(Not eventually, immediately. The first time we say it.

Today it was getting him into his car seat and I had him half buckled so I kept trying to get him buckled up so we BOTH were safe, but every time I came back, it started physically again. How can I maintain connection without literally getting a bloody face, because that’s happened.

Hi Robyn — Nothing I’m advising here (or anywhere) requires you to drop everything you’re doing to give your child special attention. It seems you are misunderstanding. This advice is about the way we see and respond to children. It takes no more of our time to say, with genuine empathy… “Aye, I see you, my love, and you are trying so hard to get my attention. I know it’s hard to hear no when you want me to play!” with a moment of eye contact before going back to what we are doing. This would be instead of repeating to your child, “no, I’m busy, stop doing that.. You can’t do that. I won’t let you do that”, etc. Or some other understandable thing that we might say to try to get our child to stop. Or out of guilt, impatience, annoyance at our child for making life harder for us. They are mostly just asking to be seen and accepted as they are, while we STILL hold our boundaries. The parents in these emails have tried saying no to the behavior and it hasn’t worked. I believe that is because this element of intimacy in their relationship at these times is missing. Again, this isn’t about leaving what we’re doing! Quite the opposite. It’s about feeling even more conviction in what we’re doing while, at the same time, we welcome our child to share their feelings about that. They are safe and seen and we are safe in this disagreement.

When we respond like I’m suggesting, regularly (though we won’t be perfect), we change the atmosphere between us to one of more understanding, accepting, allowing for the feelings the child has, rather than a battle of wills, or feeling we are responsible to make our child happy every moment, which is a recipe for us to feel overwhelmed, annoyed and resentful.

In a practical sense, it helps a lot to have a safe place where your child can be while you are engaged in other things. (I recently did a podcast about “YES spaces.”) If that is not possible, we do our best to remove unsafe, inappropriate materials or place them out of reach and we work even harder to remember that our child has reasons for their feelings and their behavior is a reflection of those feelings. They really are doing the best they can in any given moment.