Special Time Solves School Struggles

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.

So that day, instead of bugging him about this book report, I set the timer for a three-minute Special Time first and invited him to play. I said, “Let’s play whatever you want to play!” He wanted to play his favorite monster game. So I chased him around in the house, almost catching him sometimes. I made sure he could trick me into catching a curtain, and dance away from me again and again. We ran around and he was laughing a lot. My younger son joined in, and he did something goofy to make my older son laugh, too. The timer went off and we stopped after one more round of the chase game.

My son was fine with ending the Special Time, but when I reminded him about the book report, he went to sit in front of the report but showed no sign of working on it. I had to go away to take care of my younger one for a minute, thinking that he might not be able to finish his homework.

But when I came back, much to my surprise, he was writing sentences already, and he even finished with a little time to spare. This was the very first time he wrote the book report on his own! I was happy and proud to see this new progress after connection and play rather than unpleasant nagging.

—Keiko Sato-Perry, Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor

Join Keiko in her upcoming Building Emotional Understanding online class starting April 22. Register now!

Listen to a podcast of a recent teleseminar “Parenting: Going Deeper”, in which Keiko presented.

You can read more of Keiko’s stories here and learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.

No More Struggles In Getting Ready For School

I had been having trouble getting my 7-year-old to get ready for school in the morning. It often ended with yelling or rushing chaotically out the door. It seemed like no matter how early we woke up he still dragged through the morning and we would still be late to school. We ended up mad at each other and he ended up with a rotten start to a day that he wasn’t much looking forward to in the first place.

I started hearing “I hate school,” and “I’m not going!” more frequently. I knew I had to do something differently. I read in the Parenting by Connection Newsletter about having 5 minutes of Special Time with a child when he first wakes up to help him reconnect.

I was really bent on him getting dressed, fed, teeth brushed, shoes on, etc. before we played. But since it wasn’t working anyway I thought I may as well try it. I let him know right before bed each night that we would do five minutes as soon as he woke up. He was so excited. He started hopping out of bed and it made a huge difference in how much happier we both were before school. Much of the time we were still late but at least we weren’t fighting. What an improvement that was!

We did that for a few weeks and he was really wanting to play longer. I told him that he could play as much as he wanted as long as he was ready for school first. So we decided to switch back to getting everything done first. Now we snuggle in bed for a few minutes then he hops up and gets ready and we often have 10 to 25 minutes to run around outside and get some good exercise.

I think the 5-minute Special Time helped him to make the transition. We usually play jump rope, and sometimes his neighbor friend even comes over to play tag with us for a few minutes. He is more energized when he goes off to school. He is complaining less about school. Morning time is pleasant now. I think we both actually look forward to it. He talks about school stuff while he’s jumping rope that he wouldn’t usually tell me.

I think it’s really true that for boys, physical engagement helps them open up. I also feel better that, as he goes off to school to sit for 7 hours with only ½ hour recess time, he at least got that little stretch of time getting his body moving first thing in the morning. And when mama’s less worried, everyone’s life is better around here!

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

School Success Through Listening Time

At the end of a school year, my husband came home ecstatic. “My sons are geniuses! Did you see their report cards?” Our sons just finished third grade and Kindergarten, and we had just received their report cards by e-mail.

Our sons did well in all areas. My third-grader scored in the 99th percentile nationally in reading, having scored in average range last year. Our Kindergartener leapt from knowing almost no Kindergarten facts to showing advanced skills. This was not because I pushed them on academics–I didn’t push at all. I think it was because my primary focus was on increasing the time I spend listening to them and encouraging play. That’s why my children advanced by leaps and bounds. It showed up on their report cards.

I did work hard listening to them. When my Kindergartener was afraid to take the pre-Kindergarten test, and when he didn’t want to go to school the first two weeks of school, I listened to him cry for hours, reassuring him all the while that he would be safe as he did those things. My listening led to him being able to go to school confidently, and also to his loving to learn so much that I couldn’t stop him from reciting and writing the alphabet and practicing his numbers at home.

When my third-grader came home from a day of school with nasty behaviors and harsh remarks, and wouldn’t do his homework, I listened to him cry and rage for hours. Many nights, he didn’t do homework, and I worked with his teacher and even his principal on this issue, as I agreed with him that he had too much. He also had difficult social experiences at school, and I listened to his feelings about those. I listened to relieve his mind, and took action when I thought it made sense, advocating for him and changing my expectations of him, according to what I learned through listening.

I listened to both my children when they fought. They fought not because they didn’t like each other, or because that is just what siblings would do, but because things were hard in their lives. Nowadays, they amaze me with their increasing ability to roughhouse with each other like lion cubs, laughing and creatively coming up with new play when their upsets are cleared through listening.

My husband and I offered them each a short Special Time daily, and whenever I found opportunities for more one-on-one time. We did Special Time before getting out of bed and before their homework or music practice. We even did Special Time sleepovers for one parent to take one child on a special outing overnight. My children and I spent time pillowfighing and roughhousing in the evening, and we spent time chasing after each other or playing hide-and-seek when going through a morning or bedtime routine.

I listened to their crying every day from three minutes to an hour at a time. Even with frequent short Special Time and Staylistening sessions, by the end of the school week, my sons would become very tight, sizzling with upsets. So over weekends, my husband and I did longer Special Time sessions, and we ended up Staylistening with them when their big feelings would finally surface. Then they would go off to school again on Monday. This is what I did in my family to try to turn their troubles at school around. And when the emotional obstacles were removed, my children went ahead and learned a lot on their own. My Hand in Hand mentor’s comment was, “Your husband should say, ‘My wife is a genius!’”

I kept listening to my children because I saw their positive transformation and because we felt closer even though it wasn’t easy to do. I kept listening because I gradually remembered and worked on my childhood and came to think I would have liked it if I had been listened to back then. I was able to keep listening because I had other parents listening to me. So thank you to all my listening partners in my community of parents, for your support.

Parenting by Connection Instructor in California

Special Time Gets our Son to School

My husband and I took our sons to Tokyo. We stayed with my mother and had the boys go to a Japanese preschool for three-and-a-half weeks. It was a great language and cultural immersion and bonding time for the family. But it was a rough start, especially for my younger son, who was almost three.

On the first day my sons went to school, my younger son was very proud despite the fact that he had jet lag and it was the longest time he’d spent away from us. He walked from preschool back home proudly chanting, “I am not a baby. I am not little. I am big.”

The next several days, however, he didn’t want to go to preschool anymore. He was crying over small things; he cried when I asked him to put on his sock (usually, he is quick to dress). He had a big cry and tantrum when I stopped him from bothering his brother. He couldn’t put on his school uniform without crying. He couldn’t change into indoor shoes at school without crying. He would cry that he wanted me when his preschool teacher took him inside.

I worked to offer connection through Special Time every morning when he was still in his PJs. Funny thing — for one Special Time, he chose to dress himself in school uniform! Something he had been refusing to do for days!

I used my Listening Partnership for this emotional project, and talked with the preschool teachers about my son’s need to work through some feelings about separation. We arranged to come to school 15 minutes early to start the good-bye process, leaving room for us to listen to his feelings. We were even considering pulling him out of school entirely, as it was so hard.

On the third morning, his dad set a limit when he threw food on the floor, and my son started struggling long and hard. He was totally upset. My husband harnessed him in his arms and, after crying and fighting awhile, my son fell asleep.

After a two-hour nap, I went to him and I still remember him looking up at me in the eye. He told me, “I am ready to go.” I asked where. He said, “To school.”

The school had only an hour left by then, but we decided to go. I was expecting resistance when we tried to change his clothes, so I stood up to get myself ready. To my surprise, he got ready quickly, by himself, and we went out of the door.

He almost ran to school (it’s a good 20 minute walk for a child), waved goodbye to us and used the bathroom, which had been very challenging. He finished the day well, and was still talking proudly about his day at school as he fell asleep that night.

My son did fine in his preschool in Tokyo for the rest of our three-week stay.

—Keiko Sato-Perry, Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor

Join Keiko in her upcoming Building Emotional Understanding online class starting April 22. Register now!

Listen to a podcast of a recent teleseminar “Parenting: Going Deeper”, in which Keiko presented.

You can read more of Keiko’s stories here and learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.

A Little Listening Can Move Mountains

A friend of mine, a wonderful woman with a very positive attitude and with whom I had been doing a listening partnership, wanted to talk about a situation with her son’s class teacher. Her son had been coming home unhappy almost every day. She is a parent who volunteers in the classroom. She felt that the teacher had identified some children as her favorites, with her son not being among them.

My friend’s son was in a combination class with a single teacher for two grade levels. At the end of the first year of her being in this class, she asked for a change of class because her son had been so unhappy. At first she met with a lot of criticism from the teacher and resistance from the principal.

My friend was naturally very distressed about the whole situation. During a listening partnership session with me, she was able to release a lot of her anger and upset feelings about this issue and was able to cry about this. I stayed and listened to her feelings. And it seemed to have had the right effect!

Within a few days, she had figured out exactly how she was going to approach the situation with the class teacher and the principal. She rehearsed what she was going to say and discussed it with the teacher and principal with self-assurance and confidence. She finally did get what she wanted; her son was moved to a different class.

Sometimes we don’t realize the effect we can have on people, simply through our listening (or not listening). I was moved by how a little listening can move mountains.

—Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor Usha Sangam

Listen to a free podcast of Parenting: Going Deeper in which Usha presented. Sign-up here.

Read other stories from Usha on this blog.

You can learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.

Mommy Is A Silly Creature

The other day my oldest daughter (10) came home from school very tense. She was hot, tired and hungry, but there was also something else that was bothering her, and she wouldn’t say what. After I fed her and let her cool down a little, it was time for her to start doing her homework.

She is usually pretty good about getting her work done in an efficient manner. This time it was almost out of the question. She was growling at me and her younger sister, and looking for reasons to shout, quarrel and fight with the both of us. I could see that there was no easy way out of this one.

Somehow, and I can’t even recall why, I started to make very weird sounds and faces, and even weirder laughing noises. Those made her laugh really, really hard, which kept me going like this for another 15 minutes (which is highly unusual amount of silliness on my behalf!). I didn’t say a single word other than those weird sounds and faces. I could tell that this laugh of hers was not only out of amusement, but also her need to take some of the heavy load off, and at some stage I felt like she wanted her mommy back, and had enough of that strange looking and sounding ‘creature’.

After this session was over, my little daughter who was partly witnessing this asked for us to do it again, but my older one said: “No, I can’t, I have homework to do.” She went straight from there to her desk without any prompt from me, and managed to get all her work done.

In the evening right before bedtime, she was telling me a little bit more about her day, she still didn’t want to tell what was that one other thing that was bothering her, but she seemed to be much more calm about it, and I would probably hear about it in a later stage, as often happens with her. I must admit that this Play Listening was not the easiest thing for me to do. I am not usually a silly type of person. But I was amazed to see the affect it had on my daughter, and like always this is what kept me going.

Join Certified Instructor Ravid Aisenman Abrahmsohn in one of her classes and start making silly faces! Building Emotional Understanding Online starts May 7. She has limited spaces available. Reserve yours now.

Special Time and Spelling

Halfway through the first grade, my 7-year-old did not want to write or spell at home or school anymore. This was new for him. It seemed to me like the expectations for the first graders were significantly higher than those for kindergarteners and I think it was showing in his reluctance.

One afternoon, we had a play date at a park with one of his best friends. I went exploring in the woods with the two boys. It is rare for me to have time with my son without his younger brother, so this was a treat for both of us.

We climbed some really high, challenging rock cliffs and at the top we chunked rocks at cactuses and had some imaginative play. I was able to give him undivided, supportive, relaxed attention as he pushed himself to do hard stuff.

Later, we had a chance for more physical play at a parenting class led by Patty Wipfler. After class I was able to run around and wrestle with him. I could see that he felt really filled up, happy, confident, bright eyed, and connected.

That night as we were getting ready for bed he began to spell “hard” words out loud. “Hey, mom! I can spell ‘because’ and ‘sometimes’.” He came up with a whole list of challenging words that he could spell.

This is something he had never done before. He just came up with it on his own. It was as if his mind was really clear and all of these words that had previously been blocked (by whatever) could come forward because of all that close connected play. His mind was fully activated and ready to learn!!

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

Listening through a Homework Challenge

My daughter was given a month to learn all the states and their capitals. She’s in fifth grade. About two weeks before the due date, she had learned some states, but not many, and I made the suggestion that we work together. I offered to help her learn groups of about six states at a time, thinking that this would help her meet the deadline.

After she memorized the first six, she got completely overwhelmed. She felt she couldn’t possibly learn all the states, and she had a huge cry. Then she proceeded to learn the second set of six states and capitals, but again she felt that this was too much for her. She had another long cry. She kept saying, “I’ll never learn this. I just can’t do it!” She also got mad at me for having this particular idea of how to learn the states, and cried about my “interference.” I was somewhat confused by this, and wondered if I had gotten too involved in this assignment.

Somewhere between the third and fourth set of six states, she again felt hopeless about learning them all, and had a third big cry. Each cry she had went on for a half hour or more. She felt she could never do the assignment, and expressed frustration and anger at me, at the assignment, and at the world. I knew that the crying would help her eventually, so I kept listening and wondering how this was all going to turn out.

After the third cry, everything changed. All of a sudden, she learned the next sets of states quickly and easily. She took on a set of 18 states and capitals, and did them all at once. Three days before the test, she asked me to quiz her on them, and she knew them all! She was ecstatic, and I think there was a part of her that was amazed that she had done something she was sure she never could do. She was absolutely proud of herself.

The day before the test, she was completely confident that she would get 100%, and she was actually looking forward to the test! She usually showed a lot of anxiety around tests, so I’d never seen her like this before. After the test was over, she expressed dismay that it was over, and she told me that she wished she could do it again! She has referred to it again and again as one of the major learning feats of her life, and she has thanked me profusely for my help with the project, saying that she never could have done it without me. It was so helpful to me to see this whole process work!

Supporting my Daughter in Learning Multiplication Tables

My daughter pretty much skated through first and second grade math, but now it’s getting a bit more challenging and she has to memorize her multiplication tables. This is not something she enjoys and she has really been resisting it. But she is also is getting frustrated when she needs to use multiplication in math exercises because she doesn’t know her tables.

The other day I decided we needed to sit down with a pencil and paper and write them out the old fashioned way to help her remember them. She tried everything to wiggle out of coming to the table but I was in a good enough place to warmly hold the limit and I insisted she write the fours and the sixes. She got very angry with me as I started slowly reciting the fours and asking her to write.

I could see her muscles tensing up as she strangled the pencil through 4 x 1 = 4, etching it deep into her copybook. 4 x 2 = “Growl!” She didn’t like the look of the 2 so she furiously erased it and began again. 4 x 2 = 8 “This is stupid!” she yelled. 4 x 3 = , she waited a minute, then hurled the pencil onto the tile floor and started screaming at the top of her lungs. Two or three ear-piercing screeches later she took a breath and began a diatribe, “I am the stupidest kid ever! No one likes me! I’m too stupid to do this. I hate math! I hate school! I hate being me! You are mean and you are making me upset! You are the worst Mommy EVER!” And on for maybe five minutes.

I handed her back the pencil. The lead was broken. “I can see how hard this is for you, but I know you can do it. We’re going to write the next one. Four times three is twelve.”

I handed her another pencil. She screamed right at me. No words, just a long, high, powerful blast of noise. She wrote 4 x 3 = 12. By 4 x 4 = 16, the tears started. She went back to her litany of self-hatred, “I’m the stupidest kid EVER!”

4 x 5 = 20. “Ooh, look, you knew that one all by yourself.”

“EVERYBODY knows that, fives are EASY!”

4 x 6 = “Twenty-four,” I told her, “You’re half way there. You’re doing fine.” We made our way loudly through the fours, and she let me hold her in my lap for a minute before we struggled, still loudly and with much unhappiness, through the sixes. We thought that was enough math for the day.

The next morning, in the car, I asked her to go over her tables with me and she knew every four and every six, except 6 x 8, and rattled them off with ease. She can now run through her multiplication tables without becoming stressed and upset about them. She is now working on the 12′s. Working. Not screaming, sweating, throwing things, just working. It’s pretty amazing how much tension can wrap itself around something like memorization, but there you are. Here’s my math equation: Less tension = More learning.

- a mom in Santa Clara, CA

The Morning Grumpies Turned Around

Photo (C) Klarissa 2010

My 10-year-old son woke up grumpy the Monday morning after a long weekend with his grandparents. He didn’t want to get out of bed, get dressed, or brush his teeth. Each step was a struggle. I finally moved in close, hugged him to me and told him that he was going to school that day and he needed to get ready.

The dam broke and he launched into shuddering sobs. I moved us over to the couch and pulled him onto my lap and held him while he cried away all the cluttered emotions that were getting in his way.

Little brother was concerned and I told him that his brother had some big feelings to get out and we’d be fine again soon. That cleared it up for him and he let us be. I sat with my older son for about 10 minutes of good crying until the tears subsided and we were just quiet for a time.

Then he got up, got dressed, brushed his teeth and was ready for school. Apparently he had a great day because he came home eager to dig into his owl research homework right away and even crafted his speech two days ahead of schedule.

—Karen Murphy, Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor in Oregon

Join Karen in her Building Emotional Understanding course on Monday afternoons, starting May 13.

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