It’s All in How You Look at Things
We’ve all heard that timeless saying: ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. You could also say this applies to whining, tantrums, attention-seeking behaviour and the like. Here’s a snapshot from my life. Can you relate?
Picture yourself in the kitchen. You come home from work and say “Hello!” to the kids. A quick hug and perhaps a little chat to catch-up on your day. So far so good, right? Then you quickly change out of your work clothes into something more comfortable.
Ahhh… You’re ready to start preparing dinner. Or so you think. You turn the stove on and you start to satay your veggies… when you hear your child asking for something in that whiny, squeaky voice. Immediately you think (perhaps unconsciously), “I hate whining.” You respond without looking at them and this goes back and forth a few times. You can feel your anxiety rising. You can feel yourself going into that place… that mindset where you get frustrated and you lose your cool and you just want to scream! All you can think is, “Here she goes again. All she wants is attention all the time! I am just trying to cook dinner. I gave her attention when I came home. Argh.”
If you are anything like me and have those thoughts, you may witness yourself saying some of these things out loud. “Babe, mom is just making dinner. I need to make dinner. Why are you whining? Can you say this in a nice voice? Can you just give me a few minutes? Can you? Come on! I hate when you whine!”
This used to be a somewhat typical scenario for me prior to parenting through connection. It was a normal, daily pattern. It never felt good and I knew that I wanted to change this. The question was… how?
It’s All in How You Look at Things
And then, one day I changed the way I saw what I called ‘whining’. I reframed it. I asked myself “what if my child is seeking connection, not attention?” To me, ‘attention’ holds a bit of a negative connotation – and as soon as I reframed it as ‘connection’, magic happened.
I turned the stove off. I turned around and looked at my five-year-old daughter. I picked her up and said, “I haven’t given you cuddles all day! They are my favorite thing ever. Are you up for some cuddles?” Her eyes grew so big. She embraced me and we cuddled and played – and guess what? She asked if she could colour. She grabbed her crayons and started colouring while I turned the stove back on and finished cooking supper. I filled her bucket. I met her where she was at and connected with her. The energy transformed. Magic.
The moral of the story is that it’s all in how you look at things: your awareness of the situation and how you choose to see it and respond to it. This is a key pillar of conscious parenting and it has been a game-changer for our family. Magic.
I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes that has become a mantra for me in my daily practice of conscious parenting. Write it on a post-it and put up on your fridge, your desk, your bathroom mirror. Somewhere that can be a daily reminder to be open to change and a different perspective.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Curious about how conscious parenting can unleash joy to your daily routine? Let’s chat.