Then I felt disappointed that I felt resentful. Ugh!
his age. The dinner was lovely, I had felt connected to my husband and the couple, and the boys had played well together. I was filled with a sense of warm connection, and I started to sing a little.
My son has co-slept with me since he was born. When he was about 18 months old, I bought him his own bed with the plan to move him into it so I could have my bed to myself. I tried getting him to stay there, but I could never make it work. We had gotten into a routine where he would wake up sometime in the night and come into my bed, and we would sleep together until the morning. That was working for both of us most of the time. It would become an issue though when I was sick or if one of us was experiencing some insomnia. Any attempt to get him to sleep in his own bed at these times just ended in disaster!
comfortable in the water. He would allow his teachers to guide his head under the water when swimming from one are to another, but would never do it voluntarily or with me while we were swimming together for fun.
My first-grader had a book report to finish after school. We had only 20 minutes and it usually took my son about 15 minutes to finish this kind of assignment. For my pre-reader, writing was the most challenging task, and he just didn’t like doing it. So usually, he drew pictures and I wrote down sentences for him. Also, he was tired after six hours of being at school and he would rather play by the time he came home.
