Tag Archives: parenting skills

Overcoming Stage Fright with Stay Listening

The evening before my 7-year-old daughter had her audition for a community theater production, she asked me, “Why do I have to go to the audition?” I reminded her that she had enjoyed her theater experience the previous year and had wanted to sign up for this year’s show. Her tone instantly became more strident: “I want to quit! I didn’t really want to do it!” Ah! I recalled how scary the audition had been for her last year. So perhaps she needed me to listen closely. We went back and forth for 20 to 30 minutes. She grew increasingly desperate and angry, shouting that I was forcing her to do something she no longer wanted to do and that I was not listening to her. I reassured her that while I knew it was challenging and scary, I was confident with her preparation and from her prior experience that she would do fine in her audition.

I must admit that when she burst into tears, I felt wobbly and wondered, “Maybe this is truly how she feels, and she’s not just letting off anxiety. Maybe I should let her quit now.” I decided to keep giving her warmth and closeness as she yelled about how mean I was being and that it is her life so she should make the decision.

After a while, she petered out and transitioned to something else. I felt the change in her energy, and we went about going to bed. I went to sleep wondering whether the next morning would bring more of the same and we’d end up e-mailing the director to cancel her audition.

From the moment she opened her eyes the next day, she was all smiles. When it was time to drive to the audition, she immediately took her dad’s hand and went to the car without one word of complaint. Later, she reported that the audition was fine and that she was excited for the show. For the past month, she has been rehearsing most weekends, and her attitude is always cheerful and upbeat. Perhaps she may need more listening and connection as we approach the first show next month. I will be ready!

I am so grateful to Hand in Hand. Without the insight into how children’s emotions work, I would have been much more likely to take her words at face value and let her drop out. It’s hard to have your child accuse you of being insensitive! With my training in Parenting By Connection, I was able not to be triggered by her outburst and to give her the warmth and love she needed in order to release her feelings.

Listening Makes All The Difference In The World

I heard a very touching story in one of my classes recently. We were talking about the value of listening to our children’s strong emotions, and I asked if anyone had been listened to in that way as a young child. One woman raised her hand and said, “Yes. One time.” She had been raised by her single mother who was a school teacher. She was the oldest of three and very involved in taking care of her younger siblings and making sure everything went well. They struggled a lot and were often short of money.

At one point she said she was having a particularly hard time so her mother sent the younger siblings over to a neighbor’s house, then took her out to the garage and said, “Okay, let me hear it.” Her mom just listened while she got to yell and cry and scream about how hard it was and that it wasn’t fair. She had never gotten to really let it all out like that. She knew that her mom really wanted to hear it, since she had sent the younger ones next door so that she could have time just with her. She told her, “I know this sucks, sweetie. I wish it were different.” She didn’t try to make her feel any different or tell her it wasn’t so bad. She just listened.

The woman said it made all the difference in the world to her. It seemed as if she could carry on. Just because she knew her mom was on her side that way.

What I think is interesting is that even though she didn’t get listened to many times in that way, she still really understood how important it is for her to listen to her children when they are struggling. That one experience really made a difference for her. It’s such a good reminder to me when I think of all the times when I’ve felt badly because I just didn’t have it in me to give my children the attention I would have liked to, or just couldn’t listen.

Kirsten Nottleson-Join Certified Instructor Kirsten Nottleson in her Building Emotional Understanding course. Starts March 27. Register now.

Helping My Son With Lying

I had given my son $20 to go with friend to a water park for the day. When he came home he gave me $10 saying he’d used the rest for food. A few days later the friend’s mother called to ask about something and mentioned that she had sent all the money back with him. I told my son that I knew he hadn’t spent the money on food and did he keep it? He sheepishly nodded yes.

I didn’t want him to feel badly about himself but I did want him to be accountable. Right away I felt like I was floundering around, not knowing how to handle this properly. In my upbringing, shame and guilt would have been used to solve this issue. There would not have been any possible way to walk out of the situation with any sense of dignity. Both my husband and I worked together on this one. We sat down with our son on the couch as we talked to him about how important it is to be honest and that we wanted to be able to trust him. That we love him no matter what and that giving the money back would help clear out that yucky feeling inside. He went and got his wallet, gave us $10 and then ran to his room crying.

This is where I often struggle. I think, “Maybe he needs time by himself right now. Am I smothering him? Invading his space?” It goes on like that in my mind. I had to trust my gut, which told me, “I wouldn’t want to be alone if I felt that bad. I would want someone to follow me and let me know I was loved.”

I checked in with my husband, and we agreed that this was a good opportunity for him to get out a lot of stored up feelings he’d had about taking the money, and that we didn’t want him to have to keep carrying those around. The super good news about this is that in the past my husband has had a hard time when our son is having big feelings, especially when he can see that me being close to him makes the feelings come out stronger. In the past he has leaned on the side of “Leave him alone if he’s walking away. Don’t upset him even more.”

We followed him to his room, knocked, and asked if we could come in. “No!” “Well, can I stay outside the door?” “No!” “Well, how about five feet away?” “Okay.” So I sat down and let him know I’d be right there if he needed me and that I wasn’t going to leave him alone.

I couldn’t hear much going on inside. Occasionally it sounded like he was still crying. Of course I wanted to burst in and hold him and tell him, “Everything’s okay!” I hated that my “baby” was feeling so bad. But I was trying to allow him to feel in charge by respecting the distance he requested. Every once in a while I would remind him that I was there, and that I was sorry he was feeling so badly. Sometimes he’d tell me “Shut up!” or “I don’t care!” and I’d say I’m not leaving.

This went on for quite a while, until finally he opened the door and burst out, “That was my money you took and Ronnie said I could be his friend if I gave him that $10 and now you have my money so I don’t have it and that’s not fair!” and slammed the door. The tear floodgates opened (for me too).

It took at least 45 minutes of my husband and I taking turns listening for him to finally get that out. If we had left him alone when he had told us to, he easily could have tucked that story away and carried all that crummy stuff around: feeling bad that he’d lied about using the money for food, feeling bad that his friend had put him in a weird position, feeling bad that we thought he took it himself. You could see how that could easily “gunk up the system.”

He still had the door shut and we could hear him crying hard inside. We let him continue to cry, with gentle reminders of our love. I realized there could be an array of leftover feelings: “Did I betray my friend? Will he still be my friend?” I let him know we still love Ronnie and that we knew that he just got a little confused about money.

Before long he came out and wanted lots of snuggling. We talked about what he wanted to do about it, and had him practice with us what he wanted to say to his friend about getting the money back. I called the mom the next day and told her what happened and let her know there were no hard feelings. The boys got together and talked and the money was exchanged, and they played happily together after that.

I was so pleased that we were able to tackle the situation so well, as a team. I have no doubt that the extra attention my son got from having us both there allowed him to get to the hard stuff that he was trying so hard to hide. I was also pleased that we got to find out what was at the root of the issue for a change. So often it just looks like release of emotions and healing but I don’t know exactly what it was about. It was a big victory for our family and a step in the right direction.

Kirsten Nottleson-Join Certified Instructor Kirsten Nottleson in her Building Emotional Understanding course. Starts March 27. Register now.