A friend shared a wonderful story recently in a seminar on "Smart Parenting." She said that ever since her children were little, she's set aside special one-on-one time with each of her
children. She made a commitment to do this once a week and put it on the calendar. As her children became teenagers, this became harder to do, but yet they persevered.
One time, my friend had an important work commitment that conflicted with the breakfast date she'd made with her 15-year-old son. When she told him that they'd have to postpone, he actually got tears in his eyes, even though they were just postponing the date until the next day.
Wouldn't we all love to have that type of bond with our children, at any age?
We talk a lot about "attachment" when our children are young, but then the conversation fades to other topics. I contend that we must work diligently to make sure our attachment with our children is ever-growing and ever deepening. In fact, I believe that keeping attachment strong
is our most critical task.
Attachment is the basis from which discipline, respect, communication and authority grow. When your attachment is firmly grounded, the other parenting duties are more likely
to be effective.
Many factors contribute to keeping "attachment" strong as our children grow. Being emotionally available to our children, loving them unconditionally, meeting their basic needs, being consistent in our discipline, being responsive to their pain and maintaining open communication, to name a few. But I believe that one of the most concrete things that you can do to deepen attachment is to spend one-on-one "special time" each week with each child.
Why is this so important?
A child is far more likely to reveal intimate feelings to you when you're alone with him or her. It’s highly unlikely that a child, who may be feeling vulnerable already, will reveal perceived weaknesses in front of a sibling. But, given time to let down his/her guard with you, s/he may let you in on struggles s/he wouldn't reveal at the dinner table.
By having your sole attention, your child will feel valued. You're making a huge statement that nothing else is more important to you right now. Your child will treasure this time.
Remember when your kids were little and they’d say, "Look at me!?” They still need us to look at them and let them know that they're #1.
In his book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families" Stephen Covey talks about an "Emotional Bank Account" that you can develop with other family members. He says
the Emotional Bank Account "is like a financial account that can make deposits by proactively doing things that build trust in the relationship, or you can make withdrawals by reactively doing things that decrease the level of trust."
Things like being kind, apologizing, not criticizing others, keeping promises, forgiving and providing unconditional love, all contribute to the bank account.
Weekly one-on-one time with each child will contribute a substantial deposit in the emotional bank account from which you can leverage things like compliance to your requests, respect, and honest communication.
Here are some guidelines for getting started:
*Start small. You can commit to as little as 15 to 30-minutes a week.
*Put the special time on the calendar in ink! Try very hard to keep that commitment.
*Let the child choose how you spend your time together. The child's inner needs will direct them to choose an activity that brings them joy. Let the child be the leader for a change! (Before you get started, feel free to set boundaries about the activities, such as the amount of time or the cost.)
* Make positive statements about your child during this time.
*Enjoy!
Given that attachment is the base from which all other aspects of parenting flow, I hope you'll consider making this weekly "investment" that is guaranteed to bring you even closer to your child.
written by Toni Schutta
Author's Bio
Toni Schutta, Parent Coach, M.A., L.P., Families First Coaching, is Self Growth’s Official Guide to Parenting. Visit getparentinghelpnow.com to receive the free mini-course “The 7 Worst Mistakes Parents Make (and How to Avoid Them!) and to preview 17 on-line parenting classes that solve the most common parenting problems you face.
10 comments to KEEPING ATTACHMENT STRONG
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Pill Pusher That's a splendid idea. I'd love to do that 1 day with my kids. One to one session.
:)
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Unknown Dear Shinelight,
Good morning to you! Thanks so much for sharing about your experiences.
I agree with you about playing with our children..I am not good in MMOG but I do play Pet Society in Facebook with my son and indeed, we talk a lot about the application.
My younger boy visited your site and wanted me to ask you of the pic you used (Espada or sth) is from Runescape or sth like that.
Thanks for swinging by and for taking the time to comment. Take care and may you have many melting moments with your family.
cheers
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Unknown Hi Tranquility,
Great to see you again!
:-) I hope that day will come soon!!! :-)
Have a lovely weekend.
cheers
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shinelight Hi Masterworldsmith
Runscape is a great game and there are a number research done on the benefits of playing. The pic in my post is from an mmog named Granado Espada (http://ge.iahgames.com/Site/default.aspx). That is the mmog I am researching on. It is the first mmog being allow to be played in Singapore's schools, not during curriculum hours but in after school activities.
cheers
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Unknown Hi Shinelight,
My younger boy is so excited about your research :-) and the fact that you play with your son. My boy is 10 years old :-)...
He will check out the recommended site next week after his exams. Thanks so much.
I have been dying to ask you this...In your research, is there any evidence to show that playing MMOG for a prolonged period can dull one's thinking faculties and creative abilities?
I find that many of my students who spent loads of time on Gameboy, PSP, DOTA and other online games lack these abilities. I do believe there are benefits to be reaped but it is up to the individual to exercise discipline and balance.
Where I live, going to cybercafes is quite popular among teens..What is it like in Singapore? I would think that over at your neck of the woods, gaming would be more sophisticated...
Take care...Have a lovely weekend.
Cheers
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shinelight Hi again Masterwordsmith
I have read empirical studies in the field of psychology that provide evidences to show that different experiences one goes through playing a game, activate activities in different parts of the brain, and this in turn lead to different emotion responds. The folk theory is that exposure to gaming over sustained and prolonged period will cause changes to the structures of the brain. This is expected because every generation expose to a dominant communication technology during its time will have different brain structures. Generation accustomed to print media will have different brain structures to those where print media and television are dominant communication tools. And today’s youth where Interactive Digital Media (IDM) technology has become a natural landscape for them will definitely have different brain structures than our generation. This difference affords the youth of today to be able to do things that prove to be too much cognitive load for us. I notice this when I observe the way my students do things.
I believe there was a popular experiment where you probably have heard about. The “quick burst of attention” experiment where two groups of kids are locked up in separate rooms with each room has a television showing a particular show. In the first room, a lot of toys were given to the kids with the idea of distracting them from watching the show. Kids in the second group have just the television to entertain them. So after the experiment, the kids in both rooms were asked to describe the television show. It was found that the group with toys were able to describe as well as the group without toys. It seems that the groups with toys knew when to pay attention to the show (what the researcher call as the “quick burst of attention”) while at the same time playing with their toys.
In Singapore, we acknowledge the affordances of informal learning and are looking into ways how we can bride formal schooling and informal learning that students go through everyday. Playing MMOG is one of the many informal learning experiences. One of the ways forward that we see important is to look into alternative assessment. We have come to realise that our assessment tools, while have serve us well for many decades, need to be supported with alternative mode of assessment that looks into dispositions, skills and knowledge students gleam from new media, that includes gaming. We feel that incorporating alternative assessment is important for a comprehensive assessment of students’ learning. We are still experimenting and grappling with alternative assessment, and while some schools are making initial progress, the journey is only beginning.
On your query about cybercafés, I know of a school in Singapore that has a cybercafé in its premises. There could be more such schools. I have not seen or heard of public cybercafé for gaming. I guess Singapore is so wired up that you can get hook onto the Internet for free wherever you are in this island. And computers and laptop are cheap now that students don’t go to cybercafé for gaming, they game at home. In my study, Singapore players who are still in schools play from home, unlike other players in Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.
My research is a qualitative research with a different focus to your inquiry. So I cannot comment on your query so much. ^^
Hope my reply helps.
Cheers
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Unknown Hi Shinelight,
Wow! Thanks a LOT for the brilliant comment. Very interesting indeed from a pedagogical angle.
I never realized the impact of technology on brain structure until I read your comment. No wonder there is a sharp difference between the student I taught in the 1980's and the 21st century.
Yes, I am familiar with the experiement but have forgotten the researcher's name :-).
What alternative assessment tools for you use? Very progressive research indeed. No wonder Singapore is way ahead of Malaysia in education.
Thanks so much for taking the time to share with me such valuable information. I really appreciate it.
Take care and God bless you!
Cheers
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shinelight Hi Masterwordsmith
Something very odd is happening to my blog. Since yesterday, I have been getting hits from all over the world. It's really frighten me whether this is for real. There are some hits from US whom I know are from my lecturer and probably my supervisor too, but I am not sure about the rest. Have you ever had such experience. As I recall, it came after a post I put up. And since then, I have been getting hits from places I don't even know exits. Scary.
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Unknown Hi Shinelight,
You should be happy :-) that you are getting the hits :-). Chances are, your post has been listed somewhere in the internet.
Do you have a tracker in your blog? You can see from where they are coming.
If you use feedburner, your post will be picked up by search engines so if people google a particular topic and it matches your post, then they will certainly go to your blog.
Yes, it has happened to me..:-) and it is reason to celebrate!!! But of course, I write to express and not for the hits. Blogging gives me a lot of pleasure...
Take care and you can contact me at cocklesofmyheart@gmail.com
Cheers
shinelight Great post because it encourages me to reflect on my relationship with my 9 years old son. I find myself more attached to my daughter than my son. Ever since I have started my playing an mmog for my phd study, I have become more open to online games and allow my son to play too. I notice that we talk a lot more since he started playing the mmog I am researching on. We talk about our playing experience and in many instances, during weekends, we play together. We have more things in common now and more exciting things to share. Small conversations that started with games talk eventually lead to talk about his schools, teachers, friends, etc. I see great potential in mmog to help bring parents and their children closer provided that parents play the game too.